# Yet Another Gripe About Merchants and Addressing
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yet-another-gripe-about-merchants-and-addressing/392128
**Category:** The BBQ Pit
**Created:** [February 14, 2007, 1:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yet-another-gripe-about-merchants-and-addressing/392128 "2007-02-14T01:39:59Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)
#### Post date: [February 14, 2007, 1:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yet-another-gripe-about-merchants-and-addressing/392128/1 "2007-02-14T01:39:59Z")
Why, oh why can’t people catch up at least to the 1970s? I griped in another Pit thread about it before. But this latest bit just takes the cake.
For the last two years, I’ve been accessing my credit union account online and for the same two years, the account information has had my military mailing address, an APO address listed. No problem.
Well, no problem until last night when I went to check the account. No access. So, this morning I came to work a bit early and called the credit union’s help line. Here’s what they told me:
> [@](#):
>
> Well, your address is a foreign address and that’s why you can’t access it.
Excuse me? A United States address is now a foreign address? Well, the lady on the phone was nice and when I insisted that my US mailing address is, in fact, a US mailing address, she said that the new folks running the web page consider the APO and FPO addresses as foreign.
I politely reminded her that the USPS created those APO and FPO addresses approximately THIRTY years ago for the specific purpose of providing our military folks with US, i.e. not foreign, mailing addresses.
She said there’s nothing she could do and suggested I write to the credit union president. I did that this morning. I tell you, I might as well be living in New Mexico!
Seriously, what’s the deal with people being hired to do a job not doing the necessary research for that job? It’s not all that hard to go to the USPS website and check out what the states and territories are.
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### Author:  [@Frank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frank)
#### Post date: [February 14, 2007, 3:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yet-another-gripe-about-merchants-and-addressing/392128/2 "2007-02-14T03:36:04Z")
[QUOTE=Monty]
I tell you, I might as well be living in New Mexico!
[/QUOTE]
New Mexico, is, of course, the only state that feels it necessary to put USA on their license plates. Perhaps, APO and FPO should add USA?
Attempted humor aside, the new folks running the web site, are, of course, idiots. They simply did not include the APO/FPO state fields in the coding.
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### Author:  [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)
#### Post date: [February 14, 2007, 6:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yet-another-gripe-about-merchants-and-addressing/392128/3 "2007-02-14T06:31:25Z")
Yeah, and I’m now wondering if they’re considering Guam or Puerto Rico to be foreign addresses.
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### Author:  [@clayton\_e](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clayton_e)
#### Post date: [February 14, 2007, 6:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yet-another-gripe-about-merchants-and-addressing/392128/4 "2007-02-14T06:38:27Z")
I think its UPS’s website… though I’m not sure, that will not let you ship to an address that it can’t account for as existing (or being VERY possible) according to its oh so smart AI and database search.
I helped at a business that shipped _a lot_ of packages to home addresses and _a lot_ to small businesses. Sometimes these addresses might not be obvious to a computer system (especially with the business names and apartments and whatever else).
Yes, I know you don’t want boxes randomly bouncing around unaccounted for.
Send them back if the guy in the truck who knows all the roads and houses in the area doesn’t say “oh yeah, that’s obviously this apartment, or a misspelling of this street.” or whatever.
There will be glitches in your nationwide address database. Let me send the package.
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### Author:  [@TheLoadedDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TheLoadedDog)
#### Post date: [February 14, 2007, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yet-another-gripe-about-merchants-and-addressing/392128/5 "2007-02-14T16:09:06Z")
I think the glitch isn’t with the website.
If my Australian postal experience can translate to the American one, most military addresses are treated as foreign. This is for the logical (when you stop to think about it) reason that military personnel could be anywhere in the world either overtly or covertly, and the post office staff are civilians with no clearance, so we don’t need to know about it - but we still need to get mail to you. We send most military mail to the “To Overseas” facilities in the capital cities, and there they are handed over to the military. The military then delivers them itself (with as much or as little cloak and dagger TOP SEKRIT NO FAT CHICKS stuff as it sees fit).
