We spent a lot of time today trying to track down a package of mail we had sent to us via our mail forwarding service (we use Good Sam Club) where you pay a monthly subscription plus actual mailing costs for them to receive your mail and forward it to any destination you request. This is a must-have for any full-time RVer. We haven’t had any problems with this before, but there is always a first time for everything and today was our day.
The campground we’re staying at (Agave Gulch FamCamp at Davis-Monthan AFB) will not accept USPS mail for you – only UPS or FedEx packages. That wasn’t a big surprise (though we really appreciated the packages being accepted as that’s a courtesy one doesn’t always find), so no problem. When we requested our mail to be forwarded to us, we looked up the nearest Post Office to have it mailed “General Delivery” (another part of forwarding your mail all full-timers know or should know about – it’s how the Post Office knows to hold the package for you though you don’t have a permanent address or PO Box with them). Turns out there is a Post Office right on base, so we requested it to be mailed there. Now is when the fun begins…
Upon asking for our package at the base Post Office today, we were informed that they do not accept “General Delivery” mail and that if they receive any, they always return it to the sender. Okaaayyy. We’ve never heard of that before, but accepted what the clerk said and called Good Sam’s Mail Service and asked if they would contact us when the package came back so we could give them another address to send it to when we get to our next destination. When we explained to the worker at Good Sam what had happened, she told us that they had addressed the package to the actual street address of the Post Office in additon to the “General Delivery” notation, so perhaps the Post Office did keep it and to ask them if it was possible they had it after all. So, back to the Post Office to ask if they would check. Again, the clerk said they would not have kept it if they did not recognize the name on the package, but they might have forwarded it to Tucson’s main Post Office, and to give them a call to see if they had it. We learned from previous experience in Deming, NM that the Post Office (or at least that one) won’t tell you by phone if your package is there or not (citing privacy laws) so calling doesn’t do any good, but we decided to try anyway as it might save us a trip. We called three separate times, but the phone just rang and rang, so we went ahead and drove to the Post Office to check in person.
After a long drive we arrived at Tucson’s main Post Office, which turned out to be a very large place. There were seven stations for postal employees, but only one person working at one and there were sixteen people ahead of me (yes, I counted). Oh well, what can you do? I waited patiently. When I finally got to the clerk and asked her to check General Delivery to see if she had a package for me, she went in the back and immediately returned (she couldn’t have been gone 30 seconds) to tell me they didn’t have it. There is NO way she could have checked that quickly! I told her it was a Priority Mail package and she repeated it wasn’t there. Okaaayy. I left hoping it would eventually be returned to Florida and we’d get it someday.
Just by chance, we gave the clerk at the base Post Office our name and phone number in case the package ever showed up there. Turns out that was a good thing, as we got a phone call this evening telling us the package was indeed at the Post Office and they hadn’t sent it back yet. Would have been nice if he had physically checked while we were there instead of just stating without question that it couldn’t be there. But at least he was nice enough to followup later and give us a call instead of sending it back. We just got back from picking up the package. Yay.
Now that we’ve opened the package, it brings up another sore point with mail. I personally hate junk mail. When you’re paying to have your mail forwarded to you, useless junk mail costs you money. Plus for me, it’s just annoying. When we first got on the road, we always told the mail service to forward all our mail, junk or otherwise, so we could get a feel for who we needed to change our address with (in case we overlooked something). Now that we’ve been on the road for six plus months, we have changed our address with all who really need it, so we no longer want that junk sent. With Good Sam, you can request they throw out obvious junk mail before they forward the rest. I have requested this the last two times we’ve forwarded mail. Unfortunately, the last time we still received junk – but that wasn’t Good Sam’s fault as it was labeled First Class, so they’re obligated to forward it. In those cases, I contact the company sending us the mail and request they not send it to us as we’re not interested. For example, the dealer we bought our truck from in Florida sends us promotions for car sales almost weekly. We don’t live in Florida anymore, and even if we did, we just bought a vehicle, so we’re not in the market for a new one already. They also used to call us regularly too. The last time they called, I told them to stop calling and mailing us stuff because we don’t even live in Florida anymore, so they’re wasting their money and time. The woman I spoke with said they’d be happy to take us off their list. Right. We STILL get mail from them six months later and since it’s sent First Class instead of Standard, we always get it forwarded. So the last time we got some mail from them, I wrote “Refused” on it and put it back in the mail. I’m doing this with other obvious junk mail that is coming First Class as well. Hopefully they’ll all eventually get the message.
Unfortunately though, this time Good Sam dropped the ball and half of our mail was obvious junk – as in Standard Rate solicitations and catalogues. Ugh. More money wasted, especialy after I specifically requested they throw it out. Did I mention I hate junk mail?
