"Forward Expired" shipping status? What does it mean?

[skateraXVIII]

Seems like at least once a month I have a problem shipping something to somebody on Amazon Marketplace or some other problem arises, this month apparently isn't an exception.

Anyways I just sold a game on Amazon Marketplace and shipped it to the buyer a few days ago. I just checked the shipping status through Amazon and saw that it said this:

I never received a message from the buyer telling me they wanted to return/get refund so I dug a little deeper and went to the USPS tracking page and it came up with this:

What I find odd is that the Amazon tracking info and USPS tracking info is somewhat contradictory. On amazon it says "Returning to seller" then was updated to "Returned to seller" while in the location column it says "San Jose" (I live in Boise, ID and nothings come back in the mail). Then when I look at the USPS tracking info page it says "Forward Expired" but then was updated to "Delivery Confirmation".

I haven't yet sent the buyer a message and waiting to see if the package actually gets shipped back to me. Should I just contact them and see if they received the game?

 

[whoasaywhat]

I would think that the seller moved and you sent it to their old address. I believe that Forward Expired means that the period of time has elapsed for the Post Office to forward mail to their new address. Its usually a period of a year that the post office will forward mail.

 

[ZombieToast]

Yes, "forward expired" means that the person has not lived at the address for over a year and they will no longer forward any mail. If that's the case, it should be returned to you, so I don't quite understand why USPS is saying it has been delivered. One of those status updates must be a mistake.

 

[DD83]

What could've happened... which would be incredibly idiotic... but I wouldn't put it past USPS, is that they noted that the forwarding expired, but then delivered it to that address anyways. So now you kinda gotta hope that the person living there now isn't a twat and will return it to the PO as "RTS - Does not live here" or the like.

Amazon is just being automated and when it saw "forward expired", knew that it SHOULD've been returned to you, then when it later saw "Delivered" figured it got back to you, like it should've.

 

[skateraXVIII]

Well it's been 5 days since it was "delivered" and I haven't gotten any messages from the buyer about the package not arriving, so I assume it was somehow forwarded to their new address.

 

[IAmTheCheapestGamer]

This is why I always double check to see if the address I'm given by AMZ for a buyer is their current or not via a WhitePages search. Although I think sometimes people buying may give a biz addy since their mailman may be a butthole like mine and deliver packages/envelopes to the wrong address.