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

[rtg]

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.

[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.

[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.)