Sounds like somebody’s screwed up rather than a faulty database. But don’t be surprised if the USPS treats your address as foreign. They don’t mean to offend. 😃
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### Author:  [@Siege](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siege)
#### Post date: [February 14, 2007, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yet-another-gripe-about-merchants-and-addressing/392128/6 "2007-02-14T17:11:50Z")
**Monty** , I work for a bulk mailer. I feel your pain, and, brother, you haven’t seen anything yet!!!
Most of our customers don’t include a country field when they send us address lists with foreign addresses. My geography’s pretty good, but I still spend a fair amount of time plugging cities into Google and finding out where they are. Anyone have any idea where Kikuyu is? Then there are the companies who give us a country field, but fill in USA for all of them, including the Canadian ones.
By the way, as far as the US Postals Service is concerned, APO and FPO are perfectly legitimate US addresses. They even have ZIP codes.
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### Author:  [@WhyNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WhyNot)
#### Post date: [February 14, 2007, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yet-another-gripe-about-merchants-and-addressing/392128/7 "2007-02-14T17:22:13Z")
[QUOTE=clayton\_e]
Send them back if the guy in the truck who knows all the roads and houses in the area doesn’t say “oh yeah, that’s obviously this apartment, or a misspelling of this street.” or whatever.
[/QUOTE]
Those guys are freaking amazing sometimes! I had a packed delivered from Macy\*s just three days after ordering. The package was addressed to:
WhyNot WrongSpelling
1234 Misspelled Street
Wrong City, IL, Wrong ZIP
I mean, hello? The ONLY things that were correct on the package were my (fairly common) first name and my building number. I have no idea how he puzzled it out, and it didn’t even take any longer to get here than it would have if addressed properly. He’s _so_ getting cookies next Christmas.
Then again, I also received plane tickets seven years after my flight departed, so I guess maybe karma just balanced itself out.
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### Author:  [@Contrapuntal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Contrapuntal)
#### Post date: [February 14, 2007, 10:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yet-another-gripe-about-merchants-and-addressing/392128/8 "2007-02-14T22:32:15Z")
[QUOTE=WhyNot]
Then again, I also received plane tickets seven years after my flight departed, so I guess maybe karma just balanced itself out.
[/QUOTE]
Were they round trip? Could you use them?
Or maybe just goof with the ticket agent? “What? It’s 2007? Is Gore still President?”
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### Author:  [@Canadjun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Canadjun)
#### Post date: [February 14, 2007, 11:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yet-another-gripe-about-merchants-and-addressing/392128/9 "2007-02-14T23:04:55Z")
[QUOTE=Siege]
Most of our customers don’t include a country field when they send us address lists with foreign addresses. My geography’s pretty good, but I still spend a fair amount of time plugging cities into Google and finding out where they are.
[/QUOTE]
That could be interesting - There’s a London in England and in Canada, a Paris in France and in Canada, a Sydney in Australia and in Canada. Those examples would be obvious as soon as a province or postal code was mentioned, but I wonder how many of your parcels end up a few thousand miles from their intended destination due to other twin cities? (no criticism implied - it’s just amusing to picture).
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### Author:  [@matt\_mcl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/matt_mcl)
#### Post date: [February 14, 2007, 11:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yet-another-gripe-about-merchants-and-addressing/392128/10 "2007-02-14T23:48:13Z")
[QUOTE=Canadjun]
That could be interesting - There’s a London in England and in Canada, a Paris in France and in Canada, a Sydney in Australia and in Canada. Those examples would be obvious as soon as a province or postal code was mentioned, but I wonder how many of your parcels end up a few thousand miles from their intended destination due to other twin cities? (no criticism implied - it’s just amusing to picture).
[/QUOTE]
To make matters worse, one is Sydney NSW and the other is Sydney NS. I’m told that the Sydney post offices have special stamps saying NOT SYDNEY NEW SOUTH WALES and NOT SYDNEY NOVA SCOTIA, for exactly that reason.
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### Author:  [@Rysto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rysto)
#### Post date: [February 15, 2007, 12:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yet-another-gripe-about-merchants-and-addressing/392128/11 "2007-02-15T00:05:10Z")
Reminds me of the American couple who got a **great** deal on a pair of airline tickets to Sydney. :smack:
There’s also Ottawa, Canada and Ottawa, Kansas. I remember reading a story about a rather irate Canadian who was taken to Kansas by Greyhound.