On the topic of junk and those who send way too much of it or do not heed requests to stop, I have to mention AARP. We joined AARP for the discounts you sometimes receive on the road as a member. We’re not going to renew our membership this year because they can’t stop sending us tons of junk, nor can they get our new address right, despite numerous requests and attempts by email and phone. Be forwarned, when you join AARP they sell your personal info to any and all companies they can. You are then inundated with almost daily offers from a myriad of companies wanting to sell you life insurance, hearing aids, medicare supplemental insurance, cremation services, buy this item, join this club, not to mention the AARP publications themselves that consist of a magazine and numerous newsletters and newspapers. It’s ridiculous. It took several calls on separate occasions to get them to stop selling our personal info so we could get off some of these lists. Unfortunately, we can’t seem to stop the offers to renew our membership with AARP. These come at least twice a week – and still to the wrong address. They keep leaving off the most important part – our PMB # – but no matter how often we try to fix that, and how often they say they’ll take care of it, all mail from them is missing that number. I can’t wait until they finally figure out we’ll never renew our membership (because they’re so irritating – and we haven’t had any opportunity for using the discount yet as our other RV memberships usually give us a better deal) and stop bothering us. For some reason though, I don’t think that will ever happen.
We have also found some problems with our Good Sam membership. Customer service via email is an issue. I recently contacted them regarding a question about our magazine subscription and it took 10 days to get an email response. At least they did respond though, which is more than you get from a lot of websites these days. Good Sam also sells your personal info after you join them, so they too are a source for a lot of unsolicited solicitations for everything and anything that might be RV related. Yet more junk mail. And Good Sam can’t get their own solicitations correct. Today, in the same package of mail, we received one offer (to our OLD address which we changed with them 6 months ago) offering us an opportunity to join Good Sam for the first time (we’re already members and renewed last year for a three year period). The second offer was an opportunity to upgrade our current three-year membership to a lifetime membership. Okay, so which is it? Are we potential new members or current ones who might want to upgrade?!
All of this is so annoying it’s actually funny. Computers were supposed to make our lives easier, and to prevent duplication and enhance service. Instead, the just seem to create more work and cause more glitches, headaches, and problems. No matter how technologically advanced computers are, they’re still operated by humans. And as the saying goes – garbage in, garbage out (or is that junk mail in, junk mail out?). Same difference.
Just had to rant a little. I feel better now. 
Live, Love, Laugh!
~Cheryl
Both comments and pings are currently closed.
Mail woes…
We spent a lot of time today trying to track down a package of mail we had sent to us via our mail forwarding service (we use Good Sam Club) where you pay a monthly subscription plus actual mailing costs for them to receive your mail and forward it to any destination you request. This is a must-have for any full-time RVer. We haven’t had any problems with this before, but there is always a first time for everything and today was our day.
The campground we’re staying at (Agave Gulch FamCamp at Davis-Monthan AFB) will not accept USPS mail for you – only UPS or FedEx packages. That wasn’t a big surprise (though we really appreciated the packages being accepted as that’s a courtesy one doesn’t always find), so no problem. When we requested our mail to be forwarded to us, we looked up the nearest Post Office to have it mailed “General Delivery” (another part of forwarding your mail all full-timers know or should know about – it’s how the Post Office knows to hold the package for you though you don’t have a permanent address or PO Box with them). Turns out there is a Post Office right on base, so we requested it to be mailed there. Now is when the fun begins…
Upon asking for our package at the base Post Office today, we were informed that they do not accept “General Delivery” mail and that if they receive any, they always return it to the sender. Okaaayyy. We’ve never heard of that before, but accepted what the clerk said and called Good Sam’s Mail Service and asked if they would contact us when the package came back so we could give them another address to send it to when we get to our next destination. When we explained to the worker at Good Sam what had happened, she told us that they had addressed the package to the actual street address of the Post Office in additon to the “General Delivery” notation, so perhaps the Post Office did keep it and to ask them if it was possible they had it after all. So, back to the Post Office to ask if they would check. Again, the clerk said they would not have kept it if they did not recognize the name on the package, but they might have forwarded it to Tucson’s main Post Office, and to give them a call to see if they had it. We learned from previous experience in Deming, NM that the Post Office (or at least that one) won’t tell you by phone if your package is there or not (citing privacy laws) so calling doesn’t do any good, but we decided to try anyway as it might save us a trip. We called three separate times, but the phone just rang and rang, so we went ahead and drove to the Post Office to check in person.
After a long drive we arrived at Tucson’s main Post Office, which turned out to be a very large place. There were seven stations for postal employees, but only one person working at one and there were sixteen people ahead of me (yes, I counted). Oh well, what can you do? I waited patiently. When I finally got to the clerk and asked her to check General Delivery to see if she had a package for me, she went in the back and immediately returned (she couldn’t have been gone 30 seconds) to tell me they didn’t have it. There is NO way she could have checked that quickly! I told her it was a Priority Mail package and she repeated it wasn’t there. Okaaayy. I left hoping it would eventually be returned to Florida and we’d get it someday.
