OK, I admit it—I’m a cheapskate. Yeah, that’s right. I don’t want to pay any more than the minimum I can get away with. Especially since the post office boxes are so expensive to rent (you got to pay six months’ worth up front).
I don’t mind paying for the teenytiniest one, but of course nothing will fit inside there except letters. What if I need a package delivered?
Then I thought… If they’re trying to deliver a package to your home address, but you’re not home, sometimes they leave a chit for you to bring to the Post Office counter and the friendly, smiling postal clerk will cheerfully retrieve the package and hand it to you.
So maybe if a cheapskate rents the teeny tiny box, and a package comes, they’ll leave the chit in the box for you to reclaim the package at the counter … ?
Anything too large to fit in your post office box will be set aside behind the counter and a postcard will advise you that you have an oversize package behind the desk.
Most post offices have package boxes somewhere nearby the letter boxes. If you get a package, they leave a key to one of the package boxes in your P.O. Box. After you use the key to open it, the key is stuck in the lock, so you don’t have to return it. If they don’t have these (but they likely will,) then they will leave a slip of paper telling you to pick up your package at the counter.
You might want to ask the location you’re renting from, but this is generally how it works.
(I hope no one else posted the answer before this goes through. I’m having browser problems.)
OK, I have one more question that may be sort of related to the OP.
You know how, when ordering stuff, sometimes they tell you “Don’t give us a post office box address, give us a real address, or forget it”???
WHY?
Is it because they’re afraid the P.O. box renter won’t check the box often enough, and their merchandise will be sent back? I really don’t get what’s the hangup about not using P.O. box addresses. I mean, what could be a more secure place for delivery than the Post Office itself?
It’s because only the US Postal Service can deliver to post offices. If your mail order company doesn’t use USPS, it can’t deliver to PO boxes. FedEx, UPS, etc. absolutely, positively cannot deliver to US PO Boxes. If you’ll notice, they never, ever leave the package in, or attached to, the US Mail box at your house, either. And the USPS carrier will only leave your mail in, or attached to, your US Mail box.
It’s the law, Dude. Believe it or not, it’s even in the US Constitution. (Not currently in the mood to find it, though.)
Actually, the post office has worked out agreements with other carriers. Over the holidays I got a present delivered via Airborne Express to my PO box.
Part of the “don’t give us a PO Box” might be related to free or cheap merchandise, they don’t want you to get it at home and at the po box?
And yeah, if you don’t check often enough (you get a chit if it won’t fit in a package box) they will return it to sender.
My advice is find a private mailbox service, mom and pop kinda place, they’ll be cheaper possibly and allow more flexibility. THere were two options for me ( wanted to move a box closer to work since I’m moving soon ) and the mom and pop place was $15 a month, the ‘chain’ was $30? But the ‘chain’ gave me 24 hour access to my box (though if I had a package I had to go during working hours).
This is cheaper? Admittedly my last PO Box was waaaay back in 1996, but it was only $25 for the entire *yearp/i]. I can imagine that the prices have inflated by 12x. This was the USPS post office box, not one of those chains. And it had 24 hour access, unless the package-boxes were full or I had to sign for something.
Once UPS sent me a post card to my PO box saying that if I want to pick up my package at there place I have something like 5 days or else it goes back.
I use a Mailboxes Etc. box for my stuff, that way the address works just like a street address and I can get UPS, FedEx, etc. delivered right there, rather than having to get the packages sent to my house anyway. I think it’s about $20-30 a month, but I do have a larger box.
Depends on where you are Balth. Where I am, it was 80 bucks for 6 months at the post office. And I couldn’t get Fed Ex or UPS there (though like I said, I got Airborne). I just cancelled last week, I didn’t even open the bill, I just turned in the unopened bill and my key, having already set up the private service.
And to me, even if Im paying the same or a little more for the private service, it’s paid for itself the first time I don’t have to give out my home address and/or had a box rained on (which is quite frequent here … I don’t have a porch or nieghbors who are home all day).
When I had a post office box in Texas, it was at the main po, and we had 24 hour access. The last three post offices I’ve used in Florida did not have 24 access.
“The Congress shall have the Power To establish Post Offices and post Roads.” (Article 1, Section 8, The Constitution of the United States of America)
This has been interepreted (IIRC) to mean that only the US Post Office delivers the post. If someone has placed flyers in your mailbox, they owe the USPS postage for every flyer they have placed. They probably also can be charged fines for doing this.
Carriers like FedEx, UPS, Airborne, etc., deliver parcels or deliver overnight, airborne, and other special deliveries. Only the USPS can make regular, First Class, postal deliveries. Of course, USPS does compete with FedEx et al in the overnight, parcel, and other services, but that is not constitutionally mandated.
Yeah, the Congress set up the USPS to do the routes and things, and the reasons FEDEX and others cost more is because they need to respect the USPS’s monpoly, etc.
Also, a private box can be cheaper if htye let you go month to month.