I've been officially resigned from LDS, Inc. for over 13 years. At the time of my resignation I had a post office address because my city did not have street addresses. Everyone had post office boxes or General Delivery because of this anomaly. I have had a post office address for my mail ever since. I have not had a change of address in the past ten years.

So here comes my question:

At one time I worked for Church Education and now qualify for a pension from DMBA when I turn 65. Every year I get a reminder from DMBA that I have eligibility for my pension or may take the option of a lump sum payout. These notices came regularly to my address. Suddenly last year I did not receive my annual notice but I didn't really pay that much attention. Then, this year, my letter arrives addressed to my mother's nursing home. WTF???
I called DMBA and asked them why they had changed my mailing address. They responded that the USPS had sent them a change of mailing address notification. I stated that my address had NOT changed and I had not filled out any change of address form with the postal service. Apparently, last year DMBA had sent their notice to another address that was also not my mailing address so I did not receive it. I told DMBA that I had not changed my mailing address in over ten years and if the post office had arbitrarily decided to fill out a change of address form without notifying me, why was all my other mail still coming to my correct address and ONLY my DMBA notices were going all over kingdom come? She said she did not know but that she would put a note in my files that my mailing address should not be changed without my approval in the future.

The US Postal Service would not have any way of knowing that my mother's nursing home was an address that might be linked to me. How could they? I have all my mother's mail sent directly to MY address because I pay all her bills. She only gets a few catalogs and a few birthday and Christmas cards at her nursing home address. The only possible connection is my mother's visiting teacher/minister (whatever she's called) who knows I'm caring for my mother but even she knows my proper mailing address.

Is there some reason why LDS, Inc. has to find my relatives to deliver my mail rather than just using my legal mailing address? When my mother dies and I finally turn 65 will DMBA start mailing my pension reports to different extended family members who have not yet resigned their membership? These are people I hardly even have a speaking relationship with!!! None of my family is active nor believing as far as I know. If I were to become homeless and living out of my car would they insist upon knocking on my car window to find me rather than just mailing my reports to my still active post office box address? This just seems incredibly bizarre.

Am I missing something here? Can anyone enlighten me?

What is DMBA?

DMBA stands for Deseret Mutual Benefit Association. It is one of the for-profit organizations owned by the Mormon church. It handles the LDS church pension fund and other insurance products that the Mormon church sells/runs.

It is DMBA Deseret Mutual Benefit Administrators.

I'll be interested in hearing answer to this question.

Sounds like a "you made your bed, now you have to sleep in it" kind of lesson for you to learn.

I must be dense. Please explain your comment. How did I "make my bed" to create this situation? Why would any corporation start sending mail to odd ball addresses?

Pooped Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I must be dense. Please explain your comment. How
> did I "make my bed" to create this situation? Why
> would any corporation start sending mail to odd
> ball addresses?


You got in with a Mormon (cult) group probably while you were still brainwashed by them. It is your fault as you should have known better. I knew the LDS church was a cult when I was 8! Why would you go with a cult company to begin with?

Wow, congrats on learning the truth so young. Some of us took a little longer.

Your comments are soooooo out of line.

nolongerangry is nolongercoherent.

Posted wrong place



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/25/2019 11:53PM by Brother Of Jerry.

Your inner Mormon is showing. Just an FYI.

+1

I knew it was cult at 6 or 7 years old and "rebelled" against my TBM parents until they let me go inactive at 13....so why did you stay in a cult so long? You figured it out at 8? You were probably brainwashed, why would you go with a cult company to begin with?

Huh? Your comment makes no sense. In what way did the O.P. “make their bed”?

Can you contact the USPS and ask for a copy of the change of address form? If it was handwritten, you might be able to recognize the handwriting.

I once had a friend who, without asking for my permission, decided to sign me up for fashion magazines by filling out those subscription request cards that are in the magazines. I received three different fashion magazines followed by bills for each. I contacted the subscription departments wondering who had filled out the cards since I hadn't. They faxed me a copy of the subscription requests and I recognized my friend's handwriting immediately. I called her and asked her why she filled out the cards in my name and she said: "I thought you would like the magazine." I told her it was a form of identity theft to sign my name to something without my permission and to NEVER do it again.

It seems very odd that the rest of your mail was not diverted to your mom's nursing home. Could it be that there was fine print one of the notices from DMBA, asking you to verify your address? Perhaps if they hadn't heard from you, they just sent everything to your mom.

You are right about DMBA not hearing from me but there was no reason for me to contact them. They didn't ask for me to contact them. There is no decision I need to make at this time since I'm not yet near retirement. They were just sending me notices. If they needed a response they should have made it clear they needed a response or they, at least, needed an address confirmation stating that I was still at that address. If they had asked the USPS this question I'm certain they would have told DMBA that I was still receiving and collecting mail from my original address. I don't think that the US Postal system had anything to do with this. I think DMBA, for whatever reason, wanted a physical address for me rather than a PO Box address and just started hunting me down through my old church records looking for family members, past addresses, and people with the same last name. This is creepy. The only way they could have found my Mom's address is through church records. In fact, the address they used was the old address my mother had that is still on her ward's list but not her actual address. They got some of the numbers wrong that have always been wrong on the ward list. No other business has ever done this to my knowledge.