Just by chance, we gave the clerk at the base Post Office our name and phone number in case the package ever showed up there. Turns out that was a good thing, as we got a phone call this evening telling us the package was indeed at the Post Office and they hadn’t sent it back yet. Would have been nice if he had physically checked while we were there instead of just stating without question that it couldn’t be there. But at least he was nice enough to followup later and give us a call instead of sending it back. We just got back from picking up the package. Yay.
Now that we’ve opened the package, it brings up another sore point with mail. I personally hate junk mail. When you’re paying to have your mail forwarded to you, useless junk mail costs you money. Plus for me, it’s just annoying. When we first got on the road, we always told the mail service to forward all our mail, junk or otherwise, so we could get a feel for who we needed to change our address with (in case we overlooked something). Now that we’ve been on the road for six plus months, we have changed our address with all who really need it, so we no longer want that junk sent. With Good Sam, you can request they throw out obvious junk mail before they forward the rest. I have requested this the last two times we’ve forwarded mail. Unfortunately, the last time we still received junk – but that wasn’t Good Sam’s fault as it was labeled First Class, so they’re obligated to forward it. In those cases, I contact the company sending us the mail and request they not send it to us as we’re not interested. For example, the dealer we bought our truck from in Florida sends us promotions for car sales almost weekly. We don’t live in Florida anymore, and even if we did, we just bought a vehicle, so we’re not in the market for a new one already. They also used to call us regularly too. The last time they called, I told them to stop calling and mailing us stuff because we don’t even live in Florida anymore, so they’re wasting their money and time. The woman I spoke with said they’d be happy to take us off their list. Right. We STILL get mail from them six months later and since it’s sent First Class instead of Standard, we always get it forwarded. So the last time we got some mail from them, I wrote “Refused” on it and put it back in the mail. I’m doing this with other obvious junk mail that is coming First Class as well. Hopefully they’ll all eventually get the message.
Unfortunately though, this time Good Sam dropped the ball and half of our mail was obvious junk – as in Standard Rate solicitations and catalogues. Ugh. More money wasted, especialy after I specifically requested they throw it out. Did I mention I hate junk mail?
On the topic of junk and those who send way too much of it or do not heed requests to stop, I have to mention AARP. We joined AARP for the discounts you sometimes receive on the road as a member. We’re not going to renew our membership this year because they can’t stop sending us tons of junk, nor can they get our new address right, despite numerous requests and attempts by email and phone. Be forwarned, when you join AARP they sell your personal info to any and all companies they can. You are then inundated with almost daily offers from a myriad of companies wanting to sell you life insurance, hearing aids, medicare supplemental insurance, cremation services, buy this item, join this club, not to mention the AARP publications themselves that consist of a magazine and numerous newsletters and newspapers. It’s ridiculous. It took several calls on separate occasions to get them to stop selling our personal info so we could get off some of these lists. Unfortunately, we can’t seem to stop the offers to renew our membership with AARP. These come at least twice a week – and still to the wrong address. They keep leaving off the most important part – our PMB # – but no matter how often we try to fix that, and how often they say they’ll take care of it, all mail from them is missing that number. I can’t wait until they finally figure out we’ll never renew our membership (because they’re so irritating – and we haven’t had any opportunity for using the discount yet as our other RV memberships usually give us a better deal) and stop bothering us. For some reason though, I don’t think that will ever happen.
We have also found some problems with our Good Sam membership. Customer service via email is an issue. I recently contacted them regarding a question about our magazine subscription and it took 10 days to get an email response. At least they did respond though, which is more than you get from a lot of websites these days. Good Sam also sells your personal info after you join them, so they too are a source for a lot of unsolicited solicitations for everything and anything that might be RV related. Yet more junk mail. And Good Sam can’t get their own solicitations correct. Today, in the same package of mail, we received one offer (to our OLD address which we changed with them 6 months ago) offering us an opportunity to join Good Sam for the first time (we’re already members and renewed last year for a three year period). The second offer was an opportunity to upgrade our current three-year membership to a lifetime membership. Okay, so which is it? Are we potential new members or current ones who might want to upgrade?!
All of this is so annoying it’s actually funny. Computers were supposed to make our lives easier, and to prevent duplication and enhance service. Instead, the just seem to create more work and cause more glitches, headaches, and problems. No matter how technologically advanced computers are, they’re still operated by humans. And as the saying goes – garbage in, garbage out (or is that junk mail in, junk mail out?). Same difference.
Just had to rant a little. I feel better now.
Live, Love, Laugh!
~Cheryl