RoyalFlush

I've been a subscriber of mailboxforwarding for 18 months. No complaints other than an odd address:

Mr. Royal Flush
2885 SANFORD AVE SW
PMB 654321
GRANDVILLE MI

Their interface is relatively easy to use and works easily with tablets and smartphones.

I'm a perpetual traveler (no home address). My car is registered at a hotel in South Dakota, my drivers license is a hotel in Denver.

For mail I must have, I use various hotels. Zero issues. ^

edit to add: I'm obviously not a shill and am only a paid subscriber to mailboxforwarding

Ellice

Hi just wondering if anyone has US and UK magazine forwarding compamies that they have used and can recommend. I live in New Zealand and pay a small fortune for magazines. Like $14 for Martha Stewart Living. For eg.

JMN57

My wife has been reading Italian magazines as she is learning Italian. They are expensive to subscribe to in the US due to shipping. She has been subscribing to them on Zinio and viewing them on her tablet or PC. Added benefit is that they are very portable when traveling.

Ellice

I did some research into getting US magazines forwarded to New Zealand, where some of the US magazines are very expensive (up to $16US per issue from the newsagent). I tried calculating getting a cheap subscription and then getting it forwarded to NZ, using firms like ship it.com and forwardo.com but the postage - $6.71/issue, issue price $1.99, plus forwarding handling fee $1, made it still nearly $10 US per issue so over $120 per year for something like Maclife magazine to get shipped here. In the end I went on the Maclife website and found I could actually get an international subscription for $39.95 US or $3.32/issue landed here so I went with that option.

In relation to the discussion about just getting a digital subscription, there is an interesting discussion on Macobserver.com (http://www.macobserver.com/tmo/artic...d-a-giant-mess) on how satisfactory an experience that can be. It depends on a lot on the publisher, your device and whether you like reading digital magazines. Just posting this here just in case someone else is thinking of getting a US magazine subscription and wondering about using a mail forwarding company.

jonatbaylor

I feel that I should check in and give an update with my services.
I used to have Earth Class Mail and I thought the customer service was really good and prices were in line with what I was wanting the first couple of years with them. Their prices went up x 3 a few years back so I changed to another provider (virtual post mail). No complaints with ECM, just a price increase I couldn't justify staying with.

Virtual Post Mail:

They are perfect for what I do. 10.00 a month, a few scans included. Forwarding isn't too expensive.Shredding etc. It is just about perfect for my traveling lifestyle.

TravelKane

I just signed up with these guys. Mostly because they fit my top two criteria; 1) scan mail to view online, 2) a NV address.

So far working fine, but too early to give a true evaluation.

jmgriffin

Any fresh reviews for this service? I've skimmed the thread and searched the web and have identified the following companies that provide a mail scanning service:

• Virtual Post Mail
• PostScan Mail
• Earth Class Mail
• MailBox Forwarding
• US Global Mail
• USA Mail 1
• Traveling Mailbox
• USA2Me

I'm leaning towards MailBox forwarding as it appears to be one of the cheaper services but still has good review from other FTers in this thread.

Any additional data points are welcomed!

DMSFCA

Still using Virtual Post Mail since I originally posted a while back and still very happy with them. I don't get too much mail anywhere, few pieces a week but they have been like clockwork, if I request a scan it's always available by the next morning and when I have any mail forwarded it's always well packaged and sent next day, can't fail them at all for service.

Only issue is sometimes the web site seems slow but I'm willing to accept if it's a browser issue, I usually use Safari or Chrome and sometimes it's slow to display scanned mail, not sure if it's a speed issue or some sort of browser issue with whatever plug-in they use of for it but it's really a rare and minor things, overall I'm happy and will gladly keep forking over the $20/month for them.

jfill

I would like to warn fellow FTers about my most recent experience with the Customer Service Department at GlobalShop.net - an AmEx affiliate that arranges package and mail forwarding. I sent them the following email last week:

I wonder if you can help me? I am having some problems with your local delivery agent in Israel - GCX regarding the package with tracking number 12756XXX.

