My Dakota Address is closing it's doors effective July 31, 2018. **UPDATED INFO*

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.

SargeW

Site Team
Joined
Dec 12, 2008
Posts
8,515
Location
Where ever we park it!
After being with "My Dakota Address" in Madison SD for the last 10 years, I just learned tonight that they are closing shop. The last day that they will send any mail is July 31, 2018. Diane heard it from a friend on FB, so I sent Terri an email and asked her directly. Here is the response 

"Dear Marty & Diane,

I am afraid that is true, I am so sorry.  I need to send you anything you have here by July 31st.  I am working with our post office is see how the incoming mail can be handled.  I should have more information on that in the morning.

Here are some referrals for other South Dakota mail forwarding companies:

Your Best Address ? Sioux Falls, SD  1-800-419-1690

Dakota Post ? Sioux Falls, SD  1-800-477-2664

America?s Mail Box ? 605-718-1234

Again, I am sorry for the inconvenience.  We wish you the very best."

I have started making inquiries already. and will make more tomorrow.  If you have MDA, start planning now!
 
I?ve had a very good experience so far with Your Best Address, including vehicle registration.
 
I haven?t needed that service yet but they have been very responsive so I?m pretty sure they?ll do whatever you need. Their web site states, ?Need specific items scanned? Call us anytime.?
 
I had a fully paid up account with America's Mailbox which I cancelled and requested my money back (which they honored) due to their inflexibility with regard to certified mail. They claimed some special arrangement with the PO which required them to handle it in the manner they do, notwithstanding the fact that no other mail handler dealt with it in that fashion. Actually spoke to one of the owners and she stood by their policy. Cancelled and went to Your Best Address and their immediate response was, "no problem!"
 
Wow. That's a really sorry way to run a business. No notifications and just letting your customers find out on Facebook. My mail forwarding service in Florida has experienced a lot of growth and has had to move to a larger facility. They gave us a new address and nearly a year to change addresses. They made arrangements with the local post office to send all mail to their new location. We have until November to get all our correspondents updated.
 
Rene T said:
What does it cost to have a mail service like that?

The packages vary but roughly $150/yr, and some sort of handling fee ($1-5) each time they forward, plus the postage each time they mail. At Your Best Address you have complete flexibility as to how often they mail, I'm doing 3 times per month right now. Others seem to typically have monthly, bi-weekly, or weekly, or only on demand. Prices vary based on whether you want everything (including junk) forwarded, or whether you want them to dispose of obvious junk, and whether you want full access to every piece online via scanning (obviously the most expensive)
 
Sorry to hear that, a real frustration for you I am sure.  We have so far been happy with Americas Mailbox in Box Elder, SD you might check them out in your search, assuming you still want a SD address.
 
We've been with Your Best Address since April of this year (we just went full time), and they've been great.  We're FMCA members, so we got a discount on membership.  We've only used them for two mail forwardings, but most of our stuff comes electronically.  As FMCA members, they also  handled the South Dakota registration of our motorhome for us for free.

All in all, they've been great people to work with, and we're very happy.
 
ChasA said:
Wow. That's a really sorry way to run a business. No notifications and just letting your customers find out on Facebook. My mail forwarding service in Florida has experienced a lot of growth and has had to move to a larger facility. They gave us a new address and nearly a year to change addresses. They made arrangements with the local post office to send all mail to their new location. We have until November to get all our correspondents updated.

Sometimes things happen that are beyond the control of the business, we don't know the whole story.      It is possible they posted this news on facebook before sending out other notifications.  It is possible they had already mailed postal notifications that are in transit now, or that they were calling their customers one by one, which takes time.
 
Yes agree, lets not jump to conclusions especially since My Dakota Address has otherwise had a good reputation.  It will be interesting to learn more when and if it becomes available.
 
Thanks for all the input. I just made the switch to "Dakota Post" in Sioux Falls.  I decided on them as they are a little  higher tech, and offer some nice features.  The only info I was able to discover about the closing is that the reasons are "financial". 
 
That's a shame, but it's a real problem with mom and pop mail forwarders.  If Mom or Pop dies, falls ill or just gets tired of running the business you have little in the way of options.

The post office won't let you submit a change of address away from a mail forwarder, in effect they'd have to do the forwarder's job of sorting through all the mail sent to the address and separating out individual pieces.  Instead they just return all mail sent to the forwarding address as undeliverable.  It's up to you to notify all of your correspondents of your new address.

Something like Escapees or FMCA mail forwarding is much less likely to pack up and leave you stranded.
 
Saw this thread referenced to a thread on the escapees forum, glad I have digest emails sent daily!  Looks like alot of info here is being cross shared on the the escapees forum, if anyone have any other links to threads/fb groups where more/new info may be being shared, please do let us (MDA clients) know, I'm sure we'd all appreciate it!  I'm thinking it would be good to start an active discussion of MDA people solely to share info on tips on how to make the change as smoothly as possible, such as reminding everyone  to change all your credit card addresses, how to go about changing registration and license addresses, etc.

Anyone know who might be the biggest, well funded, least "small business" type forwarder in SD would be?  I don't want to have to even consider doing all the address changes again!  Also, similarly, anyone have issues with credit card companies using the home address of your mail forwarder?  MDA was good on all mine (Chase/Citi/Discover/Syncrony,  plus 2 credit unions), except Amex, they flagged the address as a mail forwarder and wouldn't let me use it.Just curious if any of the other PMB's are better/worse in this respect.

THanks!
 
dartmouth01 said:
Anyone know who might be the biggest, well funded, least "small business" type forwarder in SD would be?  I don't want to have to even consider doing all the address changes again!  Also, similarly, anyone have issues with credit card companies using the home address of your mail forwarder?  MDA was good on all mine (Chase/Citi/Discover/Syncrony,  plus 2 credit unions), except Amex, they flagged the address as a mail forwarder and wouldn't let me use it.Just curious if any of the other PMB's are better/worse in this respect.

THanks!

I cannot speak to the mail forwarding businesses other than Americas Mailbox but in my first hand knowledge of AMB having stayed in their campground and staying in the vicinity for a month and a half while getting our residency, drivers licenses, registrations etc. they are an extensive operation that seems to be well funded.  Of course any business can go under, things happen etc. but I did not see any red flags while we were there.  We have not had any issues through AMB with credit cards, bank accounts etc. when changing our address.  We no longer have American Express so I do not know if that would have been an issue had we still had our account.
 

Latest posts

Forum statistics

Threads
131,753
Posts
1,384,369
Members
137,524
Latest member
freetoroam
Back
Top Bottom