
Outbox – A beautiful inbox for postal mail - makeramen
https://www.outboxmail.com/
======
tfe
I had this service for about two months and just cancelled it. My reasons
were:

1\. They weren't picking up my mail or delivering my magazines/packages with
the consistency that they promised. This gradually eroded my trust the more
times I found evidence of it happening.

2\. I don't want to lose access to all my mail if they go under or get hacked.
My only way to access it is via their apps and website, which could go away at
any moment. To make matters worse, they shred all the physical copies after 30
days.

Those things plus the general lack of trust started making me very, very
nervous as time went on.

Edit: more details

~~~
msandford
I used to work for a company that did a similar thing to outbox, but
differently. They took a picture of every piece of mail and then stored
everything until customers placed shipping/scanning request via the web.

I was still there when Outbox first launched. It was deduced that Outbox would
have it rough due to privacy/security problems. It was for that reason my
former employer never launched an auto-scan product to compete.

It looks like a smart move, even today.

~~~
FelixP
If you know something about the industry, could you recommend some good
alternatives?

~~~
msandford
Sure, happy to. First the incredibly biased part:

I used to work at US Global Mail and I did most/all of the R&D/deployment to
modernize their service offering. It now includes a picture of the important
side/part of every item that arrives, mail/magazines/packages, whatever. Also
a weight and pretty accurate dimensions. The tracking number is also recovered
from barcodes on the package, if available. Then after every piece is entered
into the database it's uniquely barcoded for internal tracking. Nothing is
scanned or opened unless customers ask for it. That's for your privacy as well
as liability for the business. Most of the customers get a big FedEx envelope
or pouch full of still stamped and sealed regular envelopes (that goes a long
way towards building trust) on a weekly/biweekly/monthly basis. You can setup
automatic shipping or place requests manually depending on your needs. US
Global Mail ships all over the place.

Now the less biased part. Primary competitors are: outboxmail.com
earthclassmail.com USA2Me.com myus.com bongous.com

I'm sure there are others but those are the ones I was aware of when I was
still in the industry.

I would say that the primary thing to google if you're looking for that kind
of service is "mail forwarding service" as a search for that turns up many of
the competitors I listed and more.
<https://www.google.com/search?q=mail+forwarding+service>

The real bummer about mail forwarding is that you need a Form 1583 either
signed in front of one of the employees, or witnessed by a notary. It's a real
pain but the USPS did it to prevent mail forwarding companies from being
unwitting accessories to various kinds of fraud.

That's about all I can think of but feel free to ask more questions. I'm happy
to answer.

------
mratzloff
1\. Collect mail door-to-door

2\. Scan each page of mail, including envelopes

3\. Post scans online

4\. Return requested physical mail

5\. Charge $4.99 for this service

6\. ...

7\. Profit?

Looking at their job postings, they have one person per city managing a team
of people working probably close to minimum wage going door-to-door. These
people most likely scan mail at their homes using a scanner provided by
Outbox.

Let's say they pay a City Manager $100,000, or $125,000 after taxes,
unemployment insurance, and benefits. An individual can take on 30 customers,
is paid above minimum wage (let's say $15 after taxes, etc.), and works 7
hours a day (or 35 hours/week, making them part-time employees). That's
roughly $30,000 per worker annually.

At $4.99 per month, none of the economics work. At 30 customers per part-time
employee, the break even point is $100 per month per customer. At $4.99 per
month each PTE needs to handle around 600 customers each to break even. 100
customers per PTE at $30/month also breaks even. But even 100 per PTE seems
unrealistic.

Unless I'm missing something very basic, it just doesn't scale at $4.99 per
month. At all. It's not even close.

~~~
corin_
After looking at their FAQ [1], yes they actually do collect mail. My initial
thought was that they way to achieve this at a lower cost would be to redirect
all mail direct to this company, who could then receive all customers' mail at
one central office/warehouse which would lower staff costs massively.