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### Author:  [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)
#### Post date: [February 15, 2007, 12:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yet-another-gripe-about-merchants-and-addressing/392128/12 "2007-02-15T00:46:50Z")
The thing is that prior to the late 1970s, the APO and FPO addresses were treated as the Street field in the US mailing address. They used to have San Francisco, Miami, or New York in the City field and the appropriate state in the State field. That caused a lot of stuff ordered via catalogs to get taxed for sales. The military member would have to file some ridiculous amount of paperwork to get the sales tax back at the end of each year. So, the USPS came up with the idea of treating the military postal unit as the street, APO or FPO as the city, and the approrpiate area (AA/AE/AP/etc.) as the state. The ZIP codes didn’t change.
Nope, the glitch isn’t with the website. It’s with the moron who didn’t do his homework when he got hired to rebuild the website. Reminds me of that episode where Archie Bunker didn’t get his Christmas bonus because he sent something to London in England instead of London in Canada.
Anyway, here are my e-mail and the nifty response I just got from my credit union’s bill payment manager (go figure, I guess they think they need to fix this if they want me to pay online!):
> [@](#):
>
> To:
> President
> XXXXX Credit Union
>
> Dear Madam,
>
> Recently, I attempted to access my XXXXX Credit Union account online. The webpage would not allow me to access the account. This was a surprise to me as for the last two years, I have had no problem accessing the account. This morning, I called the telephone assistance line and was informed that the reason I could not access this account is because my address is considered by XXXXX Credit Union to be a foreign address.
>
> Approximately thirty years ago, the United States Postal Service established the APO (Army Post Office) and FPO (Fleet Post Office) addresses to serve our military personnel who are stationed throughout the world, to include deployable units home-based in the geographic area of the United States. These addresses are not foreign addresses. They are United States mailing addresses and mail addressed to them is charged domestic postage rates, not international rates. “APO” or “FPO” is considered to be the city and “AP” or “AE” (to name just two) is considered to be the state for mailing purposes.
>
> Treating a US military mailing address, which the United States Postal Service specifically established quite some time ago, as a foreign address is reminiscent of the confusion some people and companies have had, to the amusement of others, over addresses in New Mexico. The United States Postal Service’s website has information regarding not only the APO/FPO addresses, but also the New Mexico addresses. One can readily see, by accessing the postal site, that these addresses are not foreign addresses. They are United States mailing addresses.
>
> Although I am land-based, there are Californians who are serving aboard ships homeported in the United States and their addresses will be the ship’s military FPO address. This policy the Credit Union has of treating military addresses as foreign addresses denies military personnel the full use of the Credit Union’s services. I have appreciated my association with XXXXX and wish to continue that association. Please address these concerns with the personnel who develop and maintain XXXXX’s website.
>
> Sincerely,
> /s/
> Monty
> Petty Officer First Class, US Navy (Retired)
> [@](#):
>
> Dear Monty,
>
> I have forwarded this email on to the E commerce VP. I just wanted to let you know that we are working on resolving this issue. We realize that many of our members are over seas and intend to allow them to view their accounts online. Hopefully we will have the issue resolved within the next few days. I sincerely apologize for any inconvenience this issue has caused you.
>
> Sincerely,
>
> Lady in Charge’s Name
> Bill Payment Specialist
> E-Commerce Department
> The XXXXX Credit Union
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### Author:  [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)
#### Post date: [February 15, 2007, 12:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yet-another-gripe-about-merchants-and-addressing/392128/13 "2007-02-15T00:49:17Z")
[QUOTE=Rysto]
There’s also Ottawa, Canada and Ottawa, Kansas. I remember reading a story about a rather irate Canadian who was taken to Kansas by Greyhound.
[/QUOTE]
Could’ve been worse, **Rysto**. Poor Canadian might’ve ended up down by Disneyland if he’d taken a trip to Ontario (Ontario, California).
Seriously, though, this all serves to show us that too many workers/businesses/etc. are content with slapped together work.
