Second Home questions

[JLB Please excuse me, I'm a Dick. Not a moron just a Dick Find all posts View Profile Close JLB]

I am engaged in a discussion with the USPS about their archaic mail-forwarding policy. They do not acknowledge the reality that tens of thousands of people have more than one residence, and that they are at each of them definite (m/l) timeframes each year. So, what they should is allowed those folks to designate where they want their mail delivered in those definite timeframes, until further notice.

(What would be so hard about telling a computer to deliver mail to one address May 1-November 1 and another address November 1-May 1?)

Instead, they treat a forwarding order as a permanent move. I won't go into all the problems that creates, but there are a lot. Our local postmaster up here just called yesterday and, since we are in a retiree/multiple residence area, she said this has always been a problem.

As an example, we have our auto, homeowners, and liability umbrella insurance renewals happening now, all with our Florida (primary residence) address. In today's mail I have five notices from out liability umbrella company, the oldest postmarked 21 days ago.

I did not even know that our auto renewal was due until I was talking to our agent (FL) about the PLU renewal. The person I was talking to just happened to mention that billing notices three and four weeks ago.

It's not unusual to receive one of our monthly bills until after it is due.

For example . . . I just got our Florida place and found a mailbox full of stuff that did not get forwarded. &, before I left "up there", I took another forwarding order into our little local post office, because it wouldn't let me do it at USPS.com (long explanation).

I said, "This only involves our address(es) here, so I didn't put it I the mail."

She said, "Oh no, it has to go to Colorado."

Great! I doubt they have the ability to get it where it needs to go.

[JLB Please excuse me, I'm a Dick. Not a moron just a Dick Find all posts View Profile Close JLB]

Yesterday was also my day to do battle with Comcast/Xfinity. It started about 10:00 in the morning and went until about 8:00 in the evening, with just a break to go to the dog park and WalMart. I ordered service on 10/31, kept trying to see if it got written up the way I was told, and yesterday was the first time I could see it, in an email they sent confirming service.

There's no guarantee it is straightened out, yet.

You can't trust that anyone you talk to will do what they said, the way they said, and when you talk to the next person they never are able to re-do what someone else did. All you can do is have them keep "putting notes on your account", get employee ID numbers and the name they use when they start the conversation, and refer to those the next time you have to call.

Like, "Do you see the note that was added this morning, that says the $50 installation fee includes one outlet, with no additional charges?"

A fly in the ointment is that we moved to the house next door, and for whatever reason, because of that they said they had to give us a new account. So, there is no history of us being customers for awhile. With AT&T, for instance, since I'm doing battle with them today, too, they seem to give some credit to use being customers for 22 years.

Eventually, if you have the tenacity to pursue it, you reach a person empowered to fix things.