I don't know if mail redirection is possible or easy to set-up in the US, but
it is in the UK - although I just checked prices, and that alone would cost
$6.40/month for each customer. [2]

> _These people most likely scan mail at their homes using a scanner provided
> by Outbox._

If their FAQ is truthful, they will bring all mail back with them - as it says
you won't get mail delivered unless you specifically request an item. Maybe
they have clever machines to speed through the process of
opening/scanning/filing? At the very least, this means drivers can just rush
round collecting items, and the opening/scanning process can then be
streamlined back at HQ.

[1]
[http://help.outboxmail.com/customer/portal/articles/984656-h...](http://help.outboxmail.com/customer/portal/articles/984656-how-
do-you-collect-my-mail-)

[2]
[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:ZGsrC9z...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:ZGsrC9zxlm0J:www.royalmail.com/personal/receiving-
mail/redirection+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk&client=firefox-nightly)

~~~
mratzloff
> _My initial thought was that they way to achieve this at a lower cost would
> be to redirect all mail direct to this company, who could then receive all
> customers' mail at one central office/warehouse which would lower staff
> costs massively._

Yes, but Outbox actually _prefers_ you don't forward your mail to them![1]

From their FAQ:

“Why on earth do you come by my house to pickup my mail,” we hear from
thousands of people. ”Shouldn’t I just send you my mail?” Great question - and
one we get a lot. In fact, we shared your belief for about a year… but after
tens of thousands of mailbox runs, we’ve concluded that picking up mail at
your house is the only way we can create the elegant user experience we
demand.

[1]
[http://help.outboxmail.com/customer/portal/articles/984656-h...](http://help.outboxmail.com/customer/portal/articles/984656-how-
do-you-collect-my-mail-)

------
protomyth
This is probably one of the sites that you really need to read the terms of
service <https://www.outboxmail.com/terms> to figure out what you are getting
yourself into.

"If applicable, and unless you direct Outbox otherwise, Outbox may also, now
or in the future, direct the third parties who send you mail and/or bills to
send certain items of such mail and/or bills electronically to an email
address provided to such third parties by Outbox specifically for that purpose
and for that purpose only, in which case you authorize Outbox to do so in its
sole discretion for as long as your account for the Service remains open."

~~~
drivers99
It's not that different from a service I used to use a loooong time ago,
called Paytrust (which got bought by Intuit). I changed all my billing
addresses to an address they gave me. (Actually I think Paytrust might have
updated the billing address on my behalf for most of the accounts.) Everything
they received, they scanned in. The benefit was that they also marked it down
with who the bill was from, how much it was, etc. then you could pay them all
with just a few clicks. Also, they would do the same thing which was talk to
the billers and convert it to an electronic system so that they didn't need to
handle paper bills. You could also look at the scanned image of the document
if you wanted to, and you could also order a CD at the end of the year with
all your documents as well.

So this sounds like Paytrust minus the bill-paying, but with a stronger
emphasis on getting rid of and letting you easily view all your mail. (Edit
after looking at their site some more: They also will send you the original
item if you want it... something that doesn't really apply as much to bills.
Although Paytrust did sometimes forward things to me, like a new membership
card or something.)

~~~
hahnfeld
I still use it (was originally called paymybills.com) before the
Paytrust/Intuit absorption. It's a great service, and well worth the fee of
$11/month.

Honestly, I'm surprised we haven't seen more a modern mobile/tablet version of
Paytrust come around.

~~~
zbruhnke
working on one now. <http://cloudbill.com> \- would love you to sign up for
the beta and would love to chat in the meantime if you have feedback for what
you'd like to see :)

~~~
hahnfeld
Happy to help, have used Paytrust for something like ~7 years can share plenty
of positives & opportunities for improvement. Just signed-up @ your landing
page, marty@ feel free to contact.

------
ruswick
This idea faces two major problems.

The first is that the premise is trivial at best and detrimental at worst.
Let's evaluate my current mail situation. Considering that I'm a junior in
high school, I receive a substantial amount of college-related junk mail
(between five and ten pieces per day), in addition to perhaps three other
items. I don't understand why it is preferable to sort though my mail
digitally. It is already trivial to remove my mail, quickly glance through it,
and toss the junk mail into the recycling bin in my foyer. Being able to do
this via a web interface means nothing to me, and certainly isn't worth my
money. In fact, I would argue that this worsens my mail-reading experience
inasmuch as it creates a level of abstraction that increases the time
necessary to deliver the mail I do care about, like The New Yorker. Our mail
system is already a travesty. I'm certainly not going to do anything to make
it even slower.

The second issue, as mentioned before, is trust. I simply don't trust a
startup to open my mail.

