USPS Post Office Boxes now have street addresses and why you should get one

Introduction

A buddy let me know last week that USPS PO boxes now have street addresses.  Why is this important?  Well, I wrote about it once before, but now I think it’s even more imperative and I’ll tell you why in a bit.  By the way, I just realize this is OLD news since commenter anthonyjh21 told me about this 6 months ago.  My weak defense for not doing this earlier is because at the time, I was into reselling but now that I’ve moved back into heavy MS, I realized the other huge benefit – business billing addresses.  First let’s talk about how to get one.

 

How to get a USPS PO Box

uspspobox

The forms you need to get one are here.  Prices will vary based on where you live, but you want to sign up for the annual box since that’s cheaper than the 3 month or 6 month plan.  I wanted to get the smallest box 1, but there was a waiting list at my location, so I went ahead and got box 2.  I think it came out to be about $12 a month when you prepay a full year.  The process took about 15 minutes.  Make sure you bring a 2nd form of ID that is stated on the form.  If an item is too big for the PO Box, they’ll leave a note and you can pick up the item at the clerk for free (some mailboxes will charge for this.)  Some USPS locations will have small storage lockers so if a package is too big, they may leave it in there instead of holding it behind the desk (time saver.)

Someone else mentioned that they also forward mail from the PO box to their home address.  I haven’t done this yet since I’m fine with picking up my mail at USPS.  When signing up, you can also sign up for alerts on when you get mail, and you can also sign up for signature delivery dropoffs (so you don’t have to wait at the clerk.)

 

AMEX Business Billing Addresses

I’m sure there are others that know more than me about this topic, so just bear with me.  You should all know why business cards are awesome – their balances aren’t reported to your credit reports (except for Capital One.)  Another additional benefit is that the business billing addresses aren’t reported to your credit reports either.  This is important because I once changed my Cap1 address to a buddy’s address in NY so I could try to sign up for one of those prepaid cards, and now that address is on my CR (to add insult to injury, I was still denied for the card.)

 

How to add a billing address

In the screenshot below, go to Account Services and you’ll see the ‘business address’ field.’  Click EDIT next to it and add your USPS street address.  And that’s it!

uspspoboxamex

 

So why do all this?

Well if you are unfortunate enough to not get any Giftcardmall orders to go through, you can try this to see if you can get an order to go through.  Or let’s say a certain web site has a daily limit per address/card, well now you can scale up.  Or maybe you’ve been banned from a retailer; this is your way of starting fresh.  Those are just some of the reasons; I’m sure there are more.

 

Conclusion

I’ve only done the above for a month now, and I can tell you that my AMEX business card paper statements are sent to the PO Box.  I haven’t tried this with other banks, so YMMV.

14 comments on “USPS Post Office Boxes now have street addresses and why you should get one

  1. So, how do you find out the street address of your po box? Will UPS and Fedex deliver to your po box with that street address?

  2. For your Amex business address, do you use the street address + last 4 digits or full 6 digits of the PO box #? I notice that if you put all 6 then it sets off an error message: “This address must be populated with a street address for the business, a Mail Servicing Center cannot be used.”

    It works fine if I only add the last 4 but my local PO says that they will return to sender if it doesn’t follow the format of: 123 Street Name #123456

    1. I didn’t have this issue. First line was 123 Street name. Second line was 123456 w/o the pound sign.

      Maybe AMEX has flagged your unique PO mailing address as a PO box.

    1. I’m pretty sure Amex would validate your SSN and approve or deny based on that rather then the mailing address. Just as in reverse different family members or roommates can get their own prepaid Amex card despite having the same address.

  3. My local post office advertised physical addresses several years ago, and it worked. I could use a physical address something like
    My Company
    123 Main St., Suite 456 #159999
    New York, NY 10015

    (In this example, the post office is in a shopping center as store #456, and my post office box is 159999.)

    But you have to keep track of it…recently I noticed that all mail to the address was now being returned to sender.

    1. Well that’s not good Miles. Have you asked the local PO why it’s not being delivered correctly?

      1. Because you are not allowed to send mail to the post office address, you dope. You have to use your PO box number.

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