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Old 11-01-2019, 14:04   #46
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Re: How to deal with not having a physical address while cruising

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Originally Posted by rob d View Post
A passport is "REAL ID" as you have to show proof that you are a citizen to get one.
Yes, but that service provider doesn't care to enforce the updating of your residential address, may even accept a commercial letterbox one on the application.

Just goes to show, everything is up to the provider and whether or not their database uses the blacklist services.

Each voter registration office has their own rules. I was able to use a lease doc & library card for mine.


> Dockside Solutions now Dockside mail
Sounds excellent


> Receiving mail for two adult children here at the house I can see the issues with having a relative receive the mail first hand.
Yes, never use F&F to receive / forward more that a few pieces of mail per year, asking way too much.

Property taxes are usually based on the location of the property, not the legal residence of the owner.
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Old 11-01-2019, 14:13   #47
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Re: How to deal with not having a physical address while cruising

Different agencies and companies all set different rules, as they are allowed to do. Unless a state has defined "residence" in their state laws, it is often left to each agency to set their own definitions.

And of course the IRS and SSA really don't care where you live, if you're a US citizen you are required to pay the IRS the same thing no matter where you or your income are. And the SSA is required to pay you the same thing, regardless of where you want the check to be mailed. So, different parties, different purposes.

I had a problem with a UPS terminal where I was having a package held for pickup. The terminal manager requires a driver's license or other government ID WITH AN ADDRESS on it. The UPS rules only say "Government photo ID", i.e. a passport is good enough. Nope, the terminal manager won't take a passport as valid ID. And UPS let's him get away with that.

Then there's one of those "mail residence" services that was in South(?) Dakota, had a couple of thousand happy customers. Closed up shop one day, and the customers were finding their insurance canceled, all sorts of problems, because their mail had been cut off and their "residence" no longer existed.

SBI has a great rep--but I'd wonder what their plans are for re-opening and business continuity after a Cat4 storm hits their building. Just wondering.
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Old 11-01-2019, 14:39   #48
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Re: How to deal with not having a physical address while cruising

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Originally Posted by john61ct View Post
Yes, but that service provider doesn't care to enforce the updating of your residential address, may even accept a commercial letterbox one on the application.


Property taxes are usually based on the location of the property, not the legal residence of the owner.
True but "Real ID is usually required only for travel as in the case of this state you don't have to prove you are a citizen or even a legal resident to get a license or state ID card. Passport along with a state ID card showing an address would suffice in most places . The passport shows who you are the ID shows where you say you live.

I spent 15 years with TSA as a screening officer checking ID's so I am reasonably familiar with IDs of all kinds. Odd thing is that even if you are illegally in this country but have a valid and up to date passport from your home country you can fly without an issue as you have presented "Real ID" that is listed as real id. "Yuppers, that is exactly who they are" is the key.


On state taxes one's income level while cruising and using a service may have a lot to do with choosing one state over another to not pay excess income tax to a state where you don't actually live or plan to live. My experience had to do with moving to another state, registering a vehicle and then having the county, city and school district hit me with property tax on that vehicle after it was registered at that address. A documented boat may not have that issue or one could search out a place to register the boat where there were no added taxes. The old " I register it there because that is where I cruise" thing .
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Old 12-01-2019, 05:06   #49
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Re: How to deal with not having a physical address while cruising

There are loads of mailing accommodation address firms out there that will either directly forward mail or scan it and email it to you for you to decide if you want to pay for the physical forwarding. (Cleverrmail is one) you want to avoid those with PO box addresses.

Revolut is a great solution for banking with their pre paid Mastercard that doesn't charge fees for ATM or shop use. You get real time rates which is a big saving. I paid my Marina fees with it this month just after receiving the card and discovered that I had gained $19 in the transaction!
You simply use the app on your phone to transfer money into the Revolut account without charge.
Couldn't be simpler really. They will even send you a spare card Foc to keep as a spare. Now that's Novel! I ordered one and it arrived in days.
Plus the app gives you the opportunity to create single use virtual cards for online one time use.

My mainstream bank are happy to change my UK address to the marina where I'm staying in Colombia.
They'll send a replacement card here if I want they say. But I don't need it now.

