Mail Address In Bangkok With Forwarding Service?

[Stefanix]

After many years in Thailand, I want to move back to Europe. I'd like to keep a mailing address to receive mails (e.g. for credit card statements, bank account and others) with a service to forward this mail once per month to Europe.

Is there any such service in BKK? Thanks!

[GottaGo]

Yes, there are "Mail Box Etc" franchises as well as many other brands in every neighborhood I've lived in Bangkok as well as many major shopping centers, some BTS stations.

I'm very happy with the outfit on the ground floor of Amarin Plaza/Tower, you can use an address that looks like a condo or office, they pay your bills for you for 5 or 10 baht service charge, forward mail, packages, faxes, just keep a positive balance and they'll send you a report when you request it, something like 2000 a year or so for the basic service.

[Stefanix]

Thanks a lot! I knew "Mail Boxes etc", but did not know that they provide this kind of service. Will check with them. I hope those ordenary addresses are not recognizable by banks and maybe blacklisted.

[sunlong]

Stefanix, on 04 Jun 2013 - 10:46, said:

Thanks a lot! I knew "Mail Boxes etc", but did not know that they provide this kind of service. Will check with them. I hope those ordenary addresses are not recognizable by banks and maybe blacklisted.

Before signing up as a long-term customer, let them know you want to test it out and to look out for letters coming to your name.

Get the full official address from them and then send a few letters to variations on that that don't look like a commercial location.

Obviously some locations aren't suitable for this (BTS station), but the above example - Amarin Tower - can easily be made to look like a condo address.

Smart people use these for all their official business, anything that gets entered into a computer rather than giving out their actual physical residence.

One side benefit is you never have to change your address in Thailand no matter how often you might move.

And if you're out of the country all your bills can get automatically paid without you having to trust a personal acquaintance, they're very reliable.

MBE itself is relatively rare, probably expensive since it's a UPS subsidiary. The more common franchise here is called "Post Mail Box".

Edited June 4, 2013 by sunlong

[Stefanix]

Just spent the whole day (very heavy traffic, difficult to park) trying to set up a mail forwarding service.

At Amarin Plaza / Ground Floor I found only "Post Mail Box", and they don't offer any forwarding service. Nobody knew MBE. Did they close their business at Amarin?

Then I went to Emporium. There is a tiny MBE booth on the 4th floor near the escalator. Unfortunately their was a sign "Out for lunch. Please wait 20 minutes", and this was around 3.30pm! After more than 30 minutes there was still nobody and I had to leave to pick up the kids.

Mission failed. Anyone set up a forwarding service successfully recently? Who else would offer this service besides MBE and "Post Mail Box"? Maybe UPS and the like?

[Stefanix]

So, finally I could set up my mail forwarding service.

According to MBE Emporium, only MBE Emporium and MBE BTS Prompong (they belong together) offer a mail forwarding service. I checked 2 other branches and they don't offer this service.

This is what I got:

A mailbox ("small") at BTS Prompong costs 3,600 THB per year. He gave me 4 more months. On top of this, I had to deposit 2,000 THB, from which the postage to forward my mail will be deducted.

The address is like this:

NAME

P.O. Box xxx

MBE BTS Phrom Phong Station

E,5-11/3 Sukhumvit Rd., Klongton

Klongtoey

Bangkok 10110

To make it look more like a normal condo address, I was told to use "Suite xxx" instead of P.O. Box and leave out the "MBE BTS...." line.

Not sure if I can leave out the E5 (station number) as well. Not quite the normal address I wanted. But the only option I found.

Now I have to find out if a bank accepts this address and if the mail arrives reliably.

[houzi68]

http://www.phuketpostbox.com/

[Stefanix]

http://www.phuketpostbox.com/

Thanks for this link! Looks interesting.

After testing MBE's forwarding service for 2 months, I have to say that it does not work very well. We did not receive a single mail from MBE. Complaining at Phrom Pong station, they told us that the Thai post delivery to Phrom Pong station is unreliable. They handed us 2 recently arrived letters over. Actually there should have been 6 letters. Only 1 out of 3 credit card statements and only 1 out of 3 test letters arrived.

Will check the service in Phuket. Would be nice to have something similar with a Bangkok address.

[Stefanix]

After testing MBE's forwarding service for 2 months, I have to say that it does not work very well. We did not receive a single mail from MBE. ... Only 1 out of 3 credit card statements and only 1 out of 3 test letters arrived.

Update: Some days after complaining at MBE Phrom Phong, I got an envelope with the missing 4 letters today! Being there in person, they could give me only the last two letters. Don't know were the older letters went. Now I can report 100% reception of my mail. Still I am not so confident with their reliability.