Renting a PO Box?

Marvqn1

I want to rent a PO Box because a physical postal address is required for email marketing and I've heard that using a PO Box is an option.

However, so far all the PO Box services I've seen require a driving licence or passport which I don't have. Are there any PO Box services in the UK that don't require this?

MalMonroe

Royal Mail need two forms of proof of address. They will accept bank statements and energy bills and also tenancy agreements - I guess also mortgage agreements - but not a lot of people have paper versions of those nowadays as so much business is done online. I only have a passport and driving licence (but not a 'paper counterpart' as they are being phased out) as my proof of ID and address but you may have paper versions of bills and statements?

The form in the link below explains and also gives you various prices -

https://www.royalmail.com/sites/royalmail.com/files/2021-03/po-box-application-form-april-2021.pdf

Sandtree

Marvqn1 said:

I want to rent a PO Box because a physical postal address is required for email marketing and I've heard that using a PO Box is an option.

However, so far all the PO Box services I've seen require a driving licence or passport which I don't have. Are there any PO Box services in the UK that don't require this?

Why do you want a PO Box/not actually using your proper address?

PO Box is only available from Royal Mail and one key thing is that other than for a small number of protected industries (eg jewellers) anyone can contact Royal Mail and they will be given the real address. PO Boxes are useful in that the mail comes sorted so you can use one address for complaints, one for payments, one for new customer account forms etc and get the mail separated so you can simply pass the sack(s) (or the scans) to the right team.

There are hundreds of companies offering mail forwarding and similar services and they arent obliged to tell anyone where they are sending the mail to short of the police etc asking. Because fake addresses are used by fake businesses too often then they should be asking for appropriate ID however were you to go across to the Consumer Rights section you'll find plenty of links to such companies that list their forwarding address and a google on that will often show a company who are lax, willing to turn a blind eye for the right money etc.

Personally... any trader hiding behind whats a obviously a forwarding address (google will show thousands of brands using a small office) is one to be avoided in my book.