Mail services?

[Iggysmom]

We are recently retired and wanting to travel more, and wondering how to handle mail while out of town, particularly rent checks and other important items (we are landlords). I've heard of virtual mailboxes and other mail services and am wondering if anyone here has experience with them. Two of my concerns are whether scanned checks can be easily deposited and whether, in the case of handwriting issues, a previously scanned check can be safely forwarded so that we can deposit the actual check. Other concerns include identity theft and cost of the service.

 

[brett]

We certainly have no problem scanning cheques for deposit.

We have been doing it for several years with no issue whatsoever.

 

[rk911]

We are recently retired and wanting to travel more, and wondering how to handle mail while out of town, particularly rent checks and other important items (we are landlords). I've heard of virtual mailboxes and other mail services and am wondering if anyone here has experience with them. Two of my concerns are whether scanned checks can be easily deposited and whether, in the case of handwriting issues, a previously scanned check can be safely forwarded so that we can deposit the actual check. Other concerns include identity theft and cost of the service.

we use America's Mailbox (https://americasmailbox.com). different levels of service. was a bit of a pain to get forwarding set uo with post office but, well, they're the post office.

and we don't get many checks but those we do get are scanned and deposited. no worries.

 

[Scuba]

We have used virtualpostmail.com in the past with excellent results.

For rent checks, we prefer to use Venmo or PayPal. We get notified each month when the checks come in and don’t have to worry that we are traveling when the rent is due.

 

[NgineER]

Can’t speak to the mail forwarding aspect, but we too our landlords. We use apartments.com (used to be cozy.co) as a rental portal. We have 11 units, the service is free and we know when rent is submitted. There is a 5 day processing time for deposits, but totally worth it to not have to handle checks. Highly recommend automatic the rent check process.

 

[Catawba Chuck]

We have a lot of business mail. We used the USPS Premium forwarding this past winter. Worked pretty well.

 

[levindb]

For rent checks, we have them sent to our Financial Advisor's office and they deposit into our after tax account.

We had to change our mail processes when we were on a 4 month cruise. We use Informed Delivery from USPS that gives us pictures of every first class envelope that is to be delivered each day...and a neighbor picks up our mail and holds it until we ask them to send it to us in a prepaid envelope.

All of our bills come to us electronically except 1 insurance bill (LTC) that comes twice each year.

In the 3 years we have been doing this, we have asked our neighbor to open an envelope only twice...they took a picture of the contents and emailed it to us...and it was just had copy spam.

 

[Iggysmom]

Thanks to all of you for your input. Can't.believe apartments.com is free. That sounds like it would work perfectly for us!