The curse of the wrong address

Nestled snugly in Orem, Utah, address experts huddle in a circle to hear the cautionary tale of the curse of the wrong address. The lights dim, and a hush falls among the group as the flashlight beam fractures in two, lighting the sides of an older man’s face. He clears his throat and begins…

Just days after Melissa Darnitall’s 17th birthday, a Victorian house went up for sale in the quaint town of Rolling Hills. Being historians by trade and visiting the city every year to experience what her mother called “the classic Halloween experience,” Melissa’s parents jumped to buy the property. Melissa was excited to move. As a loner, she never felt like she belonged in the city, but rather in a small whimsical town with old buildings full of history and secrets. 

Rolling Hills transformed from its usual quiet and calm existence to a spooky and lively destination for the annual Hallow Fest on All Hallows Eve. Residents from far and wide came to participate in high-stakes scavenger hunts, costume parades, pumpkin carving contests, corn mazes, and theatrical reenactments from the high school drama club. The best part of the festival was the bake-off, and Melissa had signed up to share her famous apple-berry crumble pie. 

Before entering her home, Melissa turned to stare at the street's eyesore across the street, the long-time neglected cottage on the edge of town with forest looming just beyond the garden gate. Leaves tumbled easily down the steep-pitched roof and sometimes caught in the weathered clapboard siding. An air conditioner unit was shoved inside the large central chimney, crumbling the sides and making both useless. 

Older homes in the town had been renovated, so why hadn’t this one? Unwilling to leave her question unanswered, Melissa entered her kitchen, pulled out her phone, and researched. What she learned made her gasp.

The house was built over 330 years ago when the town was first established. Melissa envisioned the cottage owner as she read, a petite and graceful Hexa Thornebrew, slowly rotating her wooden spoon, scraping the bottom of a pot as vegetables poked above the broth’s surface and rolled back down. Hexa pushed her wispy red hair back, which now stuck to the side of her face thanks to the hot air circulating in the small kitchen.

She squinted her blue eyes and glanced through her multi-pane window at the sky. The sun’s position told her she wouldn’t be alone for much longer. Hexa turned to admire her fruit tarts resting neatly on the counter and smiled. With Henry no longer alive to keep her company, making desserts was the true joy that kept her busy. 

Her once pale face was full of kisses from the sun due to the hours she’d spent in the garden, pruning and swiping bugs from her apples and berries. She hoped everyone would enjoy them as much as Henry once had. The last time she made them, he’d loved them so much that he’d forgotten to save one for her! 

A knock repeated a familiar rhythm and interrupted Hexa’s reminiscing. Men and women skipped through the doorway, excited to be together again. Loud songs and exclamations rang through the walls of her home. It was good to have sound filling it once more. She’d been so lonely since Henry abruptly passed. But now, she felt alive. Ruth, a slender blonde with a love of rum, tossed two worn dice onto Hexa’s oak table, and games ensued.

The sun had long since fallen asleep when Hexa brought out her tarts. The drinks flowed despite filling up on stew, and eyelids struggled to stay open until they saw the elaborate fruit desserts. Each eagerly grabbed more than one and stuffed themselves until their bellies couldn’t take one bite more. This time, Hexa had thought ahead and saved the last tart. She carefully pulled it from her apron pocket and sank her teeth in.

The friends were regaling each other with silly stories when, suddenly, the room became chaotic. With slurred speech, William unexpectedly slipped to the floor and claimed he couldn’t see. On the opposite side of the room, Ruth pointed to the corner and shouted, “I see the devil!” Turning to Hexa, with her hands grasping her head so tight her face was distorted, Ruth screamed, “What have you done to us?”

Hexa’s head twisted uncontrollably through convulsions, trying to face Ruth with a stretched arm. She gasped, “I don’t know….” Her body gave up, and her dainty arm hit a bowl full of shiny black berries that rolled around her friend's lifeless frames as she sank to the floor and joined them in endless slumber.

Back in the 21st century, Melissa put her phone down, walked to the window, and stared across the way at the grisly sight. She imagined how terrified the friends must’ve been and wondered if Hexa had planned the deaths of her friends and neighbors.

Hallow Fest started tonight, and Melissa was planning the steps for her pie when she overheard girls sharing Hexa’s tale. The story abruptly stopped when she reached her locker. Melissa felt the girls' eyes on her, gawking like she was a foreign object. She couldn’t wait to get out of there. As she walked away, a high-pitched voice whispered, “It’s only a matter of time before the house gets her, too.” 