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### Author:  [@TheLoadedDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TheLoadedDog)
#### Post date: [February 15, 2007, 1:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yet-another-gripe-about-merchants-and-addressing/392128/14 "2007-02-15T01:42:57Z")
[QUOTE=matt\_mcl]
To make matters worse, one is Sydney NSW and the other is Sydney NS. I’m told that the Sydney post offices have special stamps saying NOT SYDNEY NEW SOUTH WALES and NOT SYDNEY NOVA SCOTIA, for exactly that reason.
[/QUOTE]
We sure do. We don’t mind though - ht makes a change from the stuff for Austria. 😃 In any event, **Matt** , spare a thought for the honest burghers of Sidney, Ohio (it’s not even the same spelling). I’ve received letters for them absolutely plastered with Canadian and Australian “NOT” stamps. They’d been in the system for months. 😃
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### Author:  [@TheLoadedDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TheLoadedDog)
#### Post date: [February 15, 2007, 1:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yet-another-gripe-about-merchants-and-addressing/392128/15 "2007-02-15T01:50:30Z")
Oh yeah, one more for you Canucks…
TORONTO NSW 2283
(It’s a couple of hours drive north of Sydney. I’m lead to believe it’s _slightly_ smaller than its namesake)
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### Author:  [@matt\_mcl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/matt_mcl)
#### Post date: [February 15, 2007, 7:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yet-another-gripe-about-merchants-and-addressing/392128/16 "2007-02-15T07:20:43Z")
I’ve told this before, but once I had to deal with a company that would not accept Canadian addresses in its web forms even though it claimed to ship to Canada. Usually I’d say fuck them, but in this case it was a groovy lesbian publishing house and I really wanted my _Dykes To Watch Out For_ book, so I fired off an e-mail. I received an sheepish e-mail letting me know that my order had been processed successfully and the webform corrected.
The kicker? Apparently their web dude lives in Windsor, ON.
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### Author:  [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)
#### Post date: [February 15, 2007, 12:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yet-another-gripe-about-merchants-and-addressing/392128/17 "2007-02-15T12:19:30Z")
Well, the credit union’s fixed the problem and in one day. For some odd reason, the web designer they’ve hired has decided to have the customer enter the logon ID on one page and then the password on the next page. Kind of pointless, IMHO.
I wonder what the discussion management had with them was like?
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### Author:  [@FatBaldGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FatBaldGuy)
#### Post date: [February 15, 2007, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yet-another-gripe-about-merchants-and-addressing/392128/18 "2007-02-15T15:22:57Z")
[QUOTE=Monty]
Well, the credit union’s fixed the problem and in one day. For some odd reason, the web designer they’ve hired has decided to have the customer enter the logon ID on one page and then the password on the next page. Kind of pointless, IMHO.
I wonder what the discussion management had with them was like?
[/QUOTE]
My bank has done this, too. You enter your login ID, then it takes you to a second page for the password. To me, this makes it less secure, because if a hacker gets to the second page, he knows he has a valid user ID, and now just has to hack the password. If you have to enter both at the same time and then submit, you don’t know if one or the other is valid or not.
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### Author:  [@Canadjun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Canadjun)
#### Post date: [February 15, 2007, 4:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yet-another-gripe-about-merchants-and-addressing/392128/19 "2007-02-15T16:14:55Z")
Do you have any anti-phishing stuff on the second page, like displaying something only the client knows? ING Direct Canada used to ask for the ID and password on one page, but now they ask for the ID and then display a user-chosen picture and phrase on a second page along with a password prompt.
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### Author:  [@FatBaldGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FatBaldGuy)
#### Post date: [February 15, 2007, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yet-another-gripe-about-merchants-and-addressing/392128/20 "2007-02-15T16:22:10Z")
[QUOTE=Canadjun]
Do you have any anti-phishing stuff on the second page, like displaying something only the client knows? ING Direct Canada used to ask for the ID and password on one page, but now they ask for the ID and then display a user-chosen picture and phrase on a second page along with a password prompt.
[/QUOTE]
Sounds exactly like the same software my bank uses. I still don’t think it’s as secure.
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