Address Unknown

Call me old fashioned, but I prefer a paper credit card statement.   I love getting mail, even if it's just a credit card bill, it's just so satisfying opening up the mailbox and seeing something there waiting for me! A paper credit card statement  is the perfect kick-in-the-pants reminder I need to pay that bill.  I know, electronic statements are more eco-friendly, but I end up having to print a copy anyway, so I can tick off all the entries and make sure it all adds up.  And emails can get lost in my inbox too easily.

A few months ago I realized I had not been receiving my statements for the credit card from the bank that we do all our banking at.  It hadn't been a problem, because sometimes I pay the card off early because my accounting software warns me that a payment is coming due, but I wanted to figure out what was going on.

I called the bank, they said, "call the credit card people."

I called the credit card people, they said, "On our end we can see that you are getting the paper statements, so you should be getting them, but in the meantime we can send you a copy. Maybe that will kickstart the statements getting sent."

A week later I received the copy of the statement.  Now it's been over a month, still no statement. 

So, today I called the credit card people.  They said, "We show that we have sent the statements out every month. Call the mail people."

I called the mail people. They said, "what's your mailing address?"

I gave them my mailing address. It's not a pretty address, it looks like this:

Box 4, Site 5, RR 6 

Cool Town, AB 

A1B 2C3 (that's the postal code)

They rattled it back to me and said, "PO box ...."

I said, "No, it's a community mailbox. Not a PO Box."

They asked for my physical address...

Here's where it gets tricky. I live in a subdivision created when a farmer sold a chunk of his land decades ago. So there are about 30 houses with the same address, and then a house number.  Similar to this:

12345 Hwy 67

#89

Cool Town, AB

A1B 2C3 (notice it's the same town and postal code)

But about 6 years ago, they built a new highway a little bit South of us, so now our highway is:

Hwy 67A.  But if you look on google maps, or any other GPS system, our new address doesn't exist. So what we have done for parcel deliveries is googled my house, and it gives a pretty random address based on the town 2 km West of us.

89 Random st

Neat Town, AB

A4D6N2 (very random)

But I have been told by the county people that the google address is NOT the address I should give if there's an emergency at my house.  I need to give the updated address with "Hwy 67A".

I told the mail guy my physical address, and he couldn't find it in his system (no big surprise there).

Then the mail guy said to me, "First we have to deal with your problem with your address before we can deal with the credit card statement problem.  I have entered a ticket into the system that we have to figure out your correct physical address.  You will be contacted by October 11."

I am eagerly awaiting  the official correct address of where I live!