wed, november 3, 1999
page E1
Postal Service says label fights fraud;
small firms cry foul
By Jane Larson
The Arizona Republic
PMB - - three simple letters that will help prevent mail fraud, or a red flag that will smear small and home-based businesses as less than legal?
The U.S. Postal Service, the mailbox rental industry and small business advocates have been wrangling for months over proposed regulations that would require mailbox holders to add the designation "PMB" to their addresses.
The designation - for private mail box - was announced in April, scheduled to go into effect last month, then postponed until April. Now the Postal Service is preparing to publish regulations this month that would allow boxholders to use either PMB or the # sign in their addresses - but not " Suite ... .. Apartment ... .. Department" or other potentially misleading terms. Whether current users would be grandfathered in is still being discussed.
But the idea of a PMB designation has some small business owners feeling discriminated against.
"It makes us look less credible, because it says, 'Ha, ha, they have a mailbox and not their own office,' " said Phyllis Van denBrul, owner of Mobile Computer Professor in Scottsdale.
VandenBrul started using a mailbox rental store, and its address on her business cards, when she started her home-based business three years ago. She liked the convenience of having someone available to accept software deliveries, the credibility of a business address and, most important, the ability to keep her home address private from solicitors and other traffic. She figures she will have spent $200 to $500 getting her business stationery reprinted with the PMB designation.
Shelley Lahr, owner of homebased Textures & Tones Window Covering in Phoenix, said she spent $150 changing her business stationery from "Suite" to "PMB."
"I liked it better the other way," Lahr said. She, too, uses a mailbox store for privacy reasons and because she believes its address gave her business a more professional look than a residential address.
There are more than 300 mailbox rental stores in Arizona, averaging 350 boxes each, according to Postal Service and industry estimates. About 60 percent of the customers for Mail Boxes Etc., the Valley's largest chain, with nearly 50 stores, are small-office/home-office entrepreneurs, franchisee Larry Rogoff said.
"It's affected our customers because it's impeded their ability to take advantage of our business addresses," he said of the PMB furor.
Postal officials say the new designation and other controls are designed to help postal inspectors track down boxholders who commit credit-card fraud and conduct mailorder scams. The new rules will make it easier to track "identity thieves" and fly-by-night businesses that advertise some product or service, collect customers' checks and skip town, the Postal Service says.
The new designation also would eliminate the chance of deceiving consumers, said Donna Spini, a local Postal Service spokeswoman. "If it says 'suite,' that's leading people to believe a whole different set of events," she said.
The Postal Service also plans to set up an 800 number and publish on its Web site a list of addresses of mailbox rental stores, so consumers can check the address of someone they're doing business with. The industry says it agreed to the change because the store addresses are available from phone books and other sources.
Some, like VandenBrul, fear those listings will still cast a cloud over their businesses. Others say
the home-based business phenomenon, and associated use of mailbox stores, have become so widespread that the old stigma is nearly gone.
"It's not a negative now, because a lot of people want to stay home," said Judy Hacker of Phoenix, editor of the MOMversations monthly newsletter for mothers. Hacker, whose business is also home-based, says she thinks the Postal Service changes are for a good reason, but adds that it will cost her hundreds of dollars to change her business stationery and notify clients.
The debate started last spring, when the Postal Service proposed new fraud fighting regulations for Commercial Mail Receiving Agencies. The regulations gave boxholders six months to incorporate the PMB label in their mailing addresses; required the mailbox stores to get two forms of identification from boxholders, including one with a picture; and required stores to provide the Postal Service with quarterly rather than annual lists of boxholders.
The identification piece has gone into effect, and Mail Boxes Etc. is seeing "a high level of compliance," though a few customers have resisted because they consider it an invasion of privacy, Rogow said.
Those who have been negotiating with the Postal Service in Washington, D.C., say the service has come up with no studies to prove that fraud is more widespread at commercial mailbox outlets than at post office boxes or private residences. That makes them think the rules are an attempt by the Postal Service to put pressure on its private-sector competition.
"Maybe I'm skeptical, but I think that's got to be part of it," said Mary Leon, lobbyist for the National Federation of Independent Business. The federation's smallbusiness members are concerned about the cost of a change, the burden of additional regulations, and the perception that a service they frequently use is being targeted, she said.
The U.S. Small Business Administration's Office of Advocacy has also been involved. It opposes any address designation, calling it in an Oct. 20 letter to the Postal Service "an illusory requirement that ... presents a false sense of security to USPS, while making it more difficult for legitimate businesses to continue to operate in a dignified and cost-efficient manner."
The industry, for its part, says it is trying to work more closely with the Postal Service on issues such as fraud, privacy and forwarding of mail.
Jane Larson can be reached at (602) 444-8280 or jane.larson@pni.com .