IdahoCopper wrote:Numis Pam wrote:How do you all that use PO boxes get around the fact that many places state they will NOT send to a PO box?
I have a box at the UPS store. They accept all mail and delivery services.
Bingo! To add a bit of info if it's with a UPS store or equivalent it even looks like
a street address. With one differentiation between Canada and the U.S., assuming
the UPS store is at 123 Main Street:
In Canada it looks something like this:
123 Main Street
Suite 404
or
404-123 Main Street
The second way is actually Canada Post's official way of addresing suite/apartment
addresses but both are considered acceptable and get delivered. (So many people
are used to the U.S. style of addressing that both will quite often be seen.)
In the U.S. it looks something like this:
123 Main Street
PMB 404
Somewhere around the year 2000 the U.S. Post Office brought in a regulation
that boxes at private mail recievers had to have the designation PMB on them
or they wouldn't deliver the mail to it. Prior to that people were addressing them
with a hodge podge of designators like PO Box, Box, Apt. Suite, etc. I'm assuming
that it was to prevent fraud so the sender knew they were sending to a private
mail drop by the designator used.
However in Canada that never happened so it looks like an apartment or office
the way it's written. So although you can send someone mail or courier shipments
there if you try to visit them you'll get a "404 apartment not found error". ^_-
Idealy if you do go with a Private Mail Box provider like the UPS Store (previously
known as Mail Boxes Etc. before UPS bought them out and made all the franchises
rename) it would be good to try to find one that has a street address of it's own.
The reason for this is even though the PMB designator identifies it to senders
who are familiar with it the type of adress they are sending it to, an address like:
123 Main Street
PMB 404
Looks a lot tidier and shorter than:
123 Main Street
Unit 1
PMB 404
or the worse case that may occur in a mall where the mailboxes (for the post
office) and unit numbers (for couriers) don't match so the catch all has to include
all of that. One local UPS store in my city would issue a mail box address that
looks like:
Suite 404
30-360 Main St.
Unit 13B
30 was their mall mail box number, 13B was their mall unit number
Yeah...a little too much chance of a transition error or it simply not fitting some
forms because it requires 3 address lines. They are a great location for picking
stuff up but a horrible place to have to deliver to.
Also they have no 24 hour access to the boxes like most other locations even
though you can actually get into the mall they are in 24/7.
So I won't be dealing with that location... -_-
I used to work in that mall and pretty much every business was getting courier
packages intended for other mall businesses all the time (and sometimes
lettermail if a sender put the unit number rather than the mailbox number),
fortunately we were all pretty good about bringing each other the misdirected
packages. The regular Purolator and UPS guys were OK because they knew what
was where but if they were off and someone had to fill in everything got messed up.
I have heard stories of some rural Post Offices in the U.S. accepting courier
shipments for their box holders even though they aren't supposed to but I
wouldn't count on that for anything of high value and that was a long time
ago I heard about that. This was back in the 90s, the people would write
the address of the Post Office, then put their box number in the spot of the
apartment number. I wouldn't do this without checking with your Post Office
in advance, it might depend on how well they know you.
Some RPOs in Canada have been known to do this as well again even though
they aren't supposed to under official Canada Post rules.
Now the fact that only the Post Office can deliver to P.O. Boxes can actually
(here in Canada at least) be an advantage. The advantage is that it is enough
to prevent some of the less organized mail order companies from "accidentally"
using UPS when you tell them to use the Post Office. (If something comes
from outside Canada UPS charges very large "brokerage charges" compared
to the $8 Canada Post charges so it can make a huge difference in your final
delivered cost of getting your items.)
That said I have a few things that won't take a P.O. Box that do come from
within Canada so for them I also have a box at a UPS store as well as my
P.O. Box. When I opened the Box at the UPS store I instructed them to
refuse any CODs incase the address got out to the wrong people and they
decided to send me a COD package I don't want or if some company in Canada
that I gave the address to decided to have someone outside Canada drop ship
my order without checking with me first. (For people that do want to accept
CODs they keep a credit card on file.)
In my city the UPS store has a few competitors,
PostNet has one location
and there is an idependant store called "Pack and Post", I've also recently
learned that some
Money Mart locations (they are primarily a check cashing/
payday loan store) also rent out mailboxes though they don't seem to advertize
it heavily. So look around in your city, you may find you have more options
than you might initially think. Also even within UPS Stores they are each
independantly owned franchises so pricing/policies may vary from one location
to annother.
I should also say that when they let me pick my box at the UPS store I picked
#404 just so I could use the "404 apartment not found" pun. ^_-
Posted: Thu Jan 02, 2014 1:10 pm
Been learning how to use it too.... 
