A post-office box or Post Office box (commonly referred to as a PO Box or a Postal Box) is a uniquely addressable lockable box located on the premises of a post office station.
In many countries, particularly in Africa, and the Middle East there is no 'door to door' delivery of mail. For example, should one post mail to a street address in Namibia, it will be returned to sender as undeliverable. Consequently renting a PO box has traditionally been the only way to receive mail in such countries, although some, like Jordan, are now introducing home delivery.
Generally, post office boxes are rented from the post office either by individuals or by businesses on a basis ranging from monthly to annual, and the cost of rent varies depending on the box size. Central business district or CBD PO boxes are usually more expensive than a rural PO box.
In the US, the rental rate used to be uniform across the country. Now, however, a postal facility can be in any of seven fee groups by location; in addition, certain customers qualify for free box rental.
In the United Kingdom, Royal Mail PO boxes are often little more than pigeon-holes in the secure section of a Sorting Office, and are only accessible by staff. In such cases, the renter of the PO box will be issued with a card showing the PO box number and delivery office name, and must produce this to the desk staff when collecting mail. For an additional fee, the Royal Mail will deliver received items to the renter's geographical address.
Some private companies, e.g. UPS , also offer similar services of renting a mailbox in a public location. The difference with an official PO box is that mail sent there is addressed to a street address (along with the box number), instead of just addressed to "PO Box xxx".
In the United States, two forms of identification are required when signing up a for a PO Box; one of which must be a photo ID.
This text is licensed under the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA License. This text was originally published on Wikipedia and was developed by the Wikipedia community.
A post office is a facility forming part of a postal system for the posting, receipt, sorting, handling, transmission or delivery of mail.
Post offices offer mail-related services such as post office boxes, postage and packaging supplies. In addition, some post offices offer non-postal services such as passport applications and other government forms, car tax purchase, money orders, and banking services. A post office may have a main customer service and point of sale area and many offices were directly assigned to Postal code, ZIP code.
In a "sorting office" or "delivery office", mail is sorted or processed for delivery. Large open spaces for sorting mail are also sometimes known as a sorting hall or postal hall. Over time, sophisticated mail sorting and delivery equipment has been developed, including Mail Rail. In Commonwealth countries, many of the larger post office buildings in capital cities used the official title of General Post Office. In parts of Europe, special Postal censorship offices were known as Cabinets Noirs. In wartime, Post Office Rifles were sometimes sent from post offices into battle to deliver messages.
After 1900, dedicated mail exchange facilities became common and postal services colocated customer services with businesses such as newsagents or railway stations for the convenience of customers and to cut costs. As a result, many purpose-built post offices became redundant and either fell into disuse or were adaptively reused; sometimes retaining the title of Post Office prefixed by Old or Former for historical and heritage reasons.
This text is licensed under the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA License. This text was originally published on Wikipedia and was developed by the Wikipedia community.
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