Escapee mail service problem

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Smoky

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I am running into a problem with Escapees in setting up our mail forwarding service.

I plan the first year to use their "top of the line" service.  However, they do not seem equipped to help us convert over the way we need to convert.  Escapees wants us to immediately cancel our existing mail service in Maryland.  Get a form filled out by the MD post office to begin forwarding all mail to Texas.  This is not appropriate for our situation.

We have a leg in MD while we close on the sale of our old home, and another leg in MT while we set up our new official domicile.  We need to keep both our MD and our MT services going for a few weeks, and then continue on with MT.  I would like to begin notifying our correspondents to begin using the escapee Texas address.  I am not sure Escapees understands that we are moving to Montana, not to Texas, and that we wish to use Escapees as our mail distribution point to alleviate the workload on my wife's sister in MT.  To us this seems like a simple thing to do and will not cause any extra work for Escapees and bring them in the revenue they are looking for.  For a while we wish to have Escapees forward mail back to our old MD address.  While this may seem like a duplication of effort to them, it is actually a very good test of how well we are converting billing from vendors, etc.  And it allows us to get our mail while we deal with house closing matters and disposition of assets.

Once we are on the road, we would then begin having mail sent to other addresses along the way, and THEN have our old MD post office forward any additional mail to Texas.

Important areas such as the IRS, medical, insurance, state of MD matters, have been given the Montana address already.  But all routine mail and billing will be given the Texas address.  We do not view Texas as our official residence, but instead as our mail forwarding service.

The Escapee administrative mindset seems to be that all Escapees using mail forwarding are Texas residents and that an old mail service must be shut down before the Escapee mail service can begin.

Is there a way I can get above the front line people dealing with this and get to someone higher up who with deep knowledge of mail forwarding who can understand what our needs are?
 
I think you're over-reacting here ;)

When I started using SKP mail svc, I did not kill the old addr for a few months, as I was still working part time. I gradually shifted all the repeat mail over to SKP as it dribbled in in Iowa.

Now all regular mail goes to SKP except FMCA magazine in winter goes to Phoenix Oct - Mar. and I maintain my Iowa residency status.

The only problem continues to be the Polk county vehicle registration. For the 3rd year they still have not sent out my car/RV licence tags. Last yr they sent 'em to the house I sold 4 years before! This year they are 8 months late and maintain they sent them out 3 different times.  :-\

So, just start up SKP mail service and continue to have stuff delivered YOUR way. Eventually, your life will simplify itself and you can then become 95+% dependent on SKP.
 
Smokey -

I agree with Russ. All SKP needs to know is what to do with the mail that they have received for you. You can have any number of mailing addresses - it's up to you to keep things straight.

When we started with SKP, I was still working full time in MD and we had our mail forwarded back to our home in MD. As you wrote, it gave us a chance to get all of the billing addresses converted over. Eventually, the vast majority of our mail was converted and only certain items - car registration and driver license notices go to our home address - seems as though most states have a requirement to send those notices to 'in state' addresses.

So, go ahead and do what makes sense to you.

--  RayB  --
 
Over-reacting?  Not sure what you mean Russ.

"When I started using SKP mail svc, I did not kill the old address for a few months, as I was still working part time. I gradually shifted all the repeat mail over to SKP as it dribbled in in Iowa. "

Now THAT is exactly what I want to do.  Maybe there is a new conversion policy at Escapees that did not exist during your time?

They told me yesterday they cannot begin mail forwarding for me until I have my current Maryland post office complete a form that will automatically forward all my MD mail to Livingston.  I do NOT want this to happen yet.  I want to begin individually converting each correspondent over to the Livingston address and for a few more weeks even have Livingston then bundle and mail the mail back to me in MD.  They say they can send it to general delivery in MD, but they cannot begin my mail forwarding until I first have the MD PO complete that form.

I got the name of Angie Carr from another forum and I am hoping she will be able to understand my unique needs.  Or maybe they are not so unique as it sounds others here had the same needs when they first converted.  I am trying to "underreact" as I try to find the right person to talk to in Livingston.  ;D
 
Just about everybody benefits under the newer plan, but there

Sounds like a misunderstanding to me, Smoky.  Just tell them you are handling the Maryland (or whatever) post office end and don't explain how/why/when.  You could not file a change of address with your Maryland PO until you have established the Escapees mail box, so step #1  has to be in Livingston anyway.  And they will never know whether you file the forward notice in Maryland or not, so don't worry about it.
 
I am supposed to speak with the mail supervisor tomorrow.  It appears I am one of the early ones caught in their new policy for INITIALIZING mail forwarding.
 
Smoky said:
I am supposed to speak with the mail supervisor tomorrow.? It appears I am one of the early ones caught in their new policy for INITIALIZING mail forwarding.
Fwiw= after you fill out a CAO card it is used to update the USPS databases. Once updated your mail is no longer sent to your old address from senders PO. Instead when your letter is scanned at sender's regional processing center, it sees that you have filed a COA and it imprints a new barcode on the letter with your new address and mail is automatically forwarded there. The barcode is barely visible in a sort of pink/orange color usually across bottom of back side of letter.
 
Fwiw= after you fill out a CAO card it is used to update the USPS databases. Once updated your mail is no longer sent to your old address from senders PO. Instead when your letter is scanned at sender's regional processing center, it sees that you have filed a COA and it imprints a new barcode on the letter with your new address and mail is automatically forwarded there.

This automated process is not yet in place everywhere - I think it may be mostly in large urban areas.  All my forwarded mail still comes with a yellow sticker printed and placed on the original evelope by my local post office.
 

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