Consumerist reader Justin sent a textbook he'd sold on eBay to a buyer two miles from his house in California; it took a little longer to arrive than he'd counted on. He discovered why when he looked up the tracking data for his parcel and discovered that it had been shipped by way of Massachusetts!
Basically, I sold a textbook online and the buyer was actually in the same city (Davis, California) as me. I shipped my book at the university post office, which was less than two miles from the destination. If anyone's wondering why I just didn't personally deliver the book, sites like Amazon and eBay basically need proof of delivery. The estimated delivery time was about a day, which was expected. Instead of delivering the book the next day, USPS decided to ship the book all the way to Bell Gardens, CA, then to Springfield, MA, then West Sacramento, CA, and finally back to Davis, where it was delivered a week after it was shipped. Funny thing is, the worker even confirmed with me that the package was shipping to Davis.
USPS Sent My Package An Extra 6,283 Miles Before Reaching Destination 2 Miles Away
