What Will Happen If You Accidentally Drop a UPS Package at USPS, or Vice Versa

Many people prefer to purchase shipping labels online and print them themselves because it helps to save time: instead of waiting in line at a Post Office or UPS Store, you can simply drop off your prepaid and pre-labeled package, and be on your merry way. But what will happen if you mistakenly drop your package at a wrong drop-off location?

Most major postal and courier companies offer a variety of package drop-off locations for customers who prefer to prepare their packages and print shipping labels themselves. For example, the United States Postal Service (USPS) has Post Offices, several types of collection boxes (including, but not limited to, the instantly recognizable USPS Blue Boxes), drop-off locations at retail stores, self-service kiosks, and gopost units. UPS packages can be dropped of at UPS Stores, UPS Customer Centers, UPS Access Point locations, and UPS Drop Boxes.

Customers can drop their prepaid and pre-labeled packages at any drop-off location they find convenient. These packages are then collected at a certain time, scanned into the system, and delivered to their intended destination. Of course, to have your package delivered, you must drop it off at the correct carrier’s location.

However, mishaps happen, and sometimes people drop UPS packages at USPS locations, or vice versa. What happens to packages in this case? The “wrong” carrier won’t be able to deliver your package to its destination for a number of reasons. First, you didn’t pay them to do it. Second, they won’t even be able to scan the package into their system because different carriers use different barcodes. Does that mean that your package will get lost? Luckily, it doesn’t.

If you accidentally drop your package at the wrong carrier’s location, you shouldn’t panic. Such accidents happen more often than you might think, at least partly because the USPS and UPS have confusingly similar names, so carriers have a system in place to ensure that all packages eventually get to their intended recipients. There is no official policy of handling misplaced packages, but the major carriers (USPS, UPS, FedEx) have a kind of long-standing “gentlemen’s agreement” regarding such situations.

Carriers regularly hand back misplaced packages to their intended carriers. How soon your package is going to be handed to the correct carrier depends on the drop-off location you’ve left it at. Large and busy facilities end up with multiple misplaced packages every day, so couriers from other shipping services make regular trips to retrieve them, sometimes as often as daily.

Smaller facilities may end up with misplaced packages only occasionally. In such cases, staff members will alert the intended carrier that there are parcels for them to collect, and the carrier will send someone over to pick them up. How soon this will happen is up to the intended carrier: your package may get picked up the day of the drop-off, or it may have to wait for several days.

It is important to understand that you probably won’t be able to learn about the whereabouts of your package until it gets collected by the correct carrier and scanned into the system. So if you have accidentally dropped a package at a wrong location, wait for about a day and then check its tracking information to see whether it’s been scanned into the carrier’s system. Keep on checking every day and try to contact both carriers if your package does not turn up in about a week.

Remember that even if your package is handed to the intended carrier on the day of the drop-off, there will likely be a delay in delivery. In the worst-case scenario, the package will be returned to sender, but this shouldn’t happen if you’ve got the delivery address right.

Accidentally dropping a package at a wrong carrier’s location can be a frustrating situation, but it is important to keep in mind that accidents happen all the time, and carriers are prepared to work together to handle these accidents as smoothly as possible. There is a high chance of your package still reaching its destination, albeit with a slight delay.