Good point.
The ONLY advantage I’ve ever seen for a POB instead of a MailBoxEtc was the lower price of a POB. I’ve never priced either, so that’s hearsay to me.
If you read the book I mentioned before, the author is a privacy coach. Part of his privacy scheme is to never, ever, tell anyone where you live, based on the theory that if no one knows where you live, no one can break into your house, stalk you, investigate you, etc. The logic behind it makes sense, but takes a while to explain, and the lifestyle is only really useful if you have or may acquire someone you should be hiding from.
That logic does seem pretty paranoid to me, but I can understand that it may be useful if you’re at risk for being stalked.
I myself have had to use a Mailboxes Etc. box; my mail was not being delivered and I lost utility service as a result. So I bitched to the postal service, who fired the mail carrier, and I got a private mailbox around the corner from where I worked. It was convenient to walk over on my lunchbreak and get the mail, and I liked knowing that I’d get my bills and magazines on time.
Robin
There was an effort by the USPS about 5 years ago to make that illegal. They changed the addressing standards such that users of private-company boxes were required to use an address like:
John Q. Smith
PMB 456
123 Main St.
Anytown, PA 17000
where “PMB” stood for Private Mail Box. Using an address that looked like a suite number was prohibited, as was using the term "PO Box " or just “Box” unless it was an official USPS box. The USPS issued regulations sayihng they’d stop delivering mail that was not adressed per the new standard.
The goal was supposedly to reduce fraud, particlularly outfits running boxes out of prestigious-sounding addresses.
The private mail box industry raised an uproar, and the public simply refused to comply (or never even heard about it). The USPS was forced to retreat.
Now, the PMB designator is still part of the official “right way” to address mail. But the USPS gave up on coercion and will still deliver your mail to the appropriate storefront mailbox outfit even if you use suite-style addressing or PO Box-style addressing.
Here’s a good summary of the brouhaha during the decision-making process leading up to the implementation of mandatory PMB: PostGrid - Offline Communication Platform & API - PostGrid™ - US & International - Post Grid
And here’s the USPS addressign standards today, which still include the optional use of PMB FileNotFound | Postal Explorer
Same here. On top of that when a company ships FedX or UPS, I have them take it to where I work because even if they could find my house, there is too great a risk of them getting stuck about 6 months out of the year.
Another reason: my local post office (according to my postal-worker husband) has no open PO boxes for rent - they’re all currently in use. If it’s a choice between renting a box at a neighboring town’s post office or going to a closer Mailboxes, Etc. store, they might choose the latter.
People on some college campuses have difficulties regarding PO Boxes and such. Students in dorms may only have PO Boxes for addresses. At the last place I worked, all faculty and staff had only PO Boxes for addresses, etc.
At many colleges, buildings don’t have actual street addresses. Lots of problems there.
Anecdote: I went a month without phone service after moving into a new building once. I would go into the Dept. exec’s office regularly to complain, he would call the phone company, they would ask for a street address, he would tell them there isn’t one. He could tell them building name and street, but no street number. They would insist on one. He would end up yelling at them (he was that kind of guy) and tell them to make one up.
In short, some people think everyone has a street address. Reality says otherwise.
We had a UPS truck stuck in our driveway for a few hours last winter.
It seems a lot of urban folks don’t realize that places like this still exist. UPS comes out to the house every other day–even for “next day delivery” packages. Airborne Express doesn’t even come here. They deliver to the post office in the nearest big town instead, and pay the U.S. mail to bring it the last 50 miles.
I work for small County Government. One of my departments jobs is to assign addresses. It can be quite a pain. At one point, long ago, the county allowed a major developement to assign their own addresses. And they majorly screwed it up. They assigned every unit in a building a street adress, instead of a building and unit number. And, they increased the addresses 10 fold for every floor. 1st floor is in the 9000’s. Second floor in the 90000’s. Third floor, yep, 900000’s. It’s insane.
The power company and phone company insist on having an address. Even for stop lights. For stuff like that, we will assign something that makes sence, but rarely track it.
We have to have a post office box where we live. We live in a small town and our neighborhood is within walking distance of the post office. It’s not on the main road, so they will not deliver to our house.
Because of this, our post office box is free. I discussed this with the postmaster when we first moved here, and she was able to confirm with some PO regulation that we are entitled to a free box.
The USPS will not accept packages addresses to a P.O. Box without payment of postal fees. Capisci?
LSLGuy, I had my mailbox in 2001 and the sheet the guy gave me with the address and rental agreement told me to use the format I described in my previous post.
