USPS Change of Address

[Bobalou]

Hi, all. We sold our house and are heading to Livingston where we will domicile. Yesterday, I attempted to change our address with USPS so they will forward any mail that’s still sent to our old address. USPS charges $1.05 to change the address. 

We have two credit cards. We were able to change our MAILING address on the credit cards to Livingston, but they wouldn’t let us change our RESIDENCE address. So, now we have two addresses on each credit card. 

I attempted to have USPS charge the $1.05 to the credit cards using both our Livingston address and our former residential address ... USPS would not accept any of the charges as they kept saying that none of the addresses was correct.  

I’m wondering if anyone else had this issue and, if so, what they did about it.

We have changed our mailing address on all of our important mail, but there’s plenty of stuff still going to the old house ... mostly junk, but every once in a while the new owner calls to ask if we need something because it looks like it might be important. Eventually this is going to make the new owner nuts, and they shouldn’t have to deal with our mail remnants. 

 

[Barbaraok]

Go into the Post Office, get the forms and fill them out and hand them in.   Yes, it is a pain in the butt, but it will get it done.  

[Will B.]

I'm guessing one of your cards is a Chase card.  (Or... CapitalOne, can't remember.)

Basically, you can change the MAILING address, but not the "residence" address.  They don't mail anything to it, but I'm guessing it's a way to find you / report you / associate you in the event you defaulted on the card.  

I ended up calling into Chase, explaining the situation, and they said "what about a friend or relative's address?"  I gave them my parent's address in Sugar Land (Houston) and that seemed to mollify them.

[Twotoes]

2 hours ago, Barbaraok said:

Go into the Post Office, get the forms and fill them out and hand them in.   Yes, it is a pain in the butt, but it will get it done.  

Agree. Go to the post office and fill out the form.  I believe you can go to any post office anywhere and they will send the form to your old address but it would be better to go to the one near your old address if possible. If there is a fee of $1.05 pay it in cash don’t try to use your credit card. That should take of the mail forwarding problem. Regarding your credit cards, sign up for paperless billing and do everything online. The same for all your mail. I get all my magazines in digital form. The only mail I get from Livingston is junk mail. Everything is online now. 

[sandsys]

1 hour ago, Twotoes said:

Regarding your credit cards, sign up for paperless billing and do everything online...The only mail I get from Livingston is junk mail. Everything is online now. 

Except for new cards. Those have to be mailed to you. Every time someone misuses your number.

Linda

[Barbaraok]

Actually, you can usually get a new card sent to a branch bank near you, at least you can for BOA.  Had a BOA card compromised in Maine.  We were in Nova Scotia when I was notified about it.  Contacted BOA, explained where we were, a new card was waiting for us in Bangor when we came back across.  Just had to show ID, etc.   Had our passports, or DL and our debit card with picture on it - fellow at the bank said, yes it is definitely you! 😎

[Kirk W]

For the mail forwarding, just go online to the USPS address change and take care of it.  Very easy and it has worked for me more than once. I really don't understand the problem with your credit cards as many people use the Escapees address for credit cards and even get new ones using it. If need be for security issues, give them the address of a relative who will know how to contact you.

[Bobalou]

@Barbaraok ...Yes, I will have to go to a post office to take care of this. Thank you. I’m just wondering if anyone else has had this issue and why USPS would reject like that. 

@Will B. - One CapitalOne and one Barclay care. No Chase. BOTH cards have my mailing address as Livingston and my “residence” as my daughter’s sticks & bricks house. The problem is NOT with the credit cards, it is with USPS. I have tried 4 times, twice with the CapitalOne card using Livingston address and then using the “residence” address. Same with the Barclay card, tried twice. USPS rejected it all four times saying neither of the addresses was valid. 

@Twotoes - I agree - P.O. I do have paperless billing and have done everything online for years. It is NOT a credit card issue, it is a USPS issue. 

@Kirk W - If you read my post, that is exactly what I have been trying to do ... multiple times.

[Dutch_12078]

We did run into problems getting renewed/replacement credit cards a few times back when we used USPS forwarding. Most/all of the card issuers send them in "Do Not Forward" tagged envelopes, and they would get returned to issuer sometimes resulting in our account being locked. Our commercial forwarder doesn't have that problem of course.

[Barbaraok]

Babalou

Make sure there is no period after Dr and use 799-1084 for the zip code.   

[Jinx & Wayne]

9 hours ago, Barbaraok said:

use 799-1084 for the zip code.

No, use 77399-1084

[Chalkie]

1 hour ago, Jinx & Wayne said:

No, use 77399-1084

Use the 6+4 ZIP code format, but use the one for your own Livingston address. Mine is 77399-1019, for example. 

