# Handy mail



## Me Linda (Jan 26, 2017)

Glory you get some dozzys here. Simple question I am following seems like everyone' recommendations and trying to get a handy mail box today( leaving in 2 weeks) I am calling the San Antonio phone number ( 4 times ) to set it up and I just get cut off ??? Are they still in business? Thanks !


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## eastwind (Jun 18, 2016)

If not, I use texashomebase.com, and their service has been great. Only problem is I wasn't able to use that address as a residence address for banking, voting, etc. Works great for mail scanning/forwarding.


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## Me Linda (Jan 26, 2017)

Thank you , very nice people , received response from them , I must have had wrong or old info .


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## Stare Decisis (Jan 29, 2017)

eastwind said:


> If not, I use texashomebase.com, and their service has been great. Only problem is I wasn't able to use that address as a residence address for banking, voting, etc. Works great for mail scanning/forwarding.


This looks like a great service. The benefits that stand out to me are: 

1.) Online access to your mail, then you can instruct them how to handle each piece of mail
2.) They will deposit checks to your bank, if you provide them with deposit slips 

*Does anyone know of a California equivalent to this company? * Or even Arizona? I think a California address would suit my online business better than Texas (as in, be more appealing / less off-putting to clients), but I could always just explain my situation to clients. 

I've been looking into some mail forwarding services, and also electronic payment methods, as I know my clients will want to be sending me paper documents, and I don't want to deal with not getting paid for my work due to lost/delayed checks in international mail. I could always ask my mom to play mailman / bank runner for my business, but I don't think she'd be thrilled to do that....


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## eastwind (Jun 18, 2016)

I read some stuff somewhere that led me to the following understanding. Texashomebase is a CMRA (commercial mail receiving agency). There's a very brief wikipedia article about those ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commercial_mail_receiving_agency ) and you may find other info online by searching. They are made possible by rules put in place by the post office, but also require a law passed in a given state to set up the legal frameworks that allow CMRA's to operate in that state. Only a few states have passed such laws. Washington state, where I was from before moving to Mexico, is not one of those states, and I could not find any CMRAs there. That doesn't mean I couldn't rent a post office box from mail boxes etc or UPS store, only that there was no legal framework for the CMRA to be granted required legal powers to open and scan mail for me. And I think California is another out-of-luck state. But try at a UPS store and see what they say they can do for you. I think the answer is "just rent a PO box to you" but I may be all wet.

My annual fee is due this month and it's gone up from $185 to $200 per year. But in the last year they've also added the online website access - until recently they would email you scans of your mail, which put the pdfs in the hands of your email provider (i.e. google if you have gmail) and so the new setup is better security-wise.

I haven't tried to have them deposit checks. I've simply had them hold the checks until I made a trip back to the US, which I do about every 3 months, then had them fedex me the check where ever I was visiting. Once in my hands, I used my smartphone and my bank's e-deposit feature to deposit the checks. I could do that from Mexico too, but I haven't yet risked sending anything important by fedex from them to myself here in mexico. They claim they've done that many times with no problems, but everything of mine has either been too low-priority to be worth fedexing to mexico or too sensitive to risk fedexing to mexico. I've got one forty buck refund check languishing in Wichita right now waiting on more important stuff to bundle together with it. But I hope that's the last check I get from my old life.


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## circle110 (Jul 20, 2009)

Stare Decisis said:


> This looks like a great service. The benefits that stand out to me are:
> 
> 1.) Online access to your mail, then you can instruct them how to handle each piece of mail
> 2.) They will deposit checks to your bank, if you provide them with deposit slips
> ...


I used www.mailboxforwarding.com for several years and they do all these same things and offer a California address for an extra fee (they have to pay state taxes to offer an address in that state, hence the extra charge). They worked absolutely fine for me when I used them, but I didn't pay for the vanity address because it wasn't needed.

I have to ask, why would you not want a Texas address for your business? It's good enough for Dell, IBM, TI, 3M, Apple, Whole Foods and a ton of other major firms in and out of the tech field.


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## Stare Decisis (Jan 29, 2017)

circle110 said:


> I have to ask, why would you not want a Texas address for your business? It's good enough for Dell, IBM, TI, 3M, Apple, Whole Foods and a ton of other major firms in and out of the tech field.


My field is very location-specific and community-based, because the required expertise changes so much state to state. Non-local [my position] are almost unheard of, so my business will be a big experiment. I'm going to have enough trouble trying to appeal to clients in both CA and OR/WA; I don't want to throw another wrench into the works by having them think I live/operate in yet another state. A few of my clients know my circumstances, but they were already friends. 

But I'll be operating on a small enough scale to where one of the mailing solutions out there will fit my needs, I'm sure.


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## circle110 (Jul 20, 2009)

Stare Decisis said:


> My field is very location-specific and community-based, because the required expertise changes so much state to state. Non-local [my position] are almost unheard of, so my business will be a big experiment. I'm going to have enough trouble trying to appeal to clients in both CA and OR/WA; I don't want to throw another wrench into the works by having them think I live/operate in yet another state. A few of my clients know my circumstances, but they were already friends.
> 
> But I'll be operating on a small enough scale to where one of the mailing solutions out there will fit my needs, I'm sure.


OK, that makes sense. And that service I posted about does have a CA address if you feel it's important enough.


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