~~~
munificent
> Considering that I'm a junior in high school, I receive a substantial amount
> of college-related junk mail (between five and ten pieces per day), in
> addition to perhaps three other items. I don't understand why it is
> preferable to sort though my mail digitally.

Well, wait until you have a power bill, water bill, gas bill, garbage bill,
phone bill, cable bill, mortgage, credit card bills, car note, doctor's bills,
lab results, dentist's bills, vet bills, student loan bills, newsletters from
your kids' schools, bank statements, ...

Some of those need a response, some don't because you've already set up
automatic bill payment, some are information you want and can then discard,
some are things you need to keep for your records.

~~~
ruswick
Indeed, this is why adding another level of complexity to an already byzantine
system is pernicious. Why would I want to exert effort declaring what mail I
do and don't want to receive through Outbox, then wait a substantial amount of
time to receive the mail that is of value to me? If anything, simply handling
my own mail is the most effectual and expedient option. The mail that I want
gets retrieved and dealt with by me, and the mail that is irrelevant to me can
be thrown away with trivial ease. Why would I subject myself to another level
of complexity that entails extra effort on my part, an added delay, and an
expenditure?

The service is fixing a non-issue, if not exacerbating a real one.

------
pionar
With this and the send snail mail through the web thing from earlier, you
could mail yourself a letter without leaving the house. Internet complete.

~~~
gala8y
_"and the send snail mail through the web thing from earlier"_

<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5821421>

So, now, you can ping yourself. Internet complete.

------
notjustanymike
I understand this is nitpicking, but not every app needs to be a revolution
that you should join. That words gets tossed around far too often.

~~~
kmfrk
It's the Silicon Valley equivalent of the political ad's patriotic fanfare
with a not-so-subtle flag and crying eagle in the background. :)

~~~
vec
Off topic, but it turns out that eagles don't actually sound anything like
that. A real bald eagle cry is an amusingly unintimidating high pitched
chirp[1].

[1] <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hlq2kcYQcLc>

~~~
bobwaycott
Wait, what?!

Then what the hell is making that amazing and awe-inspiring American sound?

------
kvee
They're not available in the 3 zip codes I tried. Would be great to see where
they are actually operating.

~~~
simmons
After clicking through a lot of FAQ entries, I found this under "I'm moving":
"If you are moving within Austin, TX, we'd love to keep you as a customer."
So, I guess they're just in Austin. It took a lot of work to figure that out,
though. :/

~~~
aasarava
They also seem to be in some parts of San Francisco, as noted in places in
their blog. But yes, a list of Zips would be helpful.

------
skore
Obligatory snark: That intro video had a serious case of vocal fry.

While looking at all this, I was mostly considering the potential privacy
implications. Then again, with the amount of stuff we push online these days,
it's seems somewhat comical to even consider it. That alone is weird.

Then I read up on it and realized that secrecy of correspondence isn't really
that much of an established principle internationally as I have been
accustomed to, living in Germany. (It seems like France even had the death
penalty on it for a while.)

Still - Paying a service 5 bucks a month to invade your privacy* just seems a
little more real when it is about actual stuff, not just things that are bits
and bytes anyways.

*And don't tell me it won't happen. It will always happen. Somebody other than you will have or get access to that data.

~~~
aasarava
Any reason your snark has to be obligatory? Especially since it's about a
pedantic issue with the video about the service rather than the service
itself?

