For those not familiar with the concept of Mail Forwarding: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mail_forwarding - Basically a person registers a virtual address at some location which has the ability to receive and forward mail at that specific virtual address to (almost) any other location in the world. This could for example open up for vendors having products stored in other countries to significantly reduce shipping times in those specific countries or simply being able to send out an order online without having to package anything whenever an order from that country comes in. For customers the use could be to buy products from North American Silk Road vendors who do not ship anything beyond domestic orders. Now there are reasons why it's unfortunately not as simple as it sounds and in this post I'll go into these points.Now this project got a bit out of hand of sorts as I did not expect there to be so many different providers when I searched around, so I'm going to structure this thread into three different posts. The first post (this one) will be about the concept itself, questions, problems and solutions. Some of the questions will be open ended as I don't have any answer to them currently but hopefully people will be able to fill in on some of them. The second post will be for specific Mail Forwarders and the third post will be about Virtual Office Providers which are slightly different from Mail Forwarders as they're kind of more advanced and expensive. A warning this is going to be a small wall of text so if whoever is reading is not interested you should stop here and jump to my second or third post if you want direct links to the different vendors I've found. 8)I'll be posting a specific angle from a vendor perspective and post my thoughts on benefits and drawbacks for each one: * Shipping+ A product can technically be stored almost anywhere in the world for fast shipping to whatever country it's currently in. On top of that being able to keep a stock anywhere would lead to the ability of preparing multiple packages in advance and instead of creating a new package for each new order just let someone in another part of the world put a label on a package and send it away.- The price is an obvious issue for each sent package, along with the providers having different maximum days stored until they start charging packages extra per day. If a mail location gets raided by Law Enforcement they would shut down both the user and seize any packages. While I know someone will argue there might be a possible log of each address used (which is true) Law Enforcement would have no proof of any already delivered packages and it would be a stretch for them to go after individual users. Another drawback is the Stealth Level of the package would have to be exceptionally good as the operators can and will open packages regularly, the minimum standard would have to be basically the product in a Moisture Barrier Bag, encased in some kind of legit stealth product, which in turn is put in plastic which makes it look completely new.Questions: What vendors has the best prices for shipping? How many vendors have the capacity to send mail within the same country as they're operating in? Are there any vendors who can forward mail so there's no need for the receiver to sign for it? How much does shipping prices vary from country to country? What kind of standards would have to be achieved packaging-wise to be able to consistently stay under the radar from customs? What kind of customs declaration object(s) would be the most effective in terms of staying believable?* Accountability+ Any package intercepted in transit to another Mail Forwarder will get seized and blamed on the person sending it, ie. the vendor which would have used a fake ID thus leading to a dead end for Law Enforcement. When the package has arrived in the same country as the customer and is resent at a later date the risk is basically non-existent if it has made it that far.- Most of the forwarders will have a requirement of signing for the package, anyone could sign for it but someone must eventually do it. Again thinking like a very paranoid person someone might argue Law Enforcement will intentionally let the package get through customs, trace it to the mail forwarder and at the day of delivery replace the driver with police so they can make an arrest right there and then.Questions: How much do the vendors look up personal information when sending in for example passport and a bill, ie. would they not be able to tell the difference between a fake ID since they have no system to verify people directly? Has anyone used a fake ID successfully to register on any Mail Forwarding Site? How much does it differ country from country in terms of how much personal information you have to provide to be able to register an account? What happens to an account when Law Enforcement shuts down an user, ie. is it instantly disabled or is it become a big operation which takes significant time to unfold like in this case: http://www.bizjournals.com/tampabay/blog/morning-edition/2013/01/federal-agents-raid-myuscom-warehouse.html ?* Services+ A lot of the vendors who are based in the US have digital customs interfaces, in other words the ability to type the exact contents and the value of the package and then let the vendor take care of the rest - this would have to be done manually normally. For larger packages and if one declares the object as something beyond a gift some vendors have the option to pre-pay import taxes in advance, which significantly reduces the time the package spends in customs and minimizes any potential risk for the potential customer.- There is always the risk an employee can open a package and see if there's something entirely different packaged than marked due to sloppy packaging. It could get stuck in the system for example because they require more money than originally anticipated due to size. The ability to track and keep a history of each package as it comes in is a risk if Law Enforcement would at some point be able to link the service directly to you.Questions: None at the moment* Miscellaneous+/- The concept for Mail Forwarding itself is solid, if/when drugs get legalized at some point any vendor which has mobile stocks all over the world ready to ship at short notice will beat any vendor shipping from any single fixed position. The infrastructure is technically there for being able to send one large package with many pre-packaged mails inside them (without stamps) ready to be unpackaged by a Mail Forwarder and then sent one by one to wherever it's ordered online. The only reason in the end not to use this would be if the customers didn't think it would warrant the higher price for faster shipping times and the (possible) reduction in security. For the vendor who ships the biggest issue would be not getting caught and being able to register with a fake ID cheaply and easily without getting shut down. It would be sad not to see this breakthrough in the coming years solely because of the governments around the world.Questions: Would it be viable to send packages from high risk countries like Colombia to multiple transit countries before finally sending them over to the US/Europe, ie. would that make it go another (safer) route than the normal direct route which has some of the most thorough customs on the planet? Will we ever achieve teleportation which would the Mail Forwarding System obsolete? :)