WHY do so many people have issues with mailing stuph to P.O. boxes? Is there some sort of attitude about them, that perhaps only drug dealers and other nefarious criminals use P.O. boxes? You know, kind of the same attitude that some people have about those who choose to use pay-as-you-go cell phones?

First, there was the thing with WGBH insisting on using the street address even after I asked them more than once NOT to. The latest is the fact that the BSO mailed my Garrison Keillor/Pops tickets here to the house. It’s only a stroke of luck that they got here safely…guess the mailman decided to actually WORK today, rather than doing his regular thing of dumping half the block’s mail into one person’s box.

When I ordered those tickets, I must have QUADRUPLE-checked to be sure that the shipping address was the P.O. box. I was forced to put the street address down, because both of my debit MasterCards have forced me to use that as the billing address. They refuse to have anything to do with the P.O. box, no matter how much I’ve tried to explain why I prefer to use that. The card transactions will not go through unless you provide the correct billing address for that card. I know, I’ve tried putting the P.O. box as a billing address, in an attempt to get out of giving them the street address. If they don’t have it, they can’t use it, now, can they?

But, for some reason, they took it upon themselves to mail my tickets to the billing address, completely ignoring the fact that I indicated a different shipping address. Has it occurred to them, even for one millisecond, that I put down the shipping address I did, for a REASON?

I am pissed because I shelled out over $100 of my own hard-earned paid blogging money for these tickets. If they got lost or mis-delivered, I’m out that money forever.

Next time I want to buy tickets to anything at Symphony Hall, I will get on the train and go to the box office and buy in person. They won’t do *will-call* unless you order the tickets less than a week before the show. I did not want to wait that long, or else the good seats would be gone. They also don’t do that *print-at-home* thing that so many other places do. It’s mail or nothing, and apparently, they don’t want to mail to a P.O. box. Would have been nice if they said so before I placed the order!

Next time, I may not be so lucky.

So, why do some people hate P.O. boxes so much?  I’d really love to know!