Dealing with mail back home (US)

[AlexanderB]

I am working on realising my plan to relocate to BA. (No, don't worry, I am not going to do anything overly committal at first. Initially, my plan is to come back down for 3-6 months and rent a short-term apartment and just make sure I'm not deluding myself. But I don't think I am.)

I do have to resolve the question of physical mail back home in the US. It's important, and I get no shortage of it. Being a tech guy, it frustrates me immeasurably as I thought we'd long be on the all-email plan at this point, but alas, there is a myriad of government regulations and consumer protection laws that mandate that most "interesting" mail arrive in paper format. Having a small business, there's no way I can just say "screw it" and ignore it for a period of months or years. I wish I could.

Getting family and friends to handle it isn't really an option, and in any case, that would burn itself out pretty quickly. I know there are some expat-oriented services that you can direct your mail to who will forward it. I don't really care for that option unless there's no choice, mainly due to its latency. My overwhelming preference is to have someone open the mail, run it through a document scanner and e-mail it to me. Is that even possible? I don't mind paying a decent premium for the privilege.

How do those of you that have some sort of going concern at home handle the mail issue?

Thanks in advance!

-- Alex

 

[ghost]

I have similar requirements regarding mail and have been using http://www.usabox.com/ for several years with great results. You can screen your mail via pictures of each piece, trash what you see a junk and forward the rest. However , I doubt if you will find anyone to open a scan your mail.

 

[elclandestino]

Mail forwarding service is the best. There are plenty of them. The USPS itself offers a decent forwarding service too

 

[palermogirl]

I use Earth Class Mail. It is not cheap. They do scan the mail that you indicate you want opened. You can check them out at www.earthclassmail.com

 

[bbutler]

I use earthclassmail.com as well, it has worked out great for us!

 

[Sleuth]

I used earthclassmail.com until they got too expensive and now use mailboxforwarding.com

 

[buddha]

I have used the USPS and just having my mail forwarded. I can't say I have been getting everything but it seems to be working ok. Mail takes about 14 days to get to me.

 

[AlexanderB]

Thanks for the suggestions, everyone! It sounds like Earthclassmail is what I need.

 

[pmacay]

I have similar requirements regarding mail and have been using http://www.usabox.com/ for several years with great results. You can screen your mail via pictures of each piece, trash what you see a junk and forward the rest. However , I doubt if you will find anyone to open a scan your mail.

We've been using USA box for years, great service.

We have asked USA box to open things for us on occasion, when we couldn't figure out what it was via the scanned image on the internet and it looked important. We haven't done this often, but they will open and look at things for you. Good luck! Pete & Ron

Pete & Ron

 

[Mark IV]

I use www.usglobalmail.com . They're pretty good. I'm going to look into earthclassmail.com now after reading this post. With usglobalmail you have to sign something(it was 5 years ago) that allows them to accept UPS, FedEx, etc and send it. I have a regular street addresss with a number sign, " # ", following it with a number. Although it's a P.O. Box, it looks like a unit or Condo number. I have all my Credit Cards, IRS docs, everything, going to this address in Houston, TX. I even have a Skype number that people can call me with the same area code for this address in Houston, TX. I've had no problems. To send an important pacakge securely by UPS or FedEx, it costs about $60 and about $90 if you have alot of letters. You can send things USPS(U.S. Postal service) but once the mail arrives in Argentina, it goes through their mail system and there's no tracking. IF someone wants a 'five finger discount", there's no way to track it. I lost an ATM card this way. UPS is much safer.
I have a service where there's an annual $150 once a year fee. But their pretty good. They list all my mail on the internet(securely) and I can discard what I don't want. They won't open letters. They's repack packages though. Some companies will not send overseas. Ebay many times only sends to the address that's on the billing. So when I buy something I won't from one of these sources. I have usglobalmail.com send it to me. Some companies like JC Pennys will send things directly to Argentina. I ordered to suit pants(they charge extra for shipping) and the pants arrived without even paying tax. Mark IV