A US resident without a residence, where do I send my mail?
January 20, 2011 7:31 AM Subscribe
US resident currently working in the UK through April at least. Lease on US domicile runs out at the end of this month. What do I tell those US companies that require my address (e.g. banks, credit cards, student loans)?
I won't be able to go back to the US to get a PO Box or anything. Right now, I've set up mail forwarding to my US office address. Should I just change all my contact info to this office address for now? Is there any issue with billing/mailing addresses not being attached at all to a residence?
I won't be able to go back to the US to get a PO Box or anything. Right now, I've set up mail forwarding to my US office address. Should I just change all my contact info to this office address for now? Is there any issue with billing/mailing addresses not being attached at all to a residence?
If you want access to your mail, you can get an account with Earth Class Mail. They'll scan or forward your mail, and in my experience it works just fine as an address for credit cards and the like.
posted by cmonkey at 8:03 AM on January 20, 2011
posted by cmonkey at 8:03 AM on January 20, 2011
I used to use a service called "Paymybills.com". I set my billing address on all bills to some PO Box in Sioux Falls, SD, and they scanned and emailed the bills to me. No one cared that my billing address for my electric service, for example, was a state away from my house. I did have to make sure that everybody was informed of the service address, as various taxes and fees depended on that, but otherwise it wasn't an issue.
So, I would suppose you could set your billing address to your work address without issue.
posted by chazlarson at 8:33 AM on January 20, 2011
So, I would suppose you could set your billing address to your work address without issue.
posted by chazlarson at 8:33 AM on January 20, 2011
Don't you have friends or family who wouldn't mind receiving your mail in the US?
posted by halogen at 9:39 AM on January 20, 2011 [1 favorite]
posted by halogen at 9:39 AM on January 20, 2011 [1 favorite]
When I relocated from New York to the UK in the late 90's I used my employers address for personal mail.
This worked perfectly as a US address is much cheaper for many magazine subscriptions. It also kept me residing in the United States for the purposes of credit cards, or open loan facilities that wouldn't allow transfers to foreign addresses. They do care where you actually live as collection, should you default while living abroad, is difficult to the point of being impossible and a US credit rating - they're only really recourse in these situations - counts exactly squat in the UK. Many banks or financial institutions will terminate open credit lines and demand immediate payment if you move overseas.
My employer sent over interoffice mail two or three times a week, so I'd get my bills, etc only a few days later than if they had been sent to my address in Manhattan.
This would be cheaper than some of the services, but it would depend upon your employer if it would roughly the same speed, or much, much slower.
posted by Mutant at 9:56 AM on January 20, 2011
This worked perfectly as a US address is much cheaper for many magazine subscriptions. It also kept me residing in the United States for the purposes of credit cards, or open loan facilities that wouldn't allow transfers to foreign addresses. They do care where you actually live as collection, should you default while living abroad, is difficult to the point of being impossible and a US credit rating - they're only really recourse in these situations - counts exactly squat in the UK. Many banks or financial institutions will terminate open credit lines and demand immediate payment if you move overseas.
My employer sent over interoffice mail two or three times a week, so I'd get my bills, etc only a few days later than if they had been sent to my address in Manhattan.
This would be cheaper than some of the services, but it would depend upon your employer if it would roughly the same speed, or much, much slower.
posted by Mutant at 9:56 AM on January 20, 2011
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by brainmouse at 7:49 AM on January 20, 2011