….or…… The ‘Yes’ company is really the clueless company.
My Wife was out shopping for a new card. Found a pretty good rate online. Buuttttt, you can’t use a PO Box as a mailing address.
Fine. She called them, they would be happy to issue her a card over the phone …… At 3% higher than what is offered online. She ends up talking to NINE different people. No can do.
Sooooo…. This pisses me off a bit too. I have had a card through these folks for years. Surely there is something they can work out for people that don’t get mail delivered to their house. Why can’t we get the good deal that’s offered online?
Four emails and four different people later, they still don’t get it. I’ve explained four times that the USPO does NOT deliver to me or anybody else around here. But they keep telling me to use our physical address and then change it later.
Hello? Do you not need to mail us the CC to start the account?
The last one told me I could update my existing account with the PO Box. ‘Cuse me? Have you not read any of this? This is about a new account.
Oh. And the whole “can’t use the PO Box” has something to do with money laundering and the patriot act. Make those terrorists use the damn phone, that’ll teach ‘em.
You can’t get the card because you won’t use your home address, and they won’t accept PO numbers.
They don’t accept PO numbers because of security/terrorism issues.
But they tell you that you can get it on the home address and change it immediately to the PO address.
So what’s the point of having the policy at all?
Clearly, scammers and terrorists aren’t smart enough to figure this out, despite being told by the people on the phone, or are honest enough not to do so. Why are we so worried about them again?
They probably save the previous address somewhere… thus the ability to start with a home address and then change to a PO Box once you receive the card. Then if you buy terror supplies on your credit card they’ll still know where you live(d). But I guess you could move after changing to a PO Box if you’re a terrorist.
The whole problem is that the rate on the card is 3% higher if you apply by phone.
If we apply online and use our home address, we will never receive the card, therefore we won’t be able to activate the card. If we can’t activate the card, we can’t call them to change the mailing address.
Your account is open and active the minute the bank approves it. It is not dependent on you receiving the card nor using the card.
Also, simply cutting up a card or not using it does not constitute closing an account. You must contact the issuer and cancel the account according to their procedures (ie - either in writing or over the phone).
(I always throw in these truths in threads concerning opening/closing credit cards as a service to those who may be lurking and might be wrong about this issue.)
You may now return to your regularly scheduled well-deserved semi-pitting of the banking industry.
But I do have to get the card and call the 800 number to activate it. I seriously doubt I would be able to change my mailing address before I get the card and activate it. And, I really would prefer not to have a credit card mailed to me that I know I won’t get.
Just to clarify, “activating” a card is a security measure. When you call that number and activate your card, all you’re doing is confirming you have the card and it wasn’t stolen in the mail. Once the bank approves your application, your account is open and a part of your credit report. And all that occurs prior to them mailing you the card.
When I worked in the credit card industry, our reps could also “activate” a card at the call center. IOW, we preferred that our cardmembers dialed the 800 number on the card (because it was all automated and therefore cheaper fo us, and if you called from your home phone listed on the account, that served as identity verification), but any customer service rep could do the same thing. “Activating” your card only puts a temporary block on its usage until you call to have it removed. So, you could presumably call the customer service line, “activate” the account and then change the address and then request an additional card (which would then go to your PO Box).
But, you’re absolutely right. This whole process sounds like a huge PITA, and you still wouldn’t have gotten the original card, and who knows where it would end up. We hope it’d go back to the bank.
Judging from Lute Skywalkers link, and the idiots we have been dealing with, I think it’s time for me to get a new card as well.
I don’t expect a company to be able to adjust for every little contingency, but I really don’t see why they couldn’t have just offered the online deal over the phone. Out of the 13 people we delt with, it seems that no one had any athority whatsoever. My Wife went up the ladder and down the other side. That, and there total inability to understand the problem put me a little over the edge.
I seriously doubt you have to receive the card or activate it first in order to change your address. But we won’t know unless we try, will we? And if it works, your problem is solved.
