200 Dollars?????

[antda 13]

Hi Lgg,

Oh my gosh....$200 just to forward mail... What a rip off! Lol..Only in Toronto and from Canada Post do they dare do such a thing...Yikes!

For that reason alone, Canada post should seriously think about improving their services overall...(for example, actually sending mail to the right address..yes, I've had mail lost from them before....and having Saturday service)...I guess not then...

By the way, re-directing mail from USPS is FREE!...So if you move anywhere from one US location to another US location..it is free for up to a year....Just keep that in mind if ever you move again...Seriously, Canada Post can learn a thing or two from USPS around here!

If I were you, I would just forward your mail to another location in Canada, which hopefully might be cheaper there and/or have someone else in Canada pick up your mail for you (family member, friend, neighbour, co-worker, new tenant, etc.) at your former location.

In the meantime, tell everyone that you know of about your new address.

And don't forget to inform the various government, financial, legal, etc. agencies about your address change too.

As for moving, from Canada to the USA (I've been here in the USA since 2006), I did the following:

I notified:

-Revenue Canada and Elections Canada (with the "final tax return" in 2007, to prevent tax fraud and to officially notify the Canadian government that I'm not living in Canada anymore, and had to cancel and return those GST cheques I'm not entitled to and would be in trouble for keeping such)

-Passport Canada (when they added my married name to my maiden name passport in 2007)

-Passport Canada again (when I applied for a new passport recently in my married name in 2009)

-I closed my Canadian bank account in Canada (2007)

-I let someone in Canada collect my personal mail for me, and then notified those people by mail that I moved (2006-Present)

-Family, friends, and other acquaintances that I keep in contact with (2006-Present)

-The Office of the Attorney General (optional...but this was after I received the forwarded jury duty notice in 2009....I had no choice there but to tell them that I moved and that I couldn't serve on a Canadian jury)

I didn't notify:

-Social Insurance (Human Resources Canada, I think) as I wouldn't be working in Canada anymore and wouldn't need a new card.

-OHIP (Ontario Health Insurance) as my card already expired and I can't use it here, so I never renewed it.

-MTO (Ministry of Transportation Ontario) as my license was automatically transfered, surrendered, and destroyed here by the DMV in NYS. Note: You cannot have 2 driver's licenses at the same time (at least that's the way it is here in NYS), so you would either have to pick between the American one or the Canadian one to keep.

Anyone else I need to notify, I can't think of, and haven't done such.

Hope this helps. Good luck on the rest of your immigration journey too.

Ant

P.S. Lol..I'm pretty sure you won't be wanting that Canadian jury duty and/or elections Canada notice sometime later on down the road while you are in the USA...(that's another story)..But yes, that happened to me here in the USA, despite notifying such government agencies years ago about my move....lol....grr.....luckily someone in Canada forwarded that mail to me...otherwise I would have been in trouble there...especially with the jury duty notice...lol....

I was just doing some pre-planning/organizing and thought, hey, I'll check and see if i can do a mail transfer with Canada post to catch the mail I might miss once I move.

Holy mackerel! they want 196$ to transfer my mail from Toronto to Maryland for a year.

I was a little sticker-shocked and can't tell if that's extreme or not. I can't imagine what I'd get in the mail that would warrant that expense but....

What did you guys do? Did you do this?

Just wondering and am still in shock...

Edited January 10, 2010 by Ant+D+BabyA

[Dan and Ali 3]

$200!? What a ripoff! I worked for the post office before and I know it's a bit of a pain for them to sort through the mail and apply the re-direct stickers but definitely not $200 worth! Especially because you'll probably change your address for everything important, anyway. I think the price is so high to account for all of the people who don't bother to change their address and cause a ton of extra work for the post office. Too bad for everyone else

[Rustbelt 0]

We're right on the border, so my mail goes to a PO Box over there. We have a business and different last names too, so to redirect to the US was going to cost around $340. For six months. It was cheaper to redirect within Canada, rent a PO Box and drive the 15 miles over the border to pick it up.

[CDAgirlMI 51]

$200 is crazy.

I had all my mail re-directed to my parent's place for around $30.

[lgg 2]

Wow, Ant, you are one wealth if information!!! wow... .

Thanks everyone, I think I'm just going to redirect to my friend's place for about 3-6 months...

[antda 13]

Wow, Ant, you are one wealth if information!!! wow... .

Thanks everyone, I think I'm just going to redirect to my friend's place for about 3-6 months...

No problem..Glad to be of help there..

Lol..Just speaking from experience, that's all..

(By no means I'm a lawyer..and if you need to consult one, by all means to such instead......)

Good luck redirecting your mail and good luck with your journey too.

Ant

[lgg 2]

You're a real sweetie, thanks a lot!

LGG

No problem..Glad to be of help there..

Lol..Just speaking from experience, that's all..

(By no means I'm a lawyer..and if you need to consult one, by all means to such instead......)

Good luck redirecting your mail and good luck with your journey too.

Ant