Whether you’re living in a foreign country temporarily due to work or you’ve decided to spend your retirement in an exotic environment, you can find a number of services that help ensure that you receive essential items from home. An expatriate mail service is just one example of the type of product you can find from companies that cater to making life easier for those who are away from home. Other services include:
RV and boater mail forwarding
Virtual office addresses
Personal shopping
Internet phone service
Online auction service
Referral service
US-based tax and accounting services
How Expatriot Mail Forwarding Works
Unless you keep a home in the United States or use a friend or family member’s street address, it’s very difficult for expatriots to do business from oversees. Banks, shops and other businesses often require a physical address that’s located in the United States, that isn’t a P.O. box, in order to do business. Even if you do use your own or another’s address for such purposes, it’s often risky or unreliable to do so.
An expatriot mail forwarding service takes the risk and hassle out of taking care of important business or receiving your personal and business mail while you’re living overseas. With this type of service, you can shop, bank and receive parcels from a secure, reliable U.S. address to anywhere in the world that you reside.
Service providers give you a street address located wherever your home state is, with your customer number substituting for the business or residence number. You simply give this address as your mailing address to whatever company or individual needs it, and all of your mail is sent to the service. They screen it, filter junk mail and remail the rest to you. For a small fee, they can even provide a U.S.- based fax number and open, scan and send for you to view online any important documents that are time-sensitive.
The services are generally confidential and secure. Most of the service providers give customers a personal log-in so that they can manage the mail themselves and direct the service about how they would like it handled. The rates tend to be very reasonable, and they’re comparable with many known-name, international shipping companies. Such services provide convenience, savings and peace of mind for those who must keep one foot in a foreign location and the other at home.