Tip for cruisers:
When topping up your Satphone, give a billing address in a non Vatable country as that way you won't get charged VAT :-)
Same applies to other services.
Just pick a marina, any marina and use that address as they won't get physical mail for the transaction.
Onwards and upwards me hearties! 😀
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Old 12-01-2019, 09:07   #50
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Re: How to deal with not having a physical address while cruising

We're happy with St. Brendan's Isle as our mailing address. Florida lets use use your registration number as your physical address. Our Florida drivers license have our USCG registration number on the first line. We get our mail and packages where ever we happen to be; currently, Boot Key Harbor Marina. Soon come, Coral Bay St. John mail box service. No problem, voting in Florida works fine.

Cheers, RickG
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Old 12-01-2019, 09:38   #51
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Re: How to deal with not having a physical address while cruising

With SBI in the past you could just mail in a notarized "Declaration of Domicile" form to the Clay County Controller, allows you to use SBI's

411 Walnut Street

address, good for all (I think) government providers. They may have needed to use a different address to resolve a recent local political flap about their customers' voting rights.

A voter's card often helps with stricter providers.

Nowadays the initial process must be done in person there.

And apparently so far so good with financial databases.

IMO best to be consistent across the board.

I agree short of F&F this gov-sanctioned method is excellent, for those happy to be FL residents. High net worth people will want to get professional advice on that of course.

But as a commercial provider, some financial databases using blacklisting services do refuse the Walnut St address.

Ideally an official Feds-approved workaround like SBI's appears that all providers are required to accept, but that may require new laws/regs.
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Old 30-06-2019, 17:26   #52
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Re: How to deal with not having a physical address while cruising

Relevant thread on this issue, related anyway.

Insurance asking full-time liveaboards for a "location of boat" address.

TL;DR can usually just use the legal domicile address, doesn't really matter, long as the "cruising coverage area" is accurate.

http://www.cruisersforum.com/forums/...al-220292.html
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Old 30-06-2019, 22:20   #53
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Re: How to deal with not having a physical address while cruising

I have been using Traveling Mailbox for 9 months now and I'm very happy with their service.

They offer a physical address and their User Interface is very intuitive. I can also cash check through them.
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Old 16-08-2019, 14:42   #54
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Re: How to deal with not having a physical address while cruising

We cruised 14 years in Caribbean Oct to May but continued to own our home in NJ where we legally reside.

Registered or Certified mail addressed to us in NJ . Mail person left a brief formal notice at our home stating we had Certified or Registered mail addressed to us. After 30 or 60 days, the mail person found the brief formal notice still in place. The Mail person then returned the Certified or Registered mail to sender noting it could not be delivered.

We always notified our local police department that we were sailing on our own yacht somewhere in the Caribbean and could not provide either a address or phone number.
We requested the police to put our home on House Watch and routine patrols by police always checked our house. we gave keys to our house to a neighbor, should police, fireman, or other emergency agencies need to enter our home. We gave the police and neighbor our e-mail address but cautioned them that we have no Wi Fi service on our yacht, but we routinely check our e-mail regularly once or twice a month ashore on some island at an internet facility................so do not expect a quick reply.

We never had a problem which could not be addressed using this method. No police or other gave us a hard time. They always accepted our explanation.

We never used a mail forwarding service. Mail was delivered to our home......to a mail slot in our garage............dumping into a large plastic barrel. We reviewed our mail when we returned in May or June. Our bills were electronically paid for repetitive issues such as electricity, water, natural gas, mortgage, property taxes, ............etc directly to our checking account. Pensions, SS, .......etc were routinely also deposited to our checking account. When we visited internet service on an island we always checked our checking account for an updating. We used an ATM account, separate , from our main checking account. We drew ATM withdrawals from this second account with a small balance, large enough to cover our withdrawals. We re-furbished that second account periodically as required transferring money from our main checking account to our second smaller checking account.

In this way our ATM withdraws/deposits were safe in the second smaller account.
Both larger and smaller accounts were routinely reviewed every time we went ashore to a internet facility.................most always available on most but not every island.

We frequently changed our log in and passwords. We went ashore with our own laptop to sign in. We did not use the computers available in the internet facility.
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Old 16-08-2019, 14:55   #55
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Re: How to deal with not having a physical address while cruising

Quote:
Originally Posted by Caravela1986 View Post
We cruised 14 years in Caribbean Oct to Nov but continued to own our home in NJ where we legally reside.

Registered or Certified mail addressed to us in NJ . Mail person left a brief formal notice at our home stating we had Certified or Registered mail addressed to us. After 30 or 60 days, the mail person found the brief formal notice still in place. The Mail person then returned the Certified or Registered mail to sender noting it could not be delivered.

