Frequently Ask Questions about PO Box Services in France
Why use French Office ?
- A French address for you or your business.
- Receive all types of mail , and even parcels.
- Your mail is scanned so you can read it and manage it online.
- Mail is stored until you’re ready to forward it.
- Completely confidential.
- With added administrative services such as check deposits, translation…
How to easily get an address in France. With our cheap monthly PO Box plans, you establish your presence in France. Available for individuals as well as businesses.
The French Post Office or private carriers deliver your letters or parcels to your French Office address. We sign for your mail and parcels if necessary.
It’s as if you were here yourself.
A real and a virtual office
French Office offers all the services you might need
to run your business in France.
We provide you with an office that receives your mail or packages, forwards items throughout the world for you and even deposits your cheques into your bank – a full back office set-up.
Contract
Signing up online is the easiest and fastest method. Clear step-by-step instructions lead you through a 2 minutes registration process.
You’ll receive your contract by email as soon as you validate your subscription.
For your mail to reach us, you must:
- Either direct your mail to us via a contrat with your post office (if available in your contry).
- Or give your new address to all your contacts.
Yes. Whether you’re interested in a Basic, Standard, Premium plan or in our services on demand, you’ll have to sign a contract with us.
This contract states our responsibilities and yours. It describes the terms and conditions for all our services and garantees the quality of our work.
The contract has no fixed duration.
Our plans run for a minimum of 1 month and for the duration of your choice. You also choose the start date.
A sliding scale is applied: the longer you pre-pay for, the lesser the cost.
Your contract will be automatically renewed for the same duration you originally paid for. If your credit has run out, you’ll receive an email alert.
You can close your account at any time by email or by sending us a letter.
You’ll receive email alerts a few days before your plan runs out. If your account holds enough credit, your plan will be automatically renewed for 1 month.
If your credit has run out, the alerts will remind you how to top it up with your debit card, credit card or by bank transfer.
Yes, you can switch to another plan at any time, without any fee. To do so, simply call us or send us an email. Please specify the name of the new plan and your desired start date. In the absence of a specified start date, the switch take effect at the beginning of the following month. We will adjust the credit on your account to reflect your new plan and the duration you’ve chosen for your contract.
After you’ve signed up online, you’ll receive your contract by email. You’ll need to sign it and return it to us, along with :
- Two different pieces of ID (passport, etc.) baring the subscriber’s name.
- A utility bill readable in English.
- A business registration document if you represent a company.
You can send these documents by email or by mail, within a month or before your first forwarding request.
You can close your account by notifying us by mail or by email. Please specify when you wish for your account to be cancelled, no sooner than the end of the current month. We will confirm by email that we have received and are processing your request.
If there’s still credit on your account, we will refund it, minus de cancellation fee.
Address
Our PO boxes are located in La Mure d’Isère, near Grenoble. However our clients are based around the world. They can forward their mail from France to anywhere.
It is a street address, where all mail and parcels can be sent, including official letters.
The PO boxes are both physical & virtual. We receive your mail everyday and we automatically update your online virtual mailbox. We enter essential information about your mail and, depending on your plan, a scanned image of the envelope or of the contents of the letter. You can then access your mail on the web at any time.
Our mailboxes are flexible. You can cancel your subscription at any time.
Your address will read:
NAME
CDV ##
350 chemin du Pré Neuf
38350 LA MURE D’ISERE
FRANCE
All our clients, whether in France or elsewhere in the world, use our address in Isère, near Grenoble.
Unlike a classic mailbox, we can receive mail and parcels from all carriers, even private ones.
We can also forward your mail back to you, to a private address or another PO box near you.
One address to serve the world!
Minutes after you’ve signed up, you’ll receive a confirmation email with your contract and your new French Office address.
The email reminds you how to complete your registration. We can start receiving your mail at your new address, but you will need to send us the documents needed to validate your subscription within a month in order to access or forward your mail.
It’s short for “Courrier du Voyageur”. This is the name of our company in French, and we assign all our clients, French or foreign, with a number starting with “CDV”.
It is important that you mention those letters in your address, as it is your complete client number.
Even with this number, your address remains a street address where all mail and parcel can be received (incuding official mail and goods from private carriers).
Yes, you can sign up and set a later start date for your contract. Administrative offices sometimes need time to register a new address.
By signing up early, you can start using your French Office address, even a month before your contract officially starts (and payment is required).
For foreign business registered in France at the French Office address, there will be annual taxes from the french administration.