The thing is, you've actually got something interesting to say -- we should
certainly consider the privacy implications, and whether this could change
limits on government intrusion into your correspondence -- but you buried the
lead and presented it in a negative way for no clear reason other than you
were feeling like being snarky toward someone's hard work.

~~~
Domenic_S
> _buried the lead_

More snark: it's "buried the _lede_ ".

~~~
michaelmior
I believe "lead" is also acceptable spelling.

~~~
Domenic_S
I did time at a startup for journalists so this is burned in my skull.

 _Lede_ is journalism jargon, and "burying the lede" is a phrase borrowed from
journalism.

> _Journalistic ledes emphasize grabbing the attention of the reader. In
> journalism, the failure to mention the most important, interesting or
> attention-grabbing elements of a story in the first paragraph is sometimes
> called "burying the lede"._

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead_paragraph>

> _Bury the lead sort of works, but bury the lede is the conventional spelling
> of this expression._

<http://grammarist.com/usage/lead-lede/>

"Lede" makes a distinction between lead (leed) and lead (pb/led).

------
benatkin
Tired of pretentiously named apps. Mailbox, and now Outbox.

Yes, I get it that Apple Computer shortened their name to Apple, and that it's
cool to be like Apple. But that isn't OK, and it doesn't make it OK for your
startup. It's pillaging of the English language. At least when I say apple,
context may help people to recognize when I mean the fruit and when I mean the
tech company. With _Outbox_ and _Mailbox_ the context is less likely to
provide the needed hint, because the lowercase terms and the uppercase terms
in the same domain: email.

Adding to the pretense is the fact that they don't even own
"{{product_name}}.com". Instead it's "{{product_name}}mail.com" or
"{{product_name}}app.com".

~~~
joelandren
You're kidding, right? Aptly-named products that are popular in the everyday
vernacular are pretentious?

In this day and age, it's impossible to own the .com for anything but
asdjhlsadnklsajkdaskljjkldas.com without paying through the nose for these
domains (see Color).

Simply-named descriptive apps are a step in the right direction.

~~~
dragonwriter
> You're kidding, right? Aptly-named products that are popular in the everyday
> vernacular are pretentious?

How is Outbox -- which presents a digital version of a snail-mail _inbox_ \--
"aptly named"?

------
n9com
Why would you want other people reading through your postal mail?

