Of course there are always problems that come with moving. You have to get all your utilities set up, change your address with all your credit cards, banks, magazine subscriptions, etc…and you have to inform, the US Postal Service of your change of address as well.
When we were getting close to move into the house I went on the usps.com website to try and change our address. I entered all the info, etc…and then it said it would cost $1 to verify the address. Well, being the cheap ass that I am I was like “well whatever, I’ll just go to the post office and fill out a change of address form – it won’t cost anything that way.” That must have been 2 or 3 weeks before moving. On moving day, January 30th, we finally picked up a change of address form and personally handed it to the lady at the post office (one for personal, one for business). After about a week of no forwarded mail and no mail going to our old address either, we decided to call the post office. We were told our change of address wasn’t showing up in the computer yet, but to wait until the two-week mark to call again if nothing was showing up. The two-week period came and went, and there still was no forwarded mail. We probably wouldn’t have been that concerned had it not been for the fact that we knew two clients had sent checks to our old address during that time period. So we were on the phone a few more times, and of course we were always told we were not in the system. They checked out box at the post office – nothing. Strangely there was still never any mail going to our old address (we checked with our landlord several times). It was on February 14th that Patrick went back to usps.com to change our address after a postal worker had informed us that the online system was hooked straight into the computers and would immediately change the address! Had I known that I probably wouldn’t have been such a cheap ass with that $1. Sure enough, when we called a few days later our address change magically showed up as having changed on February 14th. We received our first few letters on March 1st – a month after our original change of address was handed to a postal worker in person! To our dismay still no checks from clients though.
The whole thing was just completely and utterly frustrating. We were on the phone a good 10 times with no resolution with a different story/answer from every employee you spoke with. Of course the new employee always said the previous employee was incorrect too – typical government type running in circles with no solution. We just didn’t get it. How could the mail mysteriously stop coming to our old address when they kept telling us there was NO record of our change of address in the computer!! It just makes NO sense. And no mail being forwarded to the new address even though we knew people had sent stuff there. We had given up all hope on the missing mail ever arriving. All the mail after February 14th was being forwarded…just the mail between January 30th and February 14th was missing.
Today, April 9th, I went to check the mailbox. I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw a forwarded letter from one of our clients! Stamped 68 days previously with a forwarding date of April 6th!! The letter looked in almost pristine condition, especially considering it had been AWOL for 68 days! Where it spent those 68 days will forever remain a mystery. You gotta love the postal service!
P.S. If/when we move again I will make sure to file a change of address on usps.com a month ahead of time!!
