Setting Up Your Maildrop
The first step in this process is to evaluate how much privacy you require for
your activity and the distance you want to place between the authorities and
yourself. If you are merely replying let us say, to contact advertisements in
newspapers and magazines and you do not want you existing partner to find
out, a Maildrop situated in your local town should suffice.
Alternatively: you may want to avoid being seen entering and leaving the
Maildrop by someone you or your wife knows and decide that more security
would be preferable. You might find a service in town or city a few miles
away suits you better.
In contrast, if you have the taxman breathing down your neck and you
expect a degree of real trouble you might want to consider a Maildrop in a
foreign country or even another continent The further away your Maildrop is
from you, the harder it will be for anybody to connect and associate you with
it and the mail that arrives there. You must bear in mind that depending on
how you propose to collect the mail a good deal of time and expense might
have to be worked into the equation.
However, the extra expense involved in lengthy trips to collect you mail
might well be worthwhile. If you are being looked for by the authorities and
you are using a Maildrop in your own locality you are running the risk of
somebody recognizing you becoming familiar with your movements, finding
out where you are living and possibly exposing you to the agencies and the
individuals that are looking for you. There are unfriendly eyes and ears
everywhere. Anonymity is your best protection and is worth the extra
investment.
When you make your decision you should take into account that third world
countries and the more relaxed European nations such as Greece and Spain
are not really worth considering. Their postal services are inefficient and mail
takes ages to arrive if it hasn't already been stolen.If you are considering the
US as a possible location for your Maildrop, take into account that, as usual,
the authorities lead the way in restrictive legislation. In some states clients
must turn up in person, show ID and fill in forms before they can open a
Maildrop facility.
Moreover, the post office has a list of many Maildrops on a computer disk.
This information is loaded onto the computers of banks and credit reference
agencies. If these addresses are used to obtain bank accounts or credit,
those applications will be flagged and at the very least rejected. You will not
be able to secure credit cards from listed Maildrop addresses.When using the
US, we suggest you contact the various establishments and speak to them to
see what they have to offer. Despite Big Brother breathing down everybody's
neck, there are still some deals that can be pulled off.
Once you have settled on your own requirements you can then set about
contacting the particular services that might suit your needs and then
determine which offers you the best deal and the most flexibility. It is always
wise to select a Maildrop service that has been in operation for at least three
years. Maildrops appear and disappear with disconcerting regularity. If a
service has been around for three years and has a fair number of existing
clients, it is likely to stick around. An established operation is unlikely to just
up and disappear leaving you to begin the process all over again.
When contacting a Maildrop service I strongly recommend you do not do so
in person or from an address to which you can be connected. Do not have
details of the Maildrop services sent to your home. Information of this nature
may find its way onto a computer database or a manual record and could
ultimately land you in just the kind of bother a Maildrop is designed to help
you avoid. Secrecy, caution and discretion at all times are the secrets of
success as far as making yourself invisible is concerned.Ask for details over
the phone that is not your own. The last thing you want to do is to leave a
paper trail leading the authorities to your doorstep. Modern phone bills show
itemized calls. A detailed investigation into your affairs will reveal calls to
Maildrops and your secret address will be exposed. We also advise against
using fax machines as they can be intercepted in the same way as telephone
calls.
Use a phone in the comfortable and quiet lobby of a large hotel. These
phones are available for public use and it is-highly unlikely that particular
calls can be accredited to a particular individual. Do not use a credit card to
pay for your calls as transactions are held on record and contribute to
damning paper trails.
Hotels can also be used as a place to which you can have mail sent. Simply
book a room a week or two in advance and instruct the Maildrop companies
to forward the details you require to the hotel for safekeeping until your
arrival as a guest. Similarly you might inquire whether your bank would be
prepared to hold mail for you until you call to collect. This should be easy to
arrange, particularly if you are a long-standing, affluent and valued account
holder.
Avoid contracts like the plague if possible. These documents are kept on file
and represent another paper trail that will link you to the service and will
blow your cover if they fall into the hands of an adversary or an investigator.
If you contact the service by phone in the first instance, contractual signings
and wrangles will be easier to avoid. When you begin to use the services,
pay all your bills on time and work toward an understanding with the
Maildrop operator. You may well find he will not force any contractual
obligation upon you if he likes the steady and reliable payments you make.
You might approach the Maildrop you are looking to secure by phone and
pretend that you live and are calling from another country and be prepared
to give them an address in that country as your "home" address". This
address should be another Maildrop address. You should instruct the Maildrop
you are attempting to set up not to send any mail to this "home" address.
Tell them to do so would be impractical as you spend a great deal of time
away from that address traveling on business. Instead, suggest that you will
arrange to collect the mail they are holding