We always notified our local police department that we were sailing on our own yacht somewhere in the Caribbean and could not provide either a address or phone number.
We requested the police to put our home on House Watch and routine patrols by police always checked our house. we gave keys to our house to a neighbor, should police, fireman, or other emergency agencies need to enter our home. We gave the police and neighbor our e-mail address but cautioned them that we have no Wi Fi service on our yacht, but we routinely check our e-mail regularly once or twice a month ashore on some island at an internet facility................so do not expect a quick reply.

We never had a problem which could not be addressed using this method. No police or other gave us a hard time. They always accepted our explanation.

We never used a mail forwarding service. Mail was delivered to our home......to a mail slot in our garage............dumping into a large plastic barrel. We reviewed our mail when we returned in May or June. Our bills were electronically paid for repetitive issues such as electricity, water, natural gas, mortgage, property taxes, ............etc directly to our checking account. Pensions, SS, .......etc were routinely also deposited to our checking account. When we visited internet service on an island we always checked our checking account for an updating. We used an ATM account, separate , from our main checking account. We drew ATM withdrawals from this second account with a small balance, large enough to cover our withdrawals. We re-furbished that second account periodically as required transferring money from our main checking account to our second smaller checking account.

In this way our ATM withdraws/deposits were safe in the second smaller account.
Both larger and smaller accounts were routinely reviewed every time we went ashore to a internet facility.................most always available on most but not every island.

We frequently changed our log in and passwords. We went ashore with our own laptop to sign in. We did not use the computers available in the internet facility.
We have lived overseas for 10 years.

We use a virtual mail room type place for our USA mail similar to a PO Boxes, etc. The difference is the virtual mail room scans the outside of all the envelopes received. We look at the scans online and tell them which to open and scan and which to shred. After a letter is opened and scanned we can tell them to shred the contents and keep the scan or shred and delete the scan or scan and keep the contents for us. They also will deposit checks. In front of the box # we put apt.. By showing an apt # it has always worked for anything that requires a physical address. It even works for a driver's license that requires a physical address.
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Old 16-08-2019, 14:57   #56
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Re: How to deal with not having a physical address while cruising

When visiting some island groups for a month or two, we purchased a SIM card from the local cell phone provider to contact family. The numbers would change every time we changed a SIM card. Such numbers were only provided to family...........not police and not neighbor.

Only once when our home was burglarized did we receive notice by e-mail, then responded by cell phone and local SIM card. WE then communicated with neighbor and police regarding same.
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Old 16-08-2019, 18:12   #57
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Re: How to deal with not having a physical address while cruising

Quote:
Originally Posted by Caravela1986 View Post
When visiting some island groups for a month or two, we purchased a SIM card from the local cell phone provider to contact family. The numbers would change every time we changed a SIM card. Such numbers were only provided to family...........not police and not neighbor.

Only once when our home was burglarized did we receive notice by e-mail, then responded by cell phone and local SIM card. WE then communicated with neighbor and police regarding same.
This is why I like forwarding my Skype number to my local SIM. For any non-local callers I only give out the Skype number. This way as my local number changes nothing has to be updated.

This is a very good solution for debit/credit card security too. This way if they call you can answer it and hopefully avoid getting a card shut down.
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Old 16-08-2019, 20:15   #58
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Re: How to deal with not having a physical address while cruising

Also googleVoice, best via their Fi service, easy to forward, single voicemailbox.

And often cheap/good enough can skip getting local SIMs in the first place
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Old 16-08-2019, 22:15   #59
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Re: How to deal with not having a physical address while cruising

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Originally Posted by john61ct View Post
Also googleVoice, best via their Fi service, easy to forward, single voicemailbox.

And often cheap/good enough can skip getting local SIMs in the first place
It's too bad Fi limits you to a 3G connection in many countries.
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Old 29-10-2019, 20:02   #60
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Re: How to deal with not having a physical address while cruising

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Originally Posted by januszr View Post
I was wondering how cruisers deal with not having a "physical" mailing address. The bank and credit card company is telling me I have to have one and they will not accept a P.O. box. Social Security Administration (retiring soon) will probably want one as well. Any information on this would be much appreciated.

Thanks!
Janusz
use a company like mailboxes, Im in the UK and have a mailbox, it reads like a normal addressee, building number and apartment number, It is used for everything, drivers licence, insurance.....
no problem at all, when ever we stop somewhere, we give them a call and any mail is forwarded to us.
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