~~~
thematt
For the same reason millions of people allow Google to read through their
email.

~~~
Avshalom
Millions of people allow Google to read their email because that's the free
option. Also because Google doesn't straight up tell you humans are hand
sorting it. A human at Google can probably read my email as easily as some one
can open my mailbox in meatspace, but both are assumed to be exceptions.

Edit to add: also Google does not ask for a key to my house.

------
pidge
One detail I appreciated: you take a picture of your key instead of mailing
them one.

"Create an account and send us a picture of your mailbox key (if you have one)
so we can make a secure copy."

------
JungleGymSam
I feel like this idea was spawned from a brainstorming session at The Onion
under the premise of "let's make a startup."

1\. There's no way I trust this company or its employees to act appropriately
with my mail 100% of the time.

2\. I'd be afraid of missing something important due to an unknown delay in
the scanning process.

3\. Their database will get cracked, and customer information leaked, when
they get big enough to be a worthwhile target. It's only a matter of time.

------
johnvschmitt
It takes me only ~30 seconds per day to filter mail manually & toss 90%+ into
the recycling. That's not a big problem needing solving.

And, they don't explain how they "pickup" securely. Do I need to be home? Then
you've lost all time savings, as I have to answer the door to do the
transaction with you.

If I don't have to be home, then how can you get into my mailbox securely?

------
nthj
I travel a lot. I have clients who insist on paying me via old-fashioned paper
check. And I have Outbox.

That about sums it up.

Thanks, Outbox.

------
cjc1083
If the USPS would implement something like this in a reliable fashion...well..
it would eventually end them.. but in the interim I would be so happy. Imagine
you sign up to have every one of your standard size envelopes opened / scanned
automatically. Magazines and Birthday cards (weird sizes) would still come
through. It would be terrific. I'd pay 5-10$ per month to have all of my tax
things, pay stubs, financial product offer letters, invoices, all scanned and
searchable, and they would have to deliver so much less physical mail.

However for a startup to try to replicate the multibillion dollar
infrastructure that is already in place there is silly, and the USPS won't do
it because of federal laws that would need to change about opening mail.

Of course it would make the NSA happy as well ;)

------
slovette
Ways to fix whats going to make this fail:

1\. Setup a centralized warehouse, where I can forward my mail to. Just send
the mail to y'all instead of you coming to get it at my mailbox. Also, makes
it available to a wider customer base. That's just silly easy.

2\. Make all of the information in my account downloadable for back-up and
privacy control reasons. Makes me, the customer, feel more secure and
trusting.

3\. Up your monthly to $10 or even $14, $4.99 says you're not serious about
sticking around long. Especially when you combine that price with the amount
of overhead you have taken on. I'd buy it in a heart beat at $10 with you
centralizing your workforce to an inexpensive one-location solution.

This is a great idea, just needs efficiency implemented more.

Edit: Just fixed a couple things.

------
askedrelic
I've been using it for several months in SF and it's pretty great. iPhone app
and pretty website let me see my mail from anywhere. They pickup my mail
Tuesday, Thursday, Friday. Coolest thing to me being able to mark magazines or
letters as spam and they will send unsubscribe messages for me.

Some flaws are how they handle anything more complex than just picking up mail
addressed to you. Living in a rental apartment, I get plenty of previous
residents that they ignore; I love would love to be able to get them to
unsubscribe me from all mail that isn't addressed to me. But that gets more
complex with my roommate, who doesn't use the service.

Otherwise, for $5/month, I like not having to check my mailbox and I haven't
had any issues.

------
comex
The merits of the service aside, "Outbox, a beautiful inbox" really stands out
as an oxymoron. :)

------
callahad
Apropos typo: "Your account password is _excrypted_ using modern encryption
technologies (SHA-512) and a random encryption salt."

(<https://www.outboxmail.com/learn/privacy>)

~~~
nwh
I'd be worried if they were encrypting passwords anyway. SHA512 is a hash
function.

------
chamblin
$4.99/mo seems pretty cheap for this service.

~~~
thoughtpalette
I agree. With gas, level of effort, energy for scanning and digitally
organizing alone would seem to cost much more.

~~~
Ilmesnkie_Jones
I would imagine that if 50 people got the same junk mail flyer they have a
system that only scans the flyer once as there would be no need to have a scan
of the specific piece of junk you received. Otherwise yes it seems weirdly
cheap.

------
tlrobinson
I'd like Outbox with a dedicated address. I still move fairly regularly, and
want a permanent address I can use.

Does anyone have experience with Earth Class Mail or similar services?

I tried PayTrust but it's been nothing but problems for me.

~~~
jlas
I signed up for virtualpostmail.com recently since I was moving abroad.

It is similar to outbox except all of your mail goes directly to their
facility. As in, you forward you mail to a new address provided by them.

Then there's scanning/ forwarding (including international) and package
consolidation (i.e. you order multiple packages but would like to forward 1 to
save money.)

The service has been good so far. it was cheaper than other mail-forwarding
services and provided more of the features I was looking for.

------
kmfrk
The privacy aspect is a deal-breaker for someone like me, but I think it's
worth considering that you could just use this service for a particular subset
of _all_ your mail.

It's easy to find scenarios where privacy is important, but isn't it also
possible to find scenarios where it isn't?

Think of it as an alternative to PO boxes. No hassle with anthrax, ricin, and
bombs in the mail anymore. (Although they probably won't use this in the ad
copy for the service.)

------
codereflection
Cannot read the white text on that background without highlighting.

Other thought: while a nice idea, the privacy concerns around other people
reading your mail are so great, I'd have a very hard time justifying signing
up for this service. Also - it against the law, a federal offense even, to
open mail addressed to someone else.

Finally, why isn't their FAQ on "Is my mail secure?" a direct link off of
their home page? Perhaps I'm just paranoid.