Today the driver for GCX called me and told me he had a package for me. I told him I was at home and he told me that the delivery address he had for me was Rechov XXXX despite the fact that I updated my address to my new address on Rechov YYYY nearly two months ago. I asked the driver if he could deliver it to my new address which is two blocks away from my old address and he said he could not. I then said, fine I will walk to my old address and meet you there. He told me that since I told him that it is no longer my address he could not deliver it to my old address either and that the only way I could get the package was to come meet him where his truck was. I told him that I could not do that and I asked for the name or phone number of his supervisor. He then told me that he was the boss and when I asked again for his manager's phone number he hung up on me.

I then contacted both GCX and GlobalShop Israel by phone to let them know the problems I was having with deliveries and both promised to call me back. Neither in fact called me back.

In the past I have had packages discarded by delivery drivers after I was unable on two delivery attempts. This is simply unacceptable customer service from a company like GlobalShop. Could you please contact GCX and let them know that this is unacceptable?

I sincerely hope that GlobalShop can rectify these problems with their local delivery agent or replace the local delivery agent. These problems have been ongoing for years. On numerous occasions I have had to spend half an hour to an hour driving all over the city to chase the delivery truck down because he refused to deliver to my house.

I would really expect more from GlobalShop and I hope that you can make things right.

Thank you very much.

Yours sincerely,

jfill

Here is the reply I received:

Dear value customer:

Thank you for contacting us and share all this with us. I just sent a complaint to them yesterday on the afternoon, when I get this email from you. I will be waiting on an answer from them today.

I will keeping you posting with any answer from them related this matter.

I don’t know if you did, but I think it will be a good idea if you also share this complaint directly with AMEX, because they can get involve on this and them they will receiving the complaint not only from us but also from AMEX, and I think it will be good to get this solve out.


Thank you!

Norka Garcia
Customer Service Executive III
www.globalshop.net

If anyone knows someone that I could contact in AmEx Corporate I would love to give them some insight into the companies with which they are choosing to be partners. Thanks so much.

vagabond1964

We are going all through Asia and at present in Thailand Chiang Mai, which is beautiful, for as long as 18 months and at first asked companions to care for our mail which was an error thinking back on the grounds that it was a bother to output reports and to discover the time to send furthermore. I felt a bit .....rdly request such a large number of little supports. We moved over to hotsnail.com and they have been extraordinary particularly with the redirections utilizing Australia Post furthermore our business mail. We do everything online and discovered the examining of archives made things a lot less demanding being abroad. Great client help. The main thing needing would be the capability to view the pdf filters inside the site so we don't need to download to see the archive but other than that, an incredible administration.

We use Hotsnail and they have been great especially when we have been overseas.

jackiebow

What ever you do, DON’T USE viabox.com!!!! I was using Viabox.com for just over 3 months, I had purchased $889 worth of goods from the one supplier in the USA. I had those goods sitting in my unit at the forwarding company in the USA waiting for the right time to get it shipped when I could consolidate it with a smaller lighter parcel to get value for money. I had parcels continually coming in and out of the unit but waiting for the right parcel to consolidate with this heavy parcel. I did not realize that the shipping company had a 90 day storage policy. I ordered a small amount of goods that would be perfect to ship the heavy parcel. When I went to consolidate and ship the 2 parcels, the goods were missing from the display. After more than 7 days of emails back and forth and them telling me they didn’t know where it was. I called every day leaving voice messages expressing my concern. They finally emailed me after 7 days stating that my goods had been disposed of. I couldn’t believe it, I have used other forwarding companies and they have sent out reminder/warning emails to let you know that in 7 days your goods will be removed. That way you can take action, as time slips away from you. Viabox.com sent no warning email at all. I had parcels coming and going the whole time, so they unit was clearly active.
They destroyed nearly $1,000 worth of my goods and then I had to spend the next week calling them and asking where the parcel was before they told me. This is probably the worse service I have ever had. I get people asking me on a weekly basis who I use to get my stuff from the USA to Australia and Viabox.com have definitely been the worst!!!

b9chris

Just signed up for Virtual Post Mail. I'll update here in a month or 3 with how it goes.

