Mail Forwarding services
 

We are moving to Australia in march and so I am looking for a mail forwarding service which:

• provides online access to received mail
• allows user to specify whether each item can be discarded, scanned or forwarded
• allows scanning of content of mail
• forwarding to international address, including aggregating several items into one package
• ability to accept shipping of online orders (so not a PO Box) and forwarding to international address

I have found the following, among many, which seems the best value for money:
http://www.usglobalmail.com
http://www.earthclassmail.com
http://www.bongous.com

Does anyone have experience with any of the above or others they can talk about?

I asked the same question here in January but didn't get much response. You'd think this high mileage crowd would be all over such a service.

I do note that earthclass mail morphed from the service I was asking about.

Jim

Well I have now narrowed it down to 6 contenders and have been comparing their terms/features and fees/rates, including back and forth with customer service as each seems to have some deficit in their online FAQ/description of their services and plans.

I will report my findings once I am done.

jimquan said he didn't get too many responses in Jan. Maybe you asked the wrong question back then, Jim? :p

There's actually a thread on forwarding email, started by wharvey in March, 2007 with 3 pages of replies ;):

Forwarding Email

I don't have anything to add, but I will be interested in your findings, lin821. Please share them when you are ready...

Nope, we're talkin mail, snail, shreddable.

Jim

Coincidentally I've been searching for this same type of service and narrowed it down to a few of the same companies.

I'm sort of leaning toward US Global Mail, Inc.; the services look good, reasonable, they've been around since 2004 and are rated satisfactory by the Houston BBB.

But what I'm not liking so much: they insist on photocopies of two IDs, as well as copies of the front and back of a valid credit card (even if you'll ultimately be paying by wire transfer). I plan on paying by CC, but still...

I know this all comes down to trust, but the question for me is, if I'm willing to trust them with every ounce of my mail, why are they expecting me to hand over all the goods as well? It's as if the customer is stripping down and the company is well-clothed. It's a significant identity theft risk as it is, without the bonus copies.

Anyway, I'm still leaning on the fence and wondering if it's not better to just go with a friend or relative and reimburse them well for it.

Did you mean for alect to report back to the board when he's ready? :confused:

I'd had my 2cents in the referenced thread in post #4. However, as jimquan had nicely pointed out, I was referring to EMAIL forwarding discussion, not the physical mail forwrding, which was what OP's asking. I was skimming OP's question too fast and simply assumed it's about email forwarding services since this is a Technology forum.

I hadn't thought of postal mail discussion being in "technology" category. Silly me. :) Giving what OP's criteria for mail forwarding, there's really quite alot technology and "security" involved. I haven't had the opportunity to use this kind of services and can't provide any first-hand personal account. The best I had ever done was to provide my new non-US address to all the parties I expected to get mail (or bills) from. ;) It wasn't an issue for them to send me international mail. Back to those days, I didn't have too much mail and USPS didn't forward mail internationally.

I googled for "USPS mail forwarding international address" and got quite a few results, which were not mentioned in any of the previous posts. Not sure how good they are either.

I've been using these guys for over two years and have been very happy with their service:
http://maillinkplus.com/

I don't have any experience with Int'l shipping though...

Yes I had come across them....alas I don't want/need a physical mail box (small/medium/large) but a virtual one. I think they're targeted to a different customer need.

Well here is my brief review and research:

Narrowed it down to the following services:

Bongo International – www.bongous.com
USAMail1 – www.usamail1.com
USA2ME – www.usa2me.com
Earth Class Mail – www.earthclassmail.com
US Global Mail – www.usglobalmail.com
USA Box – www.usabox.com
Access USA – www.myus.com

My requirements were as follows:
• Wanted mail forwarded so that we wouldn’t miss any important letters or companies with whom we had forgotten to change our address
• Wanted a US mailing address for credit cards, memberships, online shopping etc…
• Wanted occasional package forwarding – eg if we wanted to shop online in the US because it was cheaper and have those packages sent to us in Australia.
• Wanted to have as much functionality and access online – view scanned mail, view incoming items, decided what to discard and what to scan or forward – this cuts down the costs of just forwarding everything indiscriminately.
• Possibly having subscribed magazines forwarded as magazine subscriptions in Australia are expensive
• Would be nice to have mailing address in a sales tax free state

Let’s take them one by one and review what I found out, and what I saw as the pros and cons.

