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Ask HN: Have you tried a snail-mail-to-web (virtual mailbox) service?

5 points by rtg ↗ HN
Dear HN: I'm a hacker currently based in California. I'm looking to take on the on-the-road lifestyle -- travel to Asia, and hopefully try to support myself by building iPhone and Mac apps. I'd like to have a place to receive occasional snail mail while on the road.

Googling a bit reveals some services that will accept your mail via their PO Box, and show scans online, for something like $20 per month. Examples of companies I found are Virtual Post Mail and Earth Class Mail. Unfortunately, it's incredibly hard to tell if they are in fact legitimate or trustworthy. If you have actually tried one, I would highly appreciate your feedback of how it went!

Thanks.

2 comments

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jaredhansen
I used Earth Class Mail for a year or so, a few years back. It worked great and I had no complaints. It's a legit business, though I cant' say with certainty that they weren't stealing all my secrets or anything. (Though if they did, they never did anything malicious with the information, because nothing bad happened.)
hannibalhorn
I've been living overseas for 5 years, and have used both as my primary snail mail service. Both are completely legitimate and trustworthy, I wouldn't worry about that at all. Even my new credit cards and subsequent PIN mailings have gone through these services without any problems (though the separate PIN mailing is a dated concept, obviously!)

I switched from ECM to Virtual Post Mail about a year ago after a big price increase that angered a lot of long time users, and couldn't be happier. In part, ECM has changed business strategies - they're targeting entire postal systems (they have Switzerland, for example), not just average people.

ECM has (or at least had) a slightly clunk interface implemented in PHP, while VPM has an slicker, faster interface written with Google Web Toolkit. I'm even thrilled with their customer service.