~~~
dragonwriter
> Also - it against the law, a federal offense even, to open mail addressed to
> someone else.

No, its only illegal to do so _without authority_ [1].

[1] 18 USC § 1703: <http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1703>

In relevant part: _Whoever, without authority, opens, or destroys any mail or
package of newspapers not directed to him, shall be fined under this title or
imprisoned not more than one year, or both._

~~~
codereflection
Good to know. It makes me a little more paranoid that searching for the words
'authority' or 'permission' reveal 0 relevant results, regarding giving them
such authority, in their FAQ.

------
orky56
The killer app would be to combine mail from snail mail & email into a single
product. For the snail mail side, some OCR, recognizing places/dates/etc. (the
way gmail does), & attaching images of the snail mail to the thread should
satisfy that use case. All that would be needed after that would be a simple
label to designate the snail mail. Voila, you can refer to everything as mail.

------
tswartz
If I read their about page right, they only check your mail a few times a week
(3x), then if you decide you do want a specific piece of mail they've scanned
they will send it back to you. So you still end up checking your mail waiting
for the returned item and having to filter through any junk mail that hasn't
been picked up yet. This is not something I would pay for or even do for free.

------
ben1040
So they apparently have some way of digitizing my junk mail, sending it to the
people who sent it to me, and getting them to stop.

Is there anyone who offers this service without the need to have someone
actually come to my house and pick my mail up for me? I will gladly scan or
take a smartphone picture of junk mail.

~~~
bdarnell
Yes: <https://www.paperkarma.com/>

I've been using it for a few months now with good results.

------
ada1981
I suspect they also can / will be keeping track of the data they mine from all
of your incoming mail.. Bills, invoices, preferences, etc. just like Gmail,
but for your snail mail - makes more sense that it could work with a lower
price point - but still seems awfully cheap.

------
LogicX
Interesting different model from www.earthclassmail.com - one of the big
players and leaders in digitized remote mailboxes.

I've used them years ago, and it worked out pretty well. Only part I didn't
like was at the time they only had a very ugly po box address for Boston.

~~~
frankdenbow
documentary series about EarthClassMail: <http://www.hulu.com/start-up-
junkies>

------
chenglou
The demo itself is pretty well made. What framework did you guys use?

------
quackerhacker
HEY PPL IN SF...maybe some of you guys can tell me. I remember some service
that was like this that would follow the postal carrier and grab the mail and
scan it, was that this: outbox?

------
hkarthik
The fact that this startup exists simultaneously excites me and also makes me
lament the monumental failure of the postal service in the US.

Is anyone else pissed that we're paying tax dollars to support the US Postal
Service while we're now slowly having to pay the private sector to deal with
the mess that has become our mail?

It seems like such a waste of resources.

EDIT: I stand corrected. The USPS is not funded directly by tax payer dollars.
I still lament the fact that either it's underfunded by us, or constrained by
laws and can't offer a level of service similar to what Outbox provides!

~~~
milesskorpen
The postal service operates, largely, as a private business which is massively
constrained from certain changes due to Congress. For example, they _can't_
shut down many post offices, since Representatives complain when it hits their
district. They're trying to remove Saturday delivery too — that's causing
major problems.

DESPITE this ridiculousness, they're not utterly hemorrhaging money. They've
got an extremely impressive automated system ... and talk about an audacious
business model: They'll move your piece of paper acros the country with
incredibly reliability for <$0.50! Not to mention packages — their flat rate
pricing is brilliant.

I'm generally deeply impressed by the USPS, and I think you should be too.

Clearly they can do some more automation, and maybe that's in the works, but
it's very hard to change people's behavior, and big systems move ponderously
... what's easy for a tiny startup is hard for a service which delivers mail
to a few hundred million addresses daily.

~~~
hkarthik
Well put. I stand corrected.

So why is that junk mail and unwanted mail is so hard to get rid of? Clearly
it seems like something people are willing to pay to opt out of.

~~~
bobwaycott
Maybe cos they make money off it?

