Earth Class Mail Review
Paper is the foundation most businesses run on. In a large corporation, thousands, if not millions, of pieces of paper are printed each and every day. But while paper continues to be a necessity for many aspects of business, new technology has made it increasingly irrelevant. Paper can be difficult to store, as it requires filing cabinets and constant updating. In addition, it can be difficult to transfer to different locations as mail takes time to send and deliver.
On the other hand, computer-stored messages and mail have filled the void left by paper. Whether through e-mail or scanned documents, many employees rely on their hard drives and compact discs to store messages. Earth Class Mail takes this revolution one step further, by removing the constant shuffle of mail from businesses and personal homes entirely. By receiving mail for their customers directly, Earth Class Mail is able to scan and send messages entirely in electronic form. As a result, the massive heaps of paper are effectively removed from the office.
But is Earth Class Mail’s service really worthwhile to use? By investing a bit of my own capital, I was able to try out their service for a couple of months to see if there was really any benefit.
Overview of Services
There are five key steps to the process listed by Earth Class Mail. The process starts by choosing a plan that best fits your needs. There a variety of options available depending on whether your needs are for your own home use or for a business. The number of options is nice, but the overage charges for needing extra services seem a tad high on first glance. For larger businesses, pricing must be requested. It seems like an estimate quote would be useful to those with large companies, but for now, it isn’t a concern for me.
Second, a new customer chooses which of the six main locations, large cities around the United States, they want their mail delivered to. Most of the locations are on the West Coast, but New York City is also an option for businesses located in the East. A number of PO Boxes across the country are also available, but those seem to offer limited service as packages cannot be delivered.
The next step is to allow the company to actually have the right to receive your mail. For those unaware, opening others mail without permission is a federal offense and a criminal act. But while it makes perfect sense for Earth Class Mail to protect themselves, this is the step where you should ask yourself if it is truly okay for others to read through your personal mail. For small businesses, this is usually not a big deal. But for individuals and large, public corporations, this could potentially be a deal-breaker. While there is no reason to distrust Earth Class Mail, keeping your interests in mind is never a bad thing.
Once you set up your account, the next step is to actually use it. The only way this service can be used is by telling customers, employees, and partners where to mail your deliverables from now on. This should be a simple step overall, but it may take a week or two for your mail to arrive. In some cases, it may take months for some to adjust to your new address.
The final step is to login to your virtual mail account and manage your mail. Like a normal mailbox, mail needs to be sorted, deleted when useless, and stored. But while these services may seem simple, it doesn’t necessarily guarantee that the service will be carried out as promised. Read on to gain my insight from my own personal experiences using Earth Class Mail.
My Experience
Without revealing too much about myself, it is important for me to first point out that I am not a small business owner and used this service for my own personal use. While I am confident my experiences reflect the company’s offerings as a whole, there is no guarantee. Make sure you ask all the questions you have to Earth Class Mail directly before starting any large-scale business with them.
I am one of those people who hates getting tons of mail. The opened envelopes often clutter my apartment and disposing of mail is something I am never fond of. For that reason, Earth Class Mail’s services were particularly intriguing to me. I choose the Essential package, thinking that the cheapest package available would be good enough for me.
My account was easy enough to set up, and frankly I am not too concerned about someone I have never met receiving a few of my letters. Anything I thought of as too personal, such as credit card statements, I simply did not include.
An initial problem I had was with the quantity of messages. As it turns out, I get much more mail than I expected. After getting just over a hundred messages in my first full month, I found myself paying three times as much as my initial fee. Next time, I will have to opt for a larger package that fits into my needs. My advice to you is to estimate how many messages you receive each month before deciding on a final package.
Outside of that, however, the service was easy to use and the interface of the online mailbox is terrific. It is easy to download messages and put them into a compact disc or external hard drive. And the amount of time I saved going through all of my mail and deciding what to keep or throw out was well worth the small cost.
Final Thoughts
The bottom-line on Earth Class Mail is that, as long as you understand what your needs are, they can help with the mail flow. So review how much mail you get each month, look over the different pricing options, and ask the company’s representatives whatever questions you may have. You may just find that Earth Class Mail can help you.
I like Earth Class Mail, they help me get my postal mail wherever I am. When I travel overseas I use the services of Private Box who do a pretty similar job.
Hi John,
Sounds like a great way to get your mail when outside the U.S. I’ll have to check Private Box out. Thanks for the comment.
ECM just lost my business. Previously, I paid $24 per month for their service.
Now, with their new August increase, I will pay up to $120 per month for the same services.
Instead of being included in my $24 monthly fee, I now pay:
$19.95 per month (at least they lower the monthly fee)
$4.95 per month for shredding (want your documents floating around? I do not)
$1.50 per mail piece for scanning. (I use to have 100 pages per month, conservatively estimating 10 scans per month and doing without the rest, this is still $15.00 more per month.
So my $24 is now $40 per month, if I cut back on services I now receive.
What a business concept, lets unbundle everything, add services very few can use (how many of us will have a 50 page piece of mail we want scanned?), and make it seem like we are concerned about our customers when in reality we are giving ourselves a 200% increase in our fees.
I hope they go belly up.
Earth Class Mail just more than DOUBLED their prices for existing customers.
I get a modest amount of mail (10-15 pieces per month), and this service now (with all the nice little add on charges, ie. $1.50 if you actually want to be able to see your mail, per piece) costs over FIFTY DOLLARS PER MONTH!!
They don\’t care about their customers one bit. What other service have you ever used who will double your per month price, with no warning, and no alternative?
Be ware!!
Check out paperlessmail.com They have been delivering postal mail online since 2001 and do it for less than earthclassmail. Their service is $9.95 per month. PaperlessMail is efficient because the entire mailpiece and contents are scanned and delivered as soon as it is received. When earthclassmail receives the mail they only scan the outside of the mailpiece and then delivery is delayed while you need to tell them what you want them to do with it.
I have earthclass mail, too and it was fine until they suddenly raised their prices. Now, in addition to the 19.95 per month, you have to pay extra for each scan ($1.50) and another $4.95 monthly for shredding if you want that….so it is extremely expensive. IN addition, I recently received a notice from them that they would soon answer a question I sent them about my account. I never sent them an email and am waiting to hear whether someone accessed my account or they made a mistake or ??? Needless to say, I’m cancelling my account as soon as possible.
The problem isn’t so much the service, its that they have you locked in once you sign up because when you cancel the US Postal service will not let them refuse mail for 6 months meaning you can’t do a change of address. This requires you to track down EVERY single person or company that you MIGHT want to get mail from. Sure blame the USPS but they also bury that fact in the fine print.
ECM also made a significant price increase and at the same time removed a notice that reminded you about the cost of each action (scan, shred, etc) saying users found it “annoying”. That is either really bad timing or outright deceit. I tend to believe the latter.
Finally you get a PO Box # but also a ECM member ID. That make about a 20 digit string that you will need to remember. Believe me when I tell you that many online address forms do not properly process this address. It took 3 calls to get Chase Bank to believe that I actually had that address. Ugh.
A generally regrettable foray into what could have been a great service.
Are you people really surprised by the increase in prices @ ECM? Have you not seen this company’s show called Start-Up Junkies? Obviously, the increase in prices means the company is drowning and desperately struggling to keep afloat.
Really, this service is pathetic and only attractive to anyone over 65 without a blackberry/computer. We live in the computer age… all companies are paperless-online billing from utilities, credit cards, banking etc. Maybe for the once a year Christmas card but $540/yr for a few cards??! I move every 6 months and would NEVER require a service like EMC. As a wise character once quoted on Wayne’s World: “get the net”.