The town looked fantastic. Orange and black streamers twisted like spider webs across the town’s main roads. Pumpkins were on every corner, with ghoulish scarecrows guarding each garden. 

Melissa was annoyed; her costume still hadn’t arrived, and she needed to get her pie in for judging soon. A loud muffler cracked outside. Peeking through the dusty blinds, Melissa watched a box drop in the middle of a small patch of land on the street, weeds clawing out from cracks in the ground.

Curious about who would send a package to essentially nowhere, Melissa walked across the quiet street. Dead plants crunched beneath her sneakers, and spiky thorns grabbed at and attached to her socks. She picked up the box and, to her surprise, saw her name and the costume company’s name on the label. Why was it delivered here? 

She didn’t have time to worry about that now. Admiring her costume in the mirror, Melissa twirled the 17th-century attire and clicked her heeled boots in approval. She liked the red tint in her hair, which she accidentally acquired from rinsing beet and carrot juice during her last wash.

Carrying her apple-berry pie in a basket hanging off her arm, she made her way down Main Street. Mutterings trailed behind her like an invisible veil. “She looks just like her…” one man said in a not-so-quiet voice. “The house has got her,” a lispy grade schooler concluded.

The Hallow Fest organizer glanced up from her clipboard, saw Melissa, and quickly started scribbling on her paper. In a barely audible sound, she rasped, “Sorry Hun. No more room in the bake-off.” Melissa opened her mouth to protest, but the lady and the clipboard were already gone.

Walking home earlier than planned, Melissa’s eyes tracked the various rock sizes embedded in the road. A shiny glitch pierced her eye, and she turned to see another package on the deserted patch of grass. Upon inspection, she once again saw her name. 

The years ticked on. Melissa’s packages were always delivered next to the old Thornbrew home. Her parents successfully received packages on their front steps, but not Melissa. Bags, boxes, and envelopes always ended up in the tall weeds. 

Without any logical explanation for why misdeliveries only happened to her, Melissa began questioning her sanity. With each wrong delivery, the madness began to take control as she raced to make sense of it all. Then, one day, it clicked. 

Dressed in her old Hallow’s Fest costume, Melissa broke into Hexa’s house and claimed it as her own. This house has to be hers. Why else would her packages continue to arrive here, so close and so far? She paced back and forth, mumbling to herself. “I put in the right address... I know I did.” 

The whisperings were right. The house had claimed her. Some believe Melissa found Nightshade berries on the land and that she befell the same fate as the previous inhabitants by putting them into her apple-berry pies. However, her body was never found. Now, as you walk down the lane, it's said you can hear Melissa’s voice through the wind, crying, “This wasn’t my address… but it is now…”

Boo! Are you scared? You should be! More people than just Melissa suffer from undelivered and misdelivered packages. It’s highly annoying for all involved and expensive for companies. 

• The average cost for an address correction surcharge is $4.64 per package. That’s just the package cost; adding in the labor cost makes it between $35 and $70 per error.
• 86% of customers abandon brands after a poor delivery experience.
• 620 million packages disappear annually due to theft and misdelivery.

Here is the scariest statistic yet: According to the National Library of Medicine, as of August 2020, 1 of every 4 mail-order prescription customers reported experiencing a delay or non-delivery of their medications. 

How can you spare your customers the same fate as Melissa? Use top-tier address autocomplete and address verification in your processes, like those from Smarty®.

If the companies Melissa bought from had Smarty’s address autocomplete, an inaccurate address (like somewhere in the middle of a grassy patch) would never be an option to select. As Melissa types, accurate address suggestions would appear, and with 5 keystrokes, she could select her correct address. Then, if that same company had used address verification, Melissa’s address would have been verified by checking it against an authoritative database to prove it was an actual deliverable location.

Maybe you’re wondering why a company would need both 

Address autocomplete is the perfect tool to increase checkouts. It speeds up the process, reduces frustration, and helps avoid cart abandonment. Smarty only suggests real, validated addresses. 

Using an automatic address verification tool in addition to an autocomplete gives you double the confidence that your database is accurate. Address verification reduces manual correction, improves order fulfillment speed, minimizes returned, lost, and misdelivered packages, and avoids making your customers go crazy.

Keep your customers and business processes safe and sane this Halloween by weeding out typos and misspelled cities with address tools from Smarty. Discover the benefits of accurate address data and Talk to an Address Expert today!