For several years i have noticed more and more of my bills request that I remit the payment to a Post office Box in Phoenix, Arizona. The payments include local utilities, gasoline and mortgage payments.
Why is Phoenix so commonly used to receive bill payments? Thanks in advance for the answer.
We have a company in Tupelo, MS that does the billing for a number of utility companies. It seems reasonable that such a company would or could exist in Phoenix.
Just a WAG: A lot of big companies have a “lock-box” for the remittance address. That is, a “clearinghouse bank”–and agent who starts the transfer of money from your account to the billing company’s account as soon as they get your payment. For the billing company, they get the money a lot sooner. Probably, based on your address, they might have decided that the Phoenix “lock-box” (whatever the “real” name is) is the most expedient one for them to receive their money as soon as possible.
(I’m not a banking expert. This is information I have gleaned being peripherally involved in this sort of thing, though.)
Same reason most of my magazine renewals have to be mailed to Boulder, Colorado, and so many rebate forms go to Young America, Minnesota. There are companies there that handle this stuff on a contract basis.
The Boulder magazine address is for Centrobe, formerly Neodata, a clearinghouse & bulk mailer. I interviewed with them once.
They told me that they were responsible for 1% of the USPS mail in one way or another.
And about half of that is routed to their second location in Iowa.