Edited October 26, 2020 by Chalkie

[Kirk W]

19 minutes ago, Chalkie said:

but use the one for your own Livingston address.

                          👌              👍

Edited October 26, 2020 by Kirk W

[bigjim]

1 hour ago, Chalkie said:

Use the 6+4 ZIP code format, but use the one for your own Livingston address. Mine is 77399-1019, for example. 

That sure looks like 5 plus 4 unless you count the dash.  I wonder if Barb just mis spoke with the 799-0000. I know I have always used the  5 plus 4.   (the plus -equal button on my laptop has not worked for years so I have to type plus or

[Barbaraok]

Yup - fat fingers and iPad auto-correct strikes again - argh!    Yes, it is 77399 followed by the appropriate four digits.  

[Chalkie]

1 hour ago, bigjim said:

That sure looks like 5 plus 4 unless you count the dash.  I wonder if Barb just mis spoke with the 799-0000. I know I have always used the  5 plus 4.   (the plus -equal button on my laptop has not worked for years so I have to type plus or

Yup- that's what I get for trying touch type. 🤣

[hemsteadc]

16 hours ago, Bobalou said:

@Barbaraok ...Yes, I will have to go to a post office to take care of this. Thank you. I’m just wondering if anyone else has had this issue and why USPS would reject like that. 

I don't understand why going into a post office will make a 'bad' address valid.

[Twotoes]

I just got my Amex and my BofA new credit cards which were sent to my Livingston address. I use 77399 as the zip. I have never used the extra 4 digits on any mail. Never had any problems. 

[bigjim]

32 minutes ago, hemsteadc said:

I don't understand why going into a post office will make a 'bad' address valid.

It might not help but it can't hurt. It might go around and issue in doing it on line.  I recently had an issue updating some information information on my health ins. On the phone at the same time they could not duplicate my problem so they did a manual change about  week later the problem they could not see or duplicate went away and now I can make updates the way I always did.  I suspect the issue was some type of human issue.  In regards to updating forwarding requests at USPS I much prefer to fill out a card and hand it in or mail it it I have to rather than do it on line. Comes from my experience in working at the post office 40 years ago.

PS  Free Advice.   Never put mail in a drop box that is near a place that sells food and wrappers that can be sticky and thrown in like it is a trash can.

[Kirk W]

48 minutes ago, hemsteadc said:

I don't understand why going into a post office will make a 'bad' address valid.

I doubt that it would, but the Escapee addresses are valid.

[Barbaraok]

I had Wal-Mart refuse to take my credit card for a pickup order because they said the Livingston address was invalid.   I even copied directly from the USPS website and still came back invalid.  I can walk in and use that same card at their stores (which I refuse to do) but to do a pickup, whatever reference database they are tied into says it is invalid.  Had the same problem with loading my Starbucks card from one particular card.  Turns out I had a period after Dr and the credit card address didn't have the period.  When I took the period out, everything worked fine.   Yes, databases are that literal.

[hemsteadc]

54 minutes ago, bigjim said:

...I much prefer to fill out a card and hand it in or mail it it I have to rather than do it on line. Comes from my experience in working at the post office 40 years ago.

USPS had online access in 1980?

[bigjim]

No but some of the way things were done back then did not inspire confidence.  I have mostly been pretty fortunate with the post office but  I still remember some things I observed way back then.  Another thing I learned was a lot of problems people had were their own doing.   I first learned this working casual at Christmas season unloading trucks at the parcel post annex in Dallas.  People would pack there pretty's so poorly that almost any other item could damage it. It might be going down a conveyor  with a case of encyclopedias coming behind it. Or a 5 gal. bucket of baby sharks or frogs in preservative going to a HS lab for dissection.  I really hated the frozen shrimp packed in dry ice with a bad address that kept coming back every night as we tried to get it to a correct address. After a couple of nights it began to get really ripe. I always wondered if it ended up in the "dead parcel" office. By rights it should have but then again at some point it becomes a hazard.

[Randyretired]

USPS has data bases that are not always up to date.  For over a year we received mail at an address that USPS data base showed as an invalid address.  When things were to be shipped we just had them put our address on it and ship it.  We received our  mail and packages just fine except for some other problems that had nothing to do with the address.  I talked with the local Post Office about the problem and was told that eventually they would update the data base and finally they did.  The county government assigns addresses here.

[LindaH]

20 hours ago, hemsteadc said:

I don't understand why going into a post office will make a 'bad' address valid.

The "bad" address was only in regard to trying to use a credit card to pay the USPS fee for filing a change of address online.  If you go into the post office, you don't have to pay the fee for filling out the change-of-address card by hand and giving it to the person behind the counter.