AccessUSA

• Setup fee - $35
• Annual membership - $132
• Each additional name on the account/mailbox - $20 per annum
• Total cost for myself and my wife for one year - $187
• Typical 5lb package sent to Australia - $48.89
• Typical 10lb package sent to Australia - $81.77
• Consolidation – two boxes free then $3 per box
• Commercial invoice per shipment - $8
• Storage – 45 days free then $5 per box + $1 per lb per month
• Online review and discard option - Yes
• Mail scanning – NO
• Location of mailing address (not PO) - FL

USABox.com

• Setup fee - $25
• Monthly fee - $10
• Each additional name on the account/mailbox - $0
• Total cost for myself and my wife for one year - $145
• Typical 5lb package sent to Australia - $48.30
• Typical 10lb package sent to Australia - $73.05
• Consolidation – $5 per box or 50% of savings
• Storage – up to 6 months
• Online review and discard option - Yes
• Mail scanning - $10 per letter
• Location of mailing address (not PO) – FL

US Global Mail
• Setup fee - $0
• Monthly fee - $15 or $150 annually
• Each additional name on the account/mailbox - $0
• Total cost for myself and my wife for one year - $150
• Typical 5lb package sent to Australia - $62.33
• Typical 10lb package sent to Australia - $91.37
• Consolidation – $3 for boxes or $1.50 for letters and magazines
• Storage – 1 month free then $1 per lb per month
• Online review and discard option - Yes
• Mail scanning – not offered
• Location of mailing address (not PO) - TX

Earth Class Mail
• Setup fee - $25
• Monthly fee - $9.95 for annual subscription
• Each additional name on the account/mailbox - $3 per month
• Total cost for myself and my wife for one year - $181
• Typical 5lb package sent to Australia - $??? (would not provide)
• Typical 10lb package sent to Australia - $??? (would not provide)
• Consolidation – ???
• Storage – 90 days free then 3c per day per item
• Online review and discard option – Yes (shredding and recycling)
• Mail scanning – 50 pages included in monthly rate then 50c per envelope and 25c per page
• Location of mailing address (not PO) – OR
• Monthly rate includes 35 mail items per month received after which 35c per item – higher monthly rates include more received pieces per month (they are the only provider who counts received items for the monthly rate)
• Although every other provider had set or estimated shipping costs, this provider would not and simply kept pointing me to the DHL site for an estimate. Other providers charge far less than retail DHL rates. I think this service is most suited to those receiving mail only which they want to read online – not suitable for those wanting packages forwarded especially to outside of the USA.

USA2Me
• Setup fee - $15 (silver)
• Monthly fee - $10
• Each additional name on the account/mailbox - $5 per name per month
• Total cost for myself and my wife for one year - $195
• Typical 5lb package sent to Australia - $39.75
• Typical 10lb package sent to Australia - $49.75
• Consolidation – 50% of shipping savings
• Storage – 45 days free then $1 per lb per month
• Online review and discard option - Yes
• Mail scanning – 6 pages includes in monthly fee then 25c per page
• Location of mailing address (not PO) – TX

USAMail1.com
• Setup fee - $49.95 includes first 3 months rental
• Monthly fee - $9.99 after initial 3 months
• Each additional name on the account/mailbox - $25 once off
• Total cost for myself and my wife for one year - $165
• Typical 5lb package sent to Australia - $53.59
• Typical 10lb package sent to Australia - $79.84
• Consolidation – $6.95 per package
• Storage – 45 days storage free then $1 per lb per month
• Online review and discard option - Yes
• Mail scanning – $2 up to 6 pages and then 25c per page
• Location of mailing address (not PO) – NY

Bongo International
• Setup fee - $0
• Monthly fee - $15
• Each additional name on the account/mailbox - $0
• Total cost for myself and my wife for one year - $180
• Typical 5lb package sent to Australia - $53.59
• Typical 10lb package sent to Australia - $79.80
• Consolidation – FREE
• Storage – 45 days then $5 per month per item
• Online review and discard option - Yes
• Mail scanning – 50c per page
• Location of mailing address (not PO) - CT


Some things to note
• Consolidation – some don’t offer it, some charge flat fee per box/package, some offer it free, and others charge a % on the shipping savings achieved by consolidation
• Scanning mail – some includes some scanning in the base price, several charged a flat fee up to 6 pages and then a per page fee – I figured that most mail I would want to scan would be 1-2 pages so the $2 up to 6 pages base isn’t good value – I would rather go for the lower per page rate on a needs basis

Based on my review and modeling of what/how I would use it, I ranked the following top 3:
• Bongo
• USAMail1.com
• USA2Me.com

I am going with Bongo as they seemed the best value for money in my case and they were very responsive to questions both online and on the phone. Among the top 3 they had the best balance of ongoing fees (no cost additional names), consolidation costs (free), shipping rates and scanning costs.

I would recommend based on the above info, if you’re looking into such a service that you model your estimated use and features and calculate your costs for each of these providers – differing requirements may/will result in different rankings of the above providers.

Thanks for the excellent summary, very useful.

thanks for the information--I've been looking for a breakdown like this.

Nice summary, indeed. Thanks.

For what it's worth (though it doesn't offer scanning, so not useful for alect), I've been a US Global Mail customer for the past three years and have been quite satisfied with them.

Global Mail
 

Is their CS good?