Alternatively, check with your bank, which may have a relationship with a credit card issuer. Based on a good working relationship with their customer, they might be able to do things you can’t.
There are lots of places that are serviced by post office boxes only. Just about every small town in Canada doesn’t have door-to-door delivery - the mail comes to a central location in town, and you go there with your key and take your mail out of your box. I imagine that this is similar to what enipla is describing.
I am also having a hard time imagining a credit card company that doesn’t know this and take it into account. A PO box is most certainly a valid address. Maroons.
I bet it’s because what they really want is your email address to sell. I bet they would make way more by selling your name on a list then they lose by giving you a 3% discount. That or it costs them more to process a request on the phone (cuz that involves real live human beings. Brainless, yes, but sucking down a salary and benefits!), and so they want to incentize you to go fully automated.
And I’d be curious to see what part of the Patriot Act addresses this, or if this is just an overzealous interpretation on behalf of the bank. (Or just a bs excuse they give to their customer service reps in the hopes that no one will really pursue it.)
We don’t have mail delivery here either (tiny town). Items addressed to the house still get delivered to the p.o. box though. It’s a bit more work for the postmistress and she chides me to inform the sender about the p.o. box, but it gets done.
So what happens to mail that’s addressed to your house? Is it returned to sender?
Perhaps. But I really would prefer to not have a card sent to an address that it won’t be delivered to. At that point, what do we do? The originall card is either returned, or lost, or someone else has it, and may try to activate it. No thanks.
There are about 20000 homes and businesses that live within 50 miles of me that don’t get postal delivery to their homes. I work for the County Government and as a bit of irony, I am one of the folks that assign home addresses.
It’s mostly about practicality. We get TONS of snow. We live and work in a ski resort community. Mail boxes next to the road would never make it with the plow trucks, graders (6x6, yep some of these monsters have power to the front) and loaders that are used. Mail jeeps (they are not 4x4s) would be but so much aluminum in the ditch. All mail delivery vehicles would have to be 4x4s. And as it is not a big deal to stop by the PO every few days, mail trucks stopping on a two lane highway, or trying to get to most of the houses around here just slow down traffic or would get stuck. I never ask UPS or Fed-X deliver to my home. I get that stuff delivered to work.
Yep, the County Government has a PO box. We have about 500 on staff. And our own mail crew to pick it up from the PO and deliver it to the different departments and campuses.
Thanks. Yep. Maroons. It may not be that common, but really. They just refuse to understand. I think that I should be able to get the same deal over the phone as is offered online.
I don’t really care that much anymore. Yep, they are Maroons. My quest now is to get a strait answer, and have SOMEONE just tell me that they are not set up to deal with this simple situation.
Maybe. But my email address sure is not worth a 3% increase on a credit card.
I wonder too. But it is getting to be more of a PITA. That’s one of the reasons I’m being a little bit of a PITA to the customer service reps. Usually, I just ignore it.
Really, how hard is for ‘terrorists’ to get around a real address and PO box to do their deeds.
Idealy, yes. Since it can’t be delivered. That happenened to me with a re-fi when some papers where sent to the house instead of the PO. Screwed things up pretty good for a bit.
Is there a way to forward mail from your home address to your PO box? Like tell the USPO “hey if any mail comes here for 123 Main Street, put it in box 12”?
I wonder if that would work, or if they would look at you funny because 123 Main Street is not in their database - since that address doesn’t get mail.
Now that I think of it, I am kind of surprised that this isn’t how it works by default for towns with no home mail service.
You could try this: go to the PO and fill out a change of address card. Put down your actual address, change it to the PO box. (I am assuming that your zip code, if you had one, would be the same as the one at the PO box).
If the PO won’t let you do this, ask if they have any ideas.
The card you speak of probably is not worth it, but this Patriot Act stuff may cause the same problem with other new cards.