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"
Advance Notice to POBOL PO Box Customers - January 2023 Price Change.
If your PO Box renewal fees are due in January, and you would like to renew at the existing rate, please visit usps.com/poboxes to renew before January 22, 2023. Fees paid on or after that date are subject to new rates."
No link in the email anywhere explaining what the new higher rates are. Probably close to $200 considering what I paid for the smallest box last year. IMHO they should be paying us to use these boxes since they don't deliver to our homes and force us to wait in lines for hours.
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Indeed, if you live in a place that doesn’t get mail delivery (or have community boxes) you are entitled to a free PO Box. You must present proof of your address (I use property tax) and fill the form out every six months.
We paid for our POB for many years until finding that out. It’s almost so unknown as to be a well kept secret.
(Haven’t stood in line in over a year since getting a private box at
https://808alohamail.com/)
Cheers,
Kirt
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They will only give us a free box at Keaau PO. We had one for awhile. No thanks.
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To terracore: just out of curiosity, what were the problems with the free Kea'au box, and where would you rather get your mail ?
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We have had a private mailbox at the business center in Pahoa for over a decade now. It has gone through a couple owners and name changes. The current name is Da Box, and mailboxes are available. I was talking to the new owner, Jonathan, today when we stopped by to pick up our mail. They are friendly, efficient, and open to feedback.
https://daboxhawaii.com/
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01-08-2023, 12:49 AM
(This post was last modified: 01-08-2023, 12:50 AM by terracore.)
(01-07-2023, 08:50 PM)Punaperson Wrote: To terracore: just out of curiosity, what were the problems with the free Kea'au box, and where would you rather get your mail ?
Missing packages, long lines, rude staff, frequently we'd get "final notices" for packages where we never got the first notice, etc. Some packages we never got notices for and would have to go in with the tracking number to avoid them being returned to sender. Sometimes they could find them, sometimes they couldn't. So we pay for a box in Hilo and while no bureaucracy is perfect it's a completely different experience.
For a few years we had a box up in Volcano. So we've had a box at 3 different post offices on the island and the Keaau one was by far the worst. I don't blame the employees there I think they are doing the best with an overwhelmed system. It's like a hoarder's house with packages stacked everywhere.
We have our Amazon packages shipped to the Hilo PO "street address" and if they ship it UPS we have it redirected to our house. They redirect them for free if you join their program for $19/year. Fedex doesn't have quite that function but one can go online and have it held for pickup. Their line is always super short. I can't tell you how many hours we've saved not waiting in lines by using a little strategy.
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Back when I was dumb enough to shop at Foodland, there was almost always a line wrapping around the Kea'au post office.
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we never got notices for and would have to go in with the tracking number
You were lucky. There is a witch at the Keaau PO counter who will only get your box with the official “Orange Slip.” Even if you write the tracking number and your box number on a piece of paper she will bark at you repeatedly like a broken robot, “you need the ORANGE SLIP!”
Admittedly, I didn’t try writing the info on orange paper, but don’t think that would have fooled her.
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One time at Keaau we stood in line to get a package and the lady came out and said it was too heavy so we'd have to fetch it from the back door. No problem. Went to the back door and nobody ever came out. After waiting another 10 minutes or so at the back door, went back to the line and waited again. Same lady acted like she didn't know who we were. We explained that she told us to go to the back and nobody ever came. So she barked DID YOU RING THE BELL?! No. Nobody told us to ring a bell. You already told us to go back there an wait. Why would we ring the bell?
YOU HAVE TO RING THE BELL! So we went to the back and rang the bell. Maybe more times than she liked. She said something, the first word was all muffled but the second word was definitely "haole".
Anyways, after that we were done with that PO.
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Frau Chunkster and I had experiences at the Keaau post office similar to terracore and HOTPE. Wait in line forever only to be treated rudely while not accomplishing anything. The final insult was the time we had a package notice and they couldn't find it on two visits. They did, however, send it back when the allotted time to claim it ran out. The Frau waited in line just to tell them off after that one and then promptly went to Hilo to pay for a box. When she told the guy at Hilo why she was there, he said nothing, but gave her a wry smile and a nod. Hilo is not perfect, but the difference is like night and day.
