The Wrong Place, The Right People
How I tracked down my lost parcel !
We can all use the Internet for good — and recently I found myself in a situation where I couldn’t be more proud of my Internet skills.
In January 2020, I had my first baby and a colleague at work messaged asking for my address because they’d like to send a gift. Who doesn’t like gifts, right? I immediately replied while feeding my crying newborn. After sending my address, I was super excited. However, days and months went by and I didn’t receive it. I wanted to ask the person if they had sent the gift but was hesitant to reach out, and yet I was wondering if I’m just a fool waiting.
Then April 1st, I received a text message:
Coworker: “Hey, did you like the gift?”
Me: “No. I have not received anything. When did you send it? I might have mixed it up with other gifts.”
Imagine my shock when my coworker said she had sent it in February and that the tracking number says it’s been delivered. “Is this your right address?” She asked.
I quickly realized not only had I given her the wrong address, but I’d also forgotten to provide a street number. I asked for the tracking number and saw online that the package was delivered to the wrong address. Added to that, I could only find out the town where it was sent but not the address (so that was my only clue). Apologizing profusely, I told her not to worry and that I would find out what happened and get my gift.
Of course saying that was the easy part. After the conversation I realized, I hadn’t thought this through. How exactly was I going to get this gift from the wrong address? What was the plan? In fact, how would I even find the address where it was actually delivered? I calmed myself a bit then wrote down some steps to get my gift back.
Here it comes — so I had to use my Internet skills to find out what had happened to my package. I entered the tracking number to see the step by step delivery process. UPS could not find out the address I had given. So instead of returning the gift to the sender, smart UPS people corrected the initial address and sent it to a place 200km far from where I live.
Determined to get to the bottom of this, I called UPS customer care. Despite my best efforts to get the exact address, they refused to tell me and advised me to contact the sender or shipper. Wonderful.
I took my best guess and found an address that was the closest match to mine, in Blackstock, Ontario. I live in Mississauga, Ontario. I thought about driving 200 kilometres, to sniff around at a stranger’s door, and find out whether UPS delivered my package to their address a month ago. Crazy right? To make matters worse, people are self isolating because of COVID 19. Blackstock is a small town far away. What if they thought I was some kind of robber? Driving there and knocking on the door was an absolutely bad idea.
I sat and tried to think of some alternative options. Did I have their phone number or name? No. Could I find it online by looking at the address? I didn’t think so. (Because you can!)
Out of ideas, I called a wise family member who suggested I use reverse lookup on 411.ca. The names of the owners turned out to be Gibson. No phone number was registered for this name but there were other Gibsons on the same street so I thought maybe they were related.
I took a chance and called. After all, it was better than knocking on the door.
Hello.
Hi. I’m looking for ## Greensboro drive, Blackstock. Is there any chance you know them?
No.
I gave up that day but could not stop thinking about the gift. This was for my baby Eva and I would do anything for her. I simply could not give up now. So the next morning I opened 411.ca again. I found one phone number of someone on Church Street, in Blackstock, Ontario and decided to call.
The kind woman on the other end listened to my story and even asked about my baby. We ended up having a nice chat about Eva. In the end, she gave me another number saying, I don’t know anyone at ## Greensboro, but this person might know. I had high hopes after this positive chat and called the number.
An old man picked up the phone and calmly in a struggling voice, he said, Who are you? Who gave you my number? He also listened to the story. But at the end, he said, I am 87 and can not help. I can give you one number that might be helpful.
Call after call. Repeating the same story of the wrong address. Personally I would feel exhausted having to deal with this on top of a newborn! But I had some extra time.
[And yet — ] People are home because of a national lockdown due to COVID 19. Why not continue trying on phones? So I made another call and a woman with a pleasant voice picked up the call. I repeated my story — but this time she gave me a better idea — to call the local post office in Blackstock. She thought someone at the post office would have a better chance of knowing how to contact the residents of ## Greensboro. I searched in Google for the local store number and found Penny’s Mini-Mart. I had a little laugh about the name of the store with my husband. I called them. And bang. This person knew the people at ## Greensboro and she was kind enough to trust my story and gave me a number.
I called and a woman picked up the phone. I told my story. Before I finished she said, of course, I have your gift. Unfortunately my partner opened it, but I certainly saved it, thinking someone might come looking for it and here you are. Thanks for finding me.
Now I can go to a stranger’s door and retrieve my package. Definitely. She told me she would keep the package outside the door and I could go pick it up anytime.
I got super happy and did my happy dance. I convinced my husband to drive the distance just to get this gift. It was such a sweet gift, totally worth effort.
So now I’ve realized how important it is to have the Internet in our lives and also the right people. — The Internet is useful tool, but it was really the people who helped me — my family member who suggested 411.ca and the woman who suggested the post office. Ultimately I was united with my package with the help of kind humans to point me in the right direction. (I like it!)