There are, of course, legitimate reasons to use a private mailbox for business. My mother and brother have both used them because they worked out of their respective houses and didn’t want their clients to have their residential addresses. I’ve also worked for small businesses located in one part of town that wanted addresses in another part of town for image reasons.
Robin
IIRC, Carmel-by-the-Sea, California, has a good portion of the city which does not actually have street addresses. All the people who live in that area of the city have to get their mail at their PO box.
South Lake Tahoe, too, does not deliver, because of the difficulty of doing so in the winter months. You go and get it from one of several sub-stations of the USPS.
Or, at least you did in the early 80’s when I lived in that neck of the woods.
I had a box at a Mail Boxes Etc. and it turned out to be a big mistake. I originally rented it because there were no boxes available at my local USPS. I had just renewed my rental, to the tune of a couple hundred bucks, and a month or so later I went to get my mail and the place was padlocked, out of business. USPS will NOT forward mail from one of those mail drop places and I had a devil of a time getting things straightened out. I live alone, my business took me on the road for several weeks at a clip and I frequently had sizable checks coming in, it was a mess.
They built a bigger post office near me and I now have a USPS P.O. Box, never again would I use one of those drop boxes.
It’s true that many addresses in Carmel do not have numbers. But the mail carrier will still deliver. People use addresses like:
John Doe
Easy Street
3rd house N. from So-and-so St.
Carmel, Ca
5555555
Or yellow house, whatever. Of course this was unnecessary since the carriers knew everyone in town (pop. 4000). Still some of these people do use them for that reason.
I would think that a lot of them are used as status. When I lived I Monterey with my (then) girlfriend, she kept one for that reason.
They are also very hard to get there. Not many, s-l-o-w turnover.
I recall not that long ago a rather big furor in Carmel over mail delivery in the “historic” (no addresses) part of town. There was, at that time (1990s), no mail delivery in that district but some residents wanted to have it.
The descriptive address you’ve mentioned above was used for government forms, such as registering to vote.
I didn’t mean to suggest that all PMB users are crooks. I’ve had one myself for years for just the reasons you describe.
I also agree with you that it was completely legit in 2001, and it is completely legit today, to address mail as you suggested.
I was merely explaining some history that was relevant to the OP’s question about various classes of addresses & the perceived reliablity of them. There WAS an effort by USPS to require “full disclosure” that an address at a mailbox store was just that. That effort ended in failure some time in 2000.
I know. I’m just saying, that’s all.
Robin
Refering back to the OP…
I don’t know about anyone else, but I always felt a little leary about PO boxes because I used to see ads for cheap and suspicious items and services advertised in the backs of magazines and on late night TV. A lot of the ads just looked like “fly-by-night” operations and usually had PO boxes for an address. I got the impression that the businesses didn’t have a “real” address of operation and used the PO box to make them harder to locate in case there was any “problem” with the products you ordered.
As far as using modern mail-drops are concerned, I use an box at a UPS Store (formerly Mailboxes, Etc) for my business, and I love it. I work out of a shop at my house and have a lot of sometimes large and heavy packages going in and out. A UPS truck cannot get up my driveway (without me cutting down a lot of trees and limbs, which I will not do) and I cannot tell when the UPS man or postman comes up my drive when working in my shop. Having everything delivered to the UPS Store (only 1 mile away) is much better.
I get my mail there, all sorts of packages, can even have a 800lb pallet delivered there. I drop off my UPS going out and pick up whatever has come in. The street address is actually the number for the whole strip mall the store is located in. My address also has a “Suite” number which designates delivery to the UPS Store and then to my personal box. To my customers it appears that I have a business located in a office or business complex and I don’t have to worry about deliverys to my house.
I stand corrected. I was thinking of shut-ins.
From the ‘Carmel By-The-Sea’ California - Official City Website
“MAIL: There is only limited home mail delivery to those who request it. Mostly, mail is picked up at the Carmel-by-the-Sea branch of the U.S. Post Office on 5th Avenue between Dolores and San Carlos Streets. This longtime custom generates a flow of pedestrian traffic to the Post Office and has created the tradition of regularly meeting one’s neighbors in town.
Further information: Post Office 831-624-1525”
And a description of address description:
“ADDRESSES: Part of the quaintness of Carmel-by-the-Sea is that there are no street addresses. Properties are identified as, for example, “west side of San Antonio Street, three houses south of 12th Avenue.” In addition, Carmel cottages often are given names such as “Tinker Bell” and “The Doll House.”
Further information: City Hall 831-620-2000”