I have been using Earth Class Mail for several months and it works fantastically. You get a real, non-PO-Box address (your user id is in the "apartment number"

I have been using Earth Class Mail for several months and it works fantastically. You get a real, non-PO-Box address (your user id is in the "apartment number"). Since I've been moving around a lot, including abroad, I use it for my bank accounts, credit cards, everything. Occasionally a company will want proof that it's your address, but once you have mail coming to it, that's easy. For example, changing the mailing address on an existing bank account can be done online, and then you have a bank statement as proof in the future. Earth Class Mail will scan your mail for you at the touch of a button, so most mail does not need to be forwarded. They scan the outside of all mail, and even run OCR on the return address. If you have them open an envelope and scan the contents, they will scan everything they can, and then put it back in an envelope that they can forward to you if you need the physical contents. There's really no downside as long as you trust Earth Class Mail and their employees. (Note: I haven't compared ECM to other alternatives. After reading hannibalhorn's comment below and some of the linked pages, it sounds like people have complaints about ECM's prices, high latency receiving mail to some east-coast addresses, and poor check cashing feature. I have a Seattle ECM address, don't use their check cashing and have not really had any problems. It's a very valuable service to me, and though I don't know if they really need to charge the fees they do, it's not obvious that switching to a competitor trying to undercut them is wise. I will probably give virtualpostmail a look though.)