On their signup process:

Plan Choice The plan choice is overly complex. Seems like it'd be better to just set a per-use price on different activities and call it a day, because right now there are 5 plans, x2, because "This month's special promotions" are the same promotions all the time (I'd been considering signing up for over a year... same promos), and you pick them from a hard to notice dropdown at top-left.

Introductory Prices All prices in large text are introductory and double in 3 months. Kinda skeezy but I assume this is partly to defray the other costs you'll endure signing up (see below).

Promos The promos either increase the amount of mail they'll scan the envelopes for, or, increase the amount of mail you can ask them to open and scan. I get the impression (experienced users please correct me) that any mail that arrives, they'll scan the envelope and count that against your plan, so you can't really control this cost - the higher the limit here the better. That lead me to choose Mail Receiving Galore, the higher receive limit promo. The opening of mail is entirely under your control, so scans, I'm less worried about. And let's be honest I signed up for this because I hate the mail, so the chances of receiving even 1 document I want opened in any given month are near nil.

Choosing an Address They let you pick what Unit# you'll have at their location in Walnut, CA. (For the extra curious, those google mapping you will find you "live" sandwiched between a couple restaurants, a software development company, a CrossFit and, least surprisingly, a post office.) The Unit # has to be >1000, which is going to be a little less unsuspecting than you might hope for, and a lot of the good patterned ones that are easy to remember are already taken.

Form 1583 Once you've signed up you've got some work to do. You'll need to file your change of address with everyone, which while a chore should be unsurprising. But you'll also need to fill out Form 1583, which is slightly complex, and costs money:

1. The form needs to be notarized, which will cost you - they anticipate $20, I'll post back with what the closest Notary charges me.
2. You'll also need to get it to them, which may ironically involve mailing it to them - but you can also scan and email.
3. The form seems to require you give them Agent of Service of Process privilege, which basically means if you get sued and someone delivers the filing to VirtualPostMail, that's as good as you receiving the filing. I'm not a lawyer but I get the impression this takes a legal "move" away from you in a worst-case scenario. But, that's not legal advice, and since legal advice is expensive... who knows.

Logging in The interface is a little weird. There's a lightbox style interface that appears to be the default, that seems a little odd, and a more Gmail-like inbox. But, I've received no real mail yet so this might not be accurate.

That's it for me so far... .

b9chris

More on Virtual Post Mail:

It turns out the Inbox interface is just the one weird lightbox one. As someone used to Gmail I'll confess this really isn't what I wanted - I was hoping for a simple list that I click into to see a given piece of mail. I suppose there's no subject line, but who it's from tells you a lot.

My Notary Public cost me $10 as anticipated so the Form that lets them open my mail is off and away. The USPS does in fact let you do a Change of Address to a business address like Virtual Post Mail's online - there's info on virtualpostmail's site that both says you can and cannot make that happen. Confirmed: You can. The USPS does warn you however that they won't forward from a business like Virtual Post Mail to your next address - so you'll have to do it manually, for example by leaving Virtual Post Mail open for a while as you move your address to the next place.

My change of address hasn't caused any mail to land there yet. Time to change a few bank accounts that waste my mailbox time most and see what happens.

dustbuster

For future reference, many (most?) banks will notarize documents for you free of charge.

GarlicFlyer

I have used Earthclassmail for a few years now. Overall good, but on the bad side they changed my Oregon address on short notice, and I have noticed a lot of price increases since first joining. I also found they sometimes offer coupons on their Twitter feed.