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Discussion => Shipping => Topic started by: Bazmatic on February 19, 2012, 12:44 am

Title: A noobs experience with PO boxes - get some good advice from others' errors
Post by: Bazmatic on February 19, 2012, 12:44 am

So, I decided to place my first order on SR. I got a PO box (my wife wouldnt be very happy getting contraband in the mail) and its all good.
First thing i did was send a letter to my po box under a false name (for example John Smith) - the same name I intended to use for SR orders.
Sure enough, 2 days later, the test letter was there in my po box. I decided to go ahead and place the order under the same name to the same box. I actually placed 2 orders!!

2 days later (awesome vendors here on SR) I found a paper in my PO box stating that "All maill addressed to John Smith is held at another post office ( a bigger one I guess) and will be available for pick up with a valid ID. Mail received will be held until 2/29/2012 after which it will no longer be available."

needless to say Im not going anywhere need that other post office any time soon - but have been to my PO box with no problems to pick up some other legitimate mail.
Moral of the story is:
Dont use a PO box if you intend to use a different name.

If I was living alone I would address it to my house and address it to "Current Resident" - we get at least 10 of these a week from junk mailers.

my $.02





Title: Re: A noobs experience with PO boxes - get some good advice from others' errors
Post by: zerostate976 on February 19, 2012, 02:37 am
yeah its always best to use your name, especially with a p.o box.  the "current resident" would only work I think if the mail was coming from somewhere near by, i dont think a company in europe would be sending to current resident also if you get one, everyone on the mail route should be getting that same thing so be careful, the mail man might get suspicious.
Title: Re: A noobs experience with PO boxes - get some good advice from others' errors
Post by: Holly on February 19, 2012, 02:42 am

So, I decided to place my first order on SR. I got a PO box (my wife wouldnt be very happy getting contraband in the mail) and its all good.
First thing i did was send a letter to my po box under a false name (for example John Smith) - the same name I intended to use for SR orders.
Sure enough, 2 days later, the test letter was there in my po box. I decided to go ahead and place the order under the same name to the same box. I actually placed 2 orders!!

2 days later (awesome vendors here on SR) I found a paper in my PO box stating that "All maill addressed to John Smith is held at another post office ( a bigger one I guess) and will be available for pick up with a valid ID. Mail received will be held until 2/29/2012 after which it will no longer be available."

needless to say Im not going anywhere need that other post office any time soon - but have been to my PO box with no problems to pick up some other legitimate mail.
Moral of the story is:
Dont use a PO box if you intend to use a different name.

If I was living alone I would address it to my house and address it to "Current Resident" - we get at least 10 of these a week from junk mailers.

my $.02

You sent contraband while there was clearly advice that says NOT to use such a name?  Don't use that PO BOX for future orders .... think about it.  They have now drugs that were supposed to be sent to that box.
Title: Re: A noobs experience with PO boxes - get some good advice from others' errors
Post by: enddox on February 19, 2012, 04:43 am
You didn't mention your country so I can't comment specifically on your situation but my PO delivers ALL mail with the PO BOX number regardless of the name used. I've tried all sorts of shit and as long as the box number is correct they will deliver it. The only hiccup occurs when the package is too big to fit in the box then they will leave a little card requiring me to come inside and collect. If it was a fake name used I wouldn't be able to collect it but as long as small parcels and letters are coming in there are no problems.

As an aside there has been talk in other threads about using some sort of technology to track parcels outside of the postal system's own technology. If this was looked into further then we could track our own parcels and be alerted if they had been opened or redirected for some reason. It's a genius idea but probably a little ahead of its time in reality.
Title: Re: A noobs experience with PO boxes - get some good advice from others' errors
Post by: Lee Baby Sims on February 19, 2012, 05:35 am
Interesting. Maybe it makes a difference whether you're working with a post office in a rural vs. a more populated area. People in small towns are nosy and have too much time on their hands whereas in the city I would think there's far too much volume of mail coming in for the postal workers to care whether the name on the envelope is correct. Just speculation though.

I'm getting the key for my PO box Monday and looking to place my first order soon thereafter. Should I go with my real name then?
Title: Re: A noobs experience with PO boxes - get some good advice from others' errors
Post by: lonchainme on February 19, 2012, 06:33 am
I'm getting the key for my PO box Monday and looking to place my first order soon thereafter. Should I go with my real name then?

