Send yourself a test mail

Welcome to VPM! If it's your first time using a service like ours, it can be a little nerve racking going in blind to see how quickly we truly process your mail. 

We do promise that once we receive your mail, we will place it into your mailbox account within 1 business day  as mentioned in our FAQ article here: How quickly do you process mail and requests?

If you're filing a Change of Address and you're waiting for that first forwarded letter to arrive, it can feel like forever since it normally takes 7 - 10 business days (roughly 2 weeks and can sometimes be longer). But while you wait, you can take steps to test out how well your mailbox works in advance. 

To do this, send yourself a test letter! Here are a few things you should look out for when you send yourself a test letter:

Name and Mailing Address

First things first. Make sure that you are sending the test letter to your mailbox address. As you do this, it's important to include your 4-digit mailbox number that you select during the signup process. 

Also, double check your mailbox account that you have the proper recipient names listed so when your mail arrives at our facility we know to place it into your account.

Testing Mail Forwarding via Change of Address

Now if you want to test that mail forwarding is working through USPS's Change of Address service, send mail to yourself at the original address (non-VPM address) to see how quickly it travels to your mailbox account. In the beginning, forwarding can feel sluggish through USPS, so you may want to make sure that mail forwarding is working properly and smoothly. We recommend that when you do this, to send a secondary test letter out directly to your mailbox account as well so you can do a time comparison. 

Not Seeing Your Test Mail Arrive?

How you send the test letter matters. If you want to see how quickly things are moving along, it's always best to send the test letter to yourself with a method that comes with tracking. This way, you can monitor where things go wrong. 

One of the easiest ways to send test letters with tracking would be via USPS Priority Mail. They normally deliver items in 1-3 business days. 

If you opt for USPS First Class Mail - they are cost effective; however it does not include tracking so you will not be able to see where your mail is at, at any given time. Therefore, you won't know whether the problem is caused by USPS or something else that is happening on our end.

If you're using an online service that sends out postcards - please take into account how quickly they process and send your letter out for you too.   Postcards also do not come with tracking so it's not possible to know if things go wrong.  We highly recommend that you save yourself time by sending a trackable test mail piece to see what's happening.