My question is why did they do this? If they wanted a physical address rather than a p.o. box address why didn't they just ask for it? Couldn't they have sent another correspondence saying that a previous correspondence was returned or received no response and they are trying again? That's what other businesses have done when they haven't heard from me for awhile. Catalogs often send enticing notices like "We miss you and want you back" why does LDS, Inc. go searching for all your relatives to find you? Is this even legal? Why didn't they just call my phone number? I'm pretty sure they have it on file. I'm confident that the post office had nothing to do with giving them my mother's address. How would they know Mrs. Jones is Miss Pooped's mother? Again, just plain creepy.

Sounds like a simple bureaucratic slip up. If a letter is undeliverable, the USPS will automatically send an address correction if the sender requests that they do that.

Scenario: their letter to you gets put in a neighbor's mail box. That happens now and then. Recipient writes "does not live here" or words to that effect and tosses it in outgoing mail. Post office clerk assumes incorrectly that the letter had been delivered to the proper address and looks up address, sees that your mother's mail goes there, and sees that an alternate address is listed. Does not notice that your name, not hers, is on the envelope. Clerk sends the alternate address back to DMBA.

Never assume malevolence when incompetence is an adequate explanation.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/25/2019 11:56PM by Brother Of Jerry.

I had a simular problem with a local bank.

I use a PO Box for my mail and have for decades.

All of a sudden I stopped getting bank statements.

I contacted the bank and they claimed they needed a street address citing some obscure banking regulation.

After a few months of back and forth I simply closed my account and went with a bank that actually would use my PO Box.

I realise you don't have the luxury of changing who handles your pension, but it may not be anything more than they decided they won't use a PO Box.

Best bet contact them direct and see if you can have both a physical address and a mailing address.

A second option, many post offices will give you a street address for those few businesses that refuse to use a PO Box. Ask your post office if they do so.

Best of luck to you

It may be due to the Patriot Act. I lived in a small town. No mail delivery. You got a free PO Box. I went round and round with my bank. They said there was this regulation that all banking institutions and institutions that deal with money have to send statements to a physical address. When I told the bank all mail to physical address would be returned they didn’t care. So for over six months the bank received my returned mail as undeliverable as addressed. They finally accepted the PO Box address but it was a struggle. The post office has stopped mail delivery in small towns now to save money. Perhaps that is why.

I had fun with a small town post office where they expected all the country dwellers to use the PO Box system. It all worked fine until I needed my Green Card sent to my house.

The US Immigration folks would only use the USPS, and they would only deliver to a physical street address, not a PO Box. the small Post Office refused to hold the mail from the immigration people for me as it was against the law. So I had to install a mail box at my house then forced the small town post office to deliver all my mail directly to me from then on. they were annoyed, but I they left me zero choice.

I'd rather argue with the local post office than the US immigration system!

Can you pull your money and reinvest it somewhere normal? That would stop this silliness.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/26/2019 10:40AM by sbg.

I considered pulling the money out of my pension in a lump sum and reinvesting it elsewhere. After doing the numbers it would cost me a huge loss. I'd have to find an investment that would give me a 300% guaranteed secure yield over at least 20 years. Got any suggestions?

I should mention there would be negative tax consequences as well if I took the lump sum payout.

When I left one company I was able to transfer my pension to an existing IRA account with no penalty. The payment went from one fund to the other and never actually passed through my hands. That way I did not incur any tax impacts.

When I leave my current employer in 13 months (plan to retire) I plan to move my 401K to the same IRA account and consolidate and only have to take payments from one place.

It may be worth a conversation with a financial planner.

The church does this all the time (filling out a certain USPS form) in an effort to find members who have fallen off this list. But it sounds like they knew where you were all the time.

Since you get most of your mom's mail at your home, IMO it was a simple mix up.

My pension agency doesn't mail out yearly statements anymore. I printed mine off from the agency's online site.

I think the mix up is probably because I did not choose to set-up an online account. I'm not yet 65 and just planned on waiting until it came time to start receiving the monthly pay outs. They probably tried to switch contact to an email or online account with me that was never created. They could have given me a heads up to avoid this problem. When they found there was no online contact for me they had to go back and try to find an address that had dropped off their system. This makes the most sense. I agree that it probably was not intended to be egregious.

I've twice had problems with one of my banks due to software changes they made that did not cover all possible customer situations. When the customer cannot access their money due to a glitch in the new software, the customer has to go to the bank and track down the problem. I wish businesses would work out the bugs in their software before installing it universally. Couldn't they just install it one state or one entity at a time to see if it will work alright before dumping it on everyone?

Thanks everyone! Your input has put this experience in a different light for me. DMBA would have heard from me eventually when I set-up my pension withdrawals at age 65 but it's probably better that this problem came up sooner rather than later.

You sure can count on TCOJCOLDS to hunt down and find their man just like the mounties! ;)

Letter to a CES director comes to mind. Having someone resign from the church education department must be hard on them. I think what Summer wrote that it was a mix up.