Been thinking of doing this...

A question-is there down-time between signing up for the PO box/showing the 2 forms of ID and getting access to the PO box?

And also another question, regarding the two forms of ID: is it requires that one's home address is identical on the two forms of ID?  For instance, if one presents a driver's license with one address, and a (more recent) lease with another address, is this accepted by the usps?
Title: Re: A noobs experience with PO boxes - get some good advice from others' errors
Post by: Bazmatic on February 19, 2012, 06:42 am


[/quote]

You sent contraband while there was clearly advice that says NOT to use such a name?  Don't use that PO BOX for future orders .... think about it.  They have now drugs that were supposed to be sent to that box.
[/quote]

Definitely not sending more drugs to that PO box again. but im in the clear cause the person supposedly getting the shipment is not there. I did not pursue picking up the package therefore the message here is that I am not that person. I am trying to get as much mail sent - in my name - to that PO box now to reinforce the fact that I am a legitimate user of that box. Not the other "dude" who thought it was funny to send contraband to my box.
Besides, both vendors I ordered from have, supposedly, great stealthy packaging so they dont know they have drugs. a couple of weeks and these letters are going back to sender, ie, going back to nowwhere and eventualy getting lost.

no harm. just a burnt PO box and a lesson learned.


Title: Re: A noobs experience with PO boxes - get some good advice from others' errors
Post by: Bazmatic on February 19, 2012, 06:46 am
I'm getting the key for my PO box Monday and looking to place my first order soon thereafter. Should I go with my real name then?

Been thinking of doing this...

A question-is there down-time between signing up for the PO box/showing the 2 forms of ID and getting access to the PO box?

And also another question, regarding the two forms of ID: is it requires that one's home address is identical on the two forms of ID?  For instance, if one presents a driver's license with one address, and a (more recent) lease with another address, is this accepted by the usps?



Yes, you get the key right away. and yes that ID combo will work. At least one ID must show current address as written in the application.

good luck and dont use a fake name!!
Title: Re: A noobs experience with PO boxes - get some good advice from others' errors
Post by: Danilo Blandon on February 20, 2012, 05:11 pm
There's an old adage that has served me very well and got me through some scrapes: "act innocent and be innocent." It's acting and it's easy. Acting is creating a true experience in an imaginary setting.

Set aside the idea that you are a depraved criminal ordering drugs under an alias. Let's just say you are an upstanding citizen. When you got that note, you would have gone to the counter and in a very straightforward and businesslike manner handed the slip to the clerk and said "I just rented this box and I guess Smith was the renter before me." You're not Smith so the slip isn't yours. Would an honest upstanding person screw Smith by just throwing the slip away? No, he'd get the Postal Service in the loop. It's mail, which is their gig, and it's a mailbox they're renting you.

Instead, they've been connecting your box number with this name Smith but it stops with you. No feedback from you. Silence.

I have rented a lot of P.O. Boxes over the years for all my mail, completely legitimate, and I will give you a pattern I have seen over and over: the "box clerk," the person in charge of those rental boxes, gets to know every name on every box. If you rent there long enough, he or she will get to know you personally because inevitably there will be times when you have to interact with him or her. The box clerk was the one who closed out the last renter and put the form up at the counter so the clerk there could rent it to you. The box clerk would have noticed that a new renter took a box. He or she would have noticed right away that you were getting mail addressed to Smith, but who's Smith? That wasn't the name on the last box. What's going on here?

Maybe he or she even waited to see your test envelopes come back through the "wrong boxholder" box in the lobby. She would remember, trust me. Over and over through the years I have been impressed with the diligence to duty and intelligence of box clerks. Sound funny? You're in no position to be laughing right now. Based on my >30 years renting P.O. boxes I think they specifically pick people for that job who are above average. I have been very impressed with some interactions I have had with P. O. box clerks. And I think they pick the dumbest ones to work the front counter.

You noticed that "wrong boxholder" box, right? Every Post Office has it. Cuz an honest citizen getting mail that's not theirs gives it back to the post office. But you didn't. It was your test mailings so you kept them and threw them away. If the post office has only a couple hundred boxes, the clerk's memory has room to remember them and may have expected to see those envelopes come back from you. Later, the inspectors asked her about Smith and Jones and she would say, "you know, funny you should ask, right after Jones rented it I started getting mail for Smith but I never saw those items come back for return."

