Physical Mail Forwarding Service from the U.S. to Japan

[SleighRide]

Lately it has been my experience that more and more U.S. based financial institutions no longer allow an overseas (non-US) mailing address. A few months ago CitiBank credit cards (but not CitiBank banking) stopped allowing me from using our physical address in Japan. At present I am simply relying upon my parents who live in the U.S. to forward to Japan all physical mail sent from CitiBank credit cards and other institutions, but this will not be an option indefinitely into the future. I am, therefore, now interested to look into one of the mail forwarding services based in the U.S. (e.g., Planet Express, USA2me, etc.). The rates seem, however, to be all over the place based upon online estimates. Does anybody have a good track record working with such a company? Would you be able to recommend such a service? If so, which one? Thanks for your help in advance.

[captainspoke]

I don't know of any such services, but only a heads up--make sure that what you seem to be planning does not violate your broker/financial institution's terms of service. ((And I don't know if it's true, but I've read that some people use a VPN to spoof their location, since they are concerned that logging in from japan will be visible to their bank, giving the game away.))

How about interactive brokers? Have you considered them?

And I guess you're talking about credit cards here. Is that your main concern, or is it also banking/brokerage?

[TokyoWart]

I have not had this problem with my US brokerages (Vanguard, Fidelity, Schwab, TDAmeritrade) all of whom know my actual address. I don't ask them to mail me anything (everything is online) except the end-of-year tax forms which I use for both US and Japanese taxes because they show all capital gains and dividends. I recently had to open a bank account in the US so I could make payments for my son's tuition (the state school he attends allows electronic payment from banks but not brokerages). Every bank I tried (Wells Fargo, Keybank) and a small credit union were happy to open an account for me overseas but sometimes had trouble entering my foreign phone number and mailing address in some of their systems. You can order checks for any bank (i.e. with any bank's name and address, routing number, your account number, and your personal address) from a third service provider who can mail those checks to you anywhere.

I looked into mail forwarding services from the US but don't use them. There are services that aim to help US expats. They tend to be based in states without income taxes (Texas, Nevada, Florida). One of the expat tax preparers I looked into, Tax Samaritan, also offers mail forwarding for a fee.

[StockBeard]

I have used mail forwarding services in the past to receive items that would only ship to the US. The one I used was shipito and it worked ok. I would not trust such a service with important things such as a credit card, however. I have read stories about some employees searching customers' mail, and theft being a common occurrence (it didn't happen to me). Enter "name of the company" followed by "theft" on google and you will find several horror stories. I'm not saying these companies aren't legit, but you would be adding a somewhat dangerous link to your chain of trust with the bank by using them for such important communication, IMO.

Some banks frown upon having their customers outside of the US. That seems to be the issue in your case. If possible I would open an account with a bank that is more "expat friendly".