On the whole, the service is brilliant, and exactly what USPS should have become in the mid-90s. Mail is auto-scanned and delivered as a pdf attachment to my email. When I need something physically forwarded to me, the prices are only a small markup from what it costs to mail the package, and it's mailed promptly. On the whole, it's awesome, and I'm very happy to be a customer.
I'll give you my two big complaints:
1) The time delay. My Traveling Mailbox address is in the western half of the US. Mail has to be delivered to that address, then shipped cross country to North Carolina where their headquarters and mail scanner is. You can count on an additional 3 to 14 days after USPS thinks the mail has been delivered before a scan of it shows up in my email inbox. A couple years ago, this was much worse and less consistent; occasionally letters were 3 weeks late. However in the past 2 years or so, I've noticed the time delay has been much more consistent, centering around 3-5 business days. They maintain addresses all over the country, and there's probably only the scale and margin to maintain one scanning facility, so I don't know what TM could realistically do to address this problem. If I didn't need an address where I have it, I would have already moved my address to Sanford, NC, where their headquarters is.
2) Some banks don't like the address. Due to KYC laws, banks and financial institutions need a residential address for their clients. I'm homeless and don't have such an address, so this is difficult for me. Traveling Mailbox is nice in that they give you a street address, not a P.O. Box. To a casual glance, it looks like a normal street address, but if one researches the address online, one will find that it's a business. When I changed my address over to use my TM address as my home address, about half the financial institutions I worked with rejected the address as not being my residence and said they couldn't do business with me anymore. Some asked for a driver's license as proof of the address. I said no problem and faxed my driver's license (which has my TM address), but the institutions still closed my account without further explanation. I'm still a little salty about the hubris of the politicians who enacted the KYC laws, assuming that everybody conforms and has a permanent residential address.
I almost forgot the best part of it: I don't receive any mass mailings. Couple that with opting out of unsolicited mailings and calling all my banks and opting out of their "special offers", I get almost no unwanted mail.
I'll give you my two big complaints:
1) The time delay. My Traveling Mailbox address is in the western half of the US. Mail has to be delivered to that address, then shipped cross country to North Carolina where their headquarters and mail scanner is. You can count on an additional 3 to 14 days after USPS thinks the mail has been delivered before a scan of it shows up in my email inbox. A couple years ago, this was much worse and less consistent; occasionally letters were 3 weeks late. However in the past 2 years or so, I've noticed the time delay has been much more consistent, centering around 3-5 business days. They maintain addresses all over the country, and there's probably only the scale and margin to maintain one scanning facility, so I don't know what TM could realistically do to address this problem. If I didn't need an address where I have it, I would have already moved my address to Sanford, NC, where their headquarters is.
2) Some banks don't like the address. Due to KYC laws, banks and financial institutions need a residential address for their clients. I'm homeless and don't have such an address, so this is difficult for me. Traveling Mailbox is nice in that they give you a street address, not a P.O. Box. To a casual glance, it looks like a normal street address, but if one researches the address online, one will find that it's a business. When I changed my address over to use my TM address as my home address, about half the financial institutions I worked with rejected the address as not being my residence and said they couldn't do business with me anymore. Some asked for a driver's license as proof of the address. I said no problem and faxed my driver's license (which has my TM address), but the institutions still closed my account without further explanation. I'm still a little salty about the hubris of the politicians who enacted the KYC laws, assuming that everybody conforms and has a permanent residential address.