Remember, every person who is going to get mail at that box must be signed up. You can't rent it then get mail for 10 people there. If you're Jones and you got Smith's mail, no other facts are needed: it's a red flag. It's not your mail! Maybe pale red at first but now you have attention on you. If they start looking further they won't stop until they bring it to a conclusion (good or bad) or drop it for other reasons.

2+2=4. You're Jones, rented a box, immediately started getting mail for Smith, someone the box clerk didn't recognize, didn't return that mail, then got drugs. You're Smith.

What's going on here is that maybe the Postal Inspection Service scoped one of those drug shipments and arranged for you to go to an office set up with video cameras to record you taking possession of drug shipments, had you been able to provide false ID. Instead you blew it off and did not speak to the clerks about the puzzling slip for mail addressed to someone you don't know. By simply acting like an innocent citizen and talking to a clerk within the reality of being a new box renter you could have made the fog go away.

They have nothing on you at this point but you are definitely on the radar. Walking away from that P.O. box is a minimum decision. Don't rent a P.O. box anywhere else anytime soon. Get your shit together. Make sure your car is legal (all lights and signals works, that kind of thing). Pay any tickets you have. You're not a dealer, that's what they're looking for now. After a while they will see you're not dealing so they will move on but until then you'd better not do anything else stupid and sketchy like the p. o. box caper.

One last thing. Several posters here, and many on SR, like to talk about how this or that is not a worry because the person is small time or it's a small amount or the cops have bigger fish to fry. It's saying "good enough." What's the risk? One thing leads to another, you get a bad break, a cop lies...you go to prison. For me, nothing is ever "good enough" to avoid that. Nothing is ever small time. Know everything about what you're doing and sweat every detail.
Title: Re: A noobs experience with PO boxes - get some good advice from others' errors
Post by: Bazmatic on February 21, 2012, 12:27 am
Great post Danilo.

Ive decided to stop using that po box for good - except for legitimate mail and lots of it!!

Thanks
Title: Re: A noobs experience with PO boxes - get some good advice from others' errors
Post by: ron1n on February 21, 2012, 12:39 am
I always always always use my real name.  Anyone can send you stuff in the mail, so just deny deny deny you ordered it.  And if LE wants to get you, a fake name won't stop them - they will just add mail fraud and a bunch of other things on there that will add more years to your potential sentence.
Title: Re: A noobs experience with PO boxes - get some good advice from others' errors
Post by: bizwax on February 21, 2012, 02:20 am
UPS actually sells mailboxes that come with a street address and act as regular mailboxes
Title: Re: A noobs experience with PO boxes - get some good advice from others' errors
Post by: NW Nugz on June 05, 2013, 10:28 am
... Definitely not sending more drugs to that PO box again. but im in the clear cause the person supposedly getting the shipment is not there. I did not pursue picking up the package therefore the message here is that I am not that person. I am trying to get as much mail sent - in my name - to that PO box now to reinforce the fact that I am a legitimate user of that box. Not the other "dude" who thought it was funny to send contraband to my box.
Besides, both vendors I ordered from have, supposedly, great stealthy packaging so they dont know they have drugs. a couple of weeks and these letters are going back to sender, ie, going back to nowwhere and eventualy getting lost.

no harm. just a burnt PO box and a lesson learned.

"no harm"? Your bad address blunder can be a real pain if not a danger for the vendors who shipped to you. If USPS does not notice a problem and open the packages that went to a false name..., they return to sender. You think they just disappear? They may go to a real address (which I believe is the recommended type of return address) and freak out that address holder who may then call the cops or if it was a fake return address, they probably open it ("to try to get it to the correct location") and call the cops. They reverse track it to the place it was mailed from and then the vendors have more heat on their shipping area/ style of packaging/ return address strategy/...
Return-to-sender is not "no harm done" in my book.
Title: Re: A noobs experience with PO boxes - get some good advice from others' errors
Post by: meatwad on June 05, 2013, 07:24 pm
Quote
Return-to-sender is not "no harm done" in my book.

I agree 100%.  You may not have done any damage to yourself, but you have possibly fucked those two particular vendors.