Mail Forwarding

The friendliest place on the web for anyone with an RV or an interest in RVing!
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.

Jeff

Moderator Emeritus
Joined
Apr 8, 2005
Posts
8,965
Location
SD/AZ
We moved out of our house yesterday and will close tomorrow. Went to the Post Office and learned all the local PO's have a 6 month backlog for a PO Box.

Our problem is this. We will be in the Northwest through late Nov, early Dec and planned to use a local mail box to forward our mail from our old home address and set that up with a local commercial mail box provider. Went tot he USPS to start the forwarding and were told that once we forwarded our mail to a commercial provider IT COULD NOT BE FORWARDED AGAIN because the new system would forward all the mail going to the provider, not just ours.

The problem for us is that we need more than 2 1/2 - 3 months of mail forwarding.

Anyone found a work-around for this? Seems silly to have all our mail forwarded from here to SD and pay to get it back for three months. The only one we could find was a USPS PO Box but none are available.
 
Jeff,

Can a service like Mail Boxes Etc solve your problem?  Many fulltimers use them...also there is the FMCA amil forwarding as well as Escapees used by a lot of people.
 
Why not Escapees?  We just joined them and the forwarding service is fantastic.

SKP 89237  FMCA F362184
2005 Newmar Kountry Star 3910 Pusher
Ford Taurus Wagon Toad
Fulltiming out of Kalispell MT
Currently parked at Walmart in Lake Delton, WI
 
Jeff /Washington said:
IT COULD NOT BE FORWARDED AGAIN because the new system would forward all the mail going to the provider, not just ours.

Not sure I fully understand, Jeff -- but, yes, when the USPS forwards your mail to a commercial mail box outfit, it goes there in bulk w/everyone receiving mail at that location. The commercial location then sorts it and puts yours in your mail box -- or, forwards it to you upon your request.

My choice was a UPS Store. They are doing a great job so far. Initially, I put in a change of address to get my mail forwarded to my box at the UPS Store. If I am in the area, I pick it up from my box there. If on the road, I can either call them or drop them an email and have them send it to wherever. The forwarding costs are the normal UPS charges.

One caveat. If you go with a commercial outfit, remember that you now have a Personal Mail Box (PMB), not a Post Office Box (POB). It is important when you put in your change of address that you list that correctly. If not, the USPS will surely screw it up. That did happen to me and caused a 3 week delay in the initial forwarding.
 
Sorry, a little more explanation. We ARE planning on using Alternative Resources in Sioux Falls for mail forwarding when we are really on the road. I had hoped to keep the mail local here in WA until late Nov or early Dec when we do leave Washington-didn't make a lot of sense to have mail forwarded to SD to pay to have it sent back here.

But when we do make the domicile move to SD I am being told the only way to make sure mail reaches us is to keep both PMBs, the one here the USPS is going to forward to and the SD address we will be using going forward. Once the year-end tax info etc is completed it will not be as big a deal to cancel the WA address but I guess I have a little Smoky in me and don't really look forward to paying both PMBs-that would mean less gas for the toad.? ;D? ;D ;D

Anyway I was just checking to see if someone had found a way to work around the USPS problem with forwarding mail from a PMB. One answer is a PO Box from USPS because they CAN change the forwarding address for those, unfortunately the six month waiting list means we'll come up after we leave. We are meeting with the Postmaster of our little sub-station Tuesday to see if something can be worked out.

Just another detail added to moving van yesterday picking up what we Lent our daughters and what is headed for storage in Chicago, cleaning out the house today, and waiting for the closing to be filed Friday. Another stress-free week in WA.

We are about to be Homeless in Seattle, now I gotta work on that unemployed part. ::)
 
I plan on using either relative or most likely FMCA forwarding (Many reasons for using FMCA).

However have you considered post office shopping... Your post office has a six month wait, check out the post office in "Small town near you" it may have a six minute wait.  The one time I wanted to use a P.O. box the wait was "how fast can you fill out the paperwork" Ihad that box for about seven years before I closed it out.
 
Your best bet is a friend in the area or a PO box in a near-by town.  Some place surely will have a PO box available.  Make your initial Change-of-address a temporary one, then later file a permanent one to your commercial forwarding service.

Another possibility: will a local post office hold your mail?  Or accept General Delivery mail for you?  At least one post office in your zip region (the first three digits of the zip code) will handle General Delivery and you can pick up your mail at that post office as often as you like.  Then you should be able to forward the General Delivery to the commercial forwarder.

And I would not be concerned about the year-end tax paperwork either. Why not just use your PMB address on all the tax papers? The chance that you will send anything back from the IRS quickly is slim and you can always have that forwarded to you back in Washington anyway.
 
Thanks everyone:

John and Gary:

No PO Boxes within 20 miles. The USPS wpould hold all mail from our current address, INCLUDING new owners!

Still trying to get an answer from USPS on forwarding to General Delivery.

Problem is not new mail, we can control where that is sent, I am just trying to cover the bases on anything sent to us over the next few months to our old address.

 
One other posibility.. GIve the new ownes a couple of C-Notes and a box of Catalog envelopes and ask them to forward your mail

Just sent a priority mail package to darling daughter, 7.20, I don't know how much, but it was a weeks' worth of forwardable mail, (3rd class goes in file 13 don't you know)
 
No PO Boxes within 20 miles. The USPS would hold all mail from our current address, INCLUDING new owners!

Humpf. Are they also going to forward the new owners mail along with yours?

Too bad - you're dealing with a metropolitan area post office, so not getting much cooperation or personal service. Big post offices get everything handled automatically at a central sorting center and have little capability (or desire) to provide personal service.  Small town PO's are usually much more flexible.
 
Jeff,

Just a quick idea for you.....

You mentioned that you will be using alternative resources.

May I suggest that you take a look at www.americas-mailbox.com - based in SD and MUCH cheaper than AR !!!!

Ive been dealing with them from the UK, ready for our tour next year, and have found them to be excellent - all enquiries answered quickly and in easy to understand detail.

Well worth a look.

Paul
 
Paul:
May I suggest that you take a look at www.americas-mailbox.com - based in SD and MUCH cheaper than AR !!!!

Will do, thanks.

All:

Local asst Postmaster got us a box, problem solved!
 

Forum statistics

Threads
131,753
Posts
1,384,361
Members
137,524
Latest member
freetoroam
Back
Top Bottom