We will receive your official mail and can alert you immediately if you’d like.
Payment
You can add credit to your account by paying with your debit or credit card online. We accept foreign Visa and Mastercards.
Online payment on our site is secure. It’s your bank that dictates the level of security, therefore you might have to enter a SMS or email code that your bank will send you during the sign up process. If you have trouble at this stage, please contact your bank.
You can also pay by bank transfer. It is free within the European Union, but banks in other countries will charge you a fee.
Fees depend on your brank and your country.
Our online software will calculate the final price for our services according to your plan, the length of your contract, and the options you’ve selected.
We ask for payment to be made upon registration and for the duration of your contract. If you chose a month-to-month contract, you will have to pay 1 month when signing up. If you decide on a 3-month contract, you will have to pay for the 3 months – but if you decide to close your contract earlier, we will refund you.
We also ask for a set up fee, which will be used towards your first mail forwarding request.
We recommand that you sign up for a monthly plan rather than for our on-demand scheme. Monthly plans have been crafted to meet our clients’ most frequent needs. You’ll probably realize that one of our plans matches your usage and saves you money compared to the on-demand prices.
Another good solution is to credit your account in bigger lump sums rather than smaller installements. A sliding scale applies, and if you wish to cancel your account we will refund the excess credit to you.
Please note that many options are free. Take advantage of them !
You have a 24/7 access to your credit history with us. Just log into your client space on our website.
When your credit is running low, you will recieve an alert and a reminder of how to top it up.
Yes, you can ask your bank to set up an automatic transfer to our account. Some banks allow you to set this up online for free. If you’re part of the SEPA (European Union), the transactions should be free. For clients based outside of the E.U., a fee is likely to be applied by your bank.
We will send you our bank information if you select this payment method.
Receiving
We add your mail to your inbox the same day it’s received. You can choose to be informed by email or even by text if we’re received something for you.
Our offices are open from Monday to Friday, 9am to 6pm, year-round. We close only on normal French bank holidays.
Mail received on Saturday is processed the following business day.
We do not close during common “school holidays”.
We receive all types of mail: simple letters, letters requiring a signature, and even parcels.
Each morning, the mail is sorted, identified with a tracking number and entered in our clients’ mailboxes.
This internal tracking number enables you to place orders on specific pieces of mail: full scan, forwarding, destruction…
Orders are placed through your online account on our website.
We keep all the physical mail we receive for you for the duration of your contract – for free. However, the number of mail we will scan and keep in your virtual mailbox depends on the plan you’ve chosen.
- Basic: no mail is scanned.
- Standard: envelops and up to 5 pieces of mail are scanned.
- Premium: we scan all your mail.
We keep your mail for the duration of your contract, or until you ask us to forward it to yoo.
You can also request its destruction at any time via your online account.
Regardless of your monthly plan, we update your virtual mailbox as soon as we receive some mail for you. You can access your mailbox online 24/7.
Please keep your login information (id and password you’ve chosen when you signed up.
By default, you’ll receive a weekly email update listing all the mail available in your inbox.
You can modify this setting in order to receieve an alert as soon as mail is added to your inbox.
You won’t miss an important piece of mail ever again !
When you sign up with French Office, an online private space is reserved for you on our server. You choose your login information.
Your online account holds your mail and parcel information, your credit history and your personnal data. You use it to ask us to scan additional mail, look for a specific mail for you, forward letters and parcels to the addresses of your choice, destroy unwanted documents, etc.
We don’t know your login information. If you lose or forget your password, please reset it using the appropriate link on the login page of our website.
Yes, with a proxy in our name.
If we receive an signed-for letter in your name, we will notify you immediately. We will explain to you how to set up the proxy in your specific country.
You will have 15 days to put the proxy in place, after which the letter will be returned to the sender.
15 days is enough time for the procedure in most countries. If you know that you are likely to receive such mail and would rather plan ahead, please notify us.
Services
What are your specific needs? We offer 3 different monthly plans or services on-demand.
Do you want to be able to visualize your mail online, in order to discard unimportant letters or answer the urgent ones right away ?
Do you prefer to forward all of your mail every week without opening it ?
Would you want us to perform administrative tasks for you, such as cheque deposits in France ? Visit our prices and options page to decide what’s best for you.
Only if you select the Premium Plan. In that case, we do open all your mail in order to scan it.
With our other plans, it’s you who decides which mail you’d like us to open, if any.
When mail is opened and scanned, it is then stored in your mailbox. If you ask us to forward it to you, we will send it as it came to us.
We do not discard documents unless you specifically ask us to do so.
It helps you manage your mail without us opening it. It’s like going to the mailbox and guessing who’s writing to you just by looking at the envelop (there are often logos of the organizations, or you can recognize a specific handwriting).
If a piece of mail seems important, you can request it to be opened and scanned, or to be forwarded to you quickly. Others can be stored and forwarded later.
Directly from your online client account! No need to call us, especially if phone rates are high from the country you’re in at the moment.
Log into your account and select “numerisation/scan”. Your request will be processed within the next business day. Your mail/envelop will then be accessible.
You must log into your secured online account, from our website or smartphone app.
Depending on your monthly plan, you will find information about mail received for you (basic plan), an image of your envelops (standard plan) or an image of your mail itself (premium plan). You can always ask for additional scans. These requests are processes within the next business day.
As a mesure of precaution, we never send scanned images by email unless you specifically request it.
Yes, with the exception of adverts, books, booklets or catalogs.
We only scan what is necessary: we won’t, for example, scan the back of a bank letter (often left blank).
Yes, we offer to sort through adverts, catalogs and junk mail and to discard them.
This is a free option you can select during the sign up process or later via your online account.
Please note that this service applies only to mail that is easily identifiable. When in doubt, we won’t discard anything.
When you’re logged in on our website, you can download all your mail in one simple click. From your inbox, “select all” or pick specific pieces of mail or folders.
Your selection will be downloaded as a compressed file (.zip). A good way to browse through your mail offline.
Yes, we propose this option to our monthly plans subscribers and it is most relevant to basic plan holders. If you excpect an important letter but haven’t got access to images of your envelops, you can describe the letter to us so that we can search through your mail.
Who is the sender? Is it likely to be a large envelop or a small one ? etc…
Once the letter is found, you can request it to be opened and scanned, or forwarded to you without opening.
Yes, and that’s one of the main advantages of our system.
You can visualize who’s written to you and therefore select which mail to forward and which one to store or discard.
You save on shipping cost and on time. Depending on the importance of the letter, you can request quick, secure or normal delivery.
This is entirely your choice. Our monthly plans include 2 to 4 mail forwarding per month.
If you wish to forward your mail more often, or as soon as we receive it, the option is available.
Please note that the shipping cost is not included in our monthly plan, as it depends on the carrier you’ll choose for your mail.
The cost depends on the shipping method you’ll select: carrier, weight of the shipment, destination and type of delivery (fast, secure, normal).
Carriers’ rates change daily, so it is not possible for us to predict. When you’re ready to forward your mail, use the shipping calculator available on our website.
We update and negociate the best prices all the time.
You can choose slow shipping (usually much less expensive) or quick delivery via private carriers such as Fedex, DHL, TNT, etc…
We recommend using their services for delivery to countries where the national Post Office is less reliable.
In addition to mail management, we offer administrative assistance :
- Cheque deposits.
- Bill payments.
- Mail answering.
- Secretarial duties typing, document creation.
- Fax services.
- Follow-ups with your clients.
We can also act as your call center in France. We provide landline and fax numbers. Our phone operators are trained to greet your customers according to your specific requirements. We handle parcels, customer returns and online purchases. Please visit our Parcels pages.
Privacy
No, nobody here reads your mail unless you specifically request us to do so. When the content of your mail is scanned, your letters are opened by our staff.
The volume of letters we open and scan daily is such that it is impossible to read it. All members of staff have signed our privacy and data protection agreement, which protects you and your personnal information.
As a French Office client, you will sign a contract that protects you. Our company agrees never to disclose or use our clients’ personnal information.
You and you only can access your mail online. During the sign up process, you will create your own username and password.
Unless you choose to share it with someone, you will be the only one to know it.
We do not have access to your login information. If you lose or forget your username or password, please reset it directly on our website.
Information exchange between your computer and our website is encrypted using today’s most efficient protocole (SSL 128 bits).
Access to your online account is also encrypted and secure. You are the only one to know your username and password.
If you’d rather not leave your mail on our server, you can choose to download it onto your computer and erase it from the web right away.
If you subscribe to the Basic or Standard plans, or are using our services on demand, we will not open your mail unless you request us to do so.
If you subscribe to the Premium Plan, which includes automatical opening and scanning of your mail, and wishes for us not to open a specific letter, you can notify us via your online account. Please keep in mind that we do not read the letter we open and scan, due to the sheer volume of the mail we process every day.
In addition, our staff has signed a strong privacy agreement.
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