I would like to check the validity of this site/company. is it trusted or not.
thanks
http://www.britishmonomarks.co.uk

It appears that British Monomarks is a valid company-- in business for
a long time, not an overwhelming number of complaints in reference to
them, and they actually do provide the service they say they do (a
London post office address for anyone).

The address that they use to forward your mail is their actual
physical address in London-- they sort it for you and forward it to
you.

From my research, it seems evident that many "alternative"
magazines/mailing lists/organizations use their services. This
includes many gay and lesbian organizations (more so a few years ago
than now), anarchist groups, and things such as those that might be
deemed "counterculture." Here are some examples.

From alt.atheism:
"... Good old British Monomarks, the traditional home of those who wish
to hide their postal address from the world. They charge a fair amount
for forwarding mail.

There are two kinds of British Monomark address 'BM' and 'BCM'. BM is
intended for personal use, and BCM is intended for company and
organisational use. Naturally the fees differ from the two kinds of
account and they can get quite annoyed if someone uses a personal
monomark for business purposes." 

From alt.religion.scientology:
" In Britain, the policy of the original state owned post-office is
 'anyone will be told the owner details of a post office box if they
 apply for the information in writing'.  The policy of British
 Monomarks, a private company, is that they will not do so without
 a court order."

From rec.heraldry in 2000:
"These are the offices of British Monomarks Limited...probably the
largest 'street address' in London...for a small annual fee they allow
you to use their offices as your company address and then they forward
items on to you."

From uk.gay-lesbian.bi in 1999:
"I had no complaints using British Monomarks (the BM boxes) when
I used them some 15 years ago.... Don't know what they are like
today - the only problem is that you may well be rubbing shoulders
with assorted fascists etc who also use them - more secure (so they
claimed) than PO boxes."

From their own website:
http://www.britishmonomarks.co.uk/company_history.html

"The British Monomark Postal Service was established in 1925 by
arrangement with the General Post Office. Since then we have built up
a unique reputation for handling personal and business communications.
We are proud to have established a royal and loyal service to all our
customers."

From a site on starting one's own occult 'zine:
http://www.philhine.org.uk/resources/res_ocmagpub.html

"Unless you're happy with all correspondence coming to your home
address, you need to think about getting some kind of separate address
for your 'zine. Two popular methods in the UK are Post Office boxes
and the British Monomarks service....The alternative is British
Monomarks - a forwarding service where you are either assigned a box
number or can choose your own name, and mail which is sent to it can
either be picked up directly or forwarded to you at an extra charge.
So many UK occult 'zines use British Monomarks that there are
conspiracy theories flying around about the service! Another plus for
having a separate address for your 'zine is that you don't get people
calling round to see you at all hours of the day and night!"

Searching for the British Monomarks address, here are some groups that
list it as their address:

GMFA, the Gay Men's Health Charity--
http://www.gmfa.org.uk/theguide/theguide.pdf

The Anarchist Federation--
http://www.libcom.org/hosted/af/ace/idcards.pdf

Sound Projector Music Magazine--
http://www.thesoundprojector.com/sp12.html

Sources:
http://groups.google.com/group/rec.arts.sf.fandom/msg/832a7be0efd89eac?dmode=source&hl=en

Search terms:
"british monomarks"
"BM Mono london wc1n 3xx"

I hope this has helped you and if you need any more assistance or
clarification, I'll be glad to help you out.

Cheers,
--keystroke-ga

---

Request for Answer Clarification by bashar007-ga on 09 Jul 2006 07:26 PDT

thanks for your quick answer. do you think you will be able to find
other validation evidences other than testimonials from the www. do
you think they can be trusted providing them with credit card details?
thanks

---

Clarification of Answer by keystroke-ga on 09 Jul 2006 18:52 PDT

I have checked British Monomarks' record with Dun and Bradstreet. D&B
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dun_%26_Bradstreet) is a company which
monitors businesses and sells information as to their financial
health, etc. They had over $1.4 billion in revenue in 2004, and are
quite famous.

D&B has a record available for Monomark Limited:
MONOMARK LTD
Single location:
27 Old Gloucester St
London, GB

The report is $140 but the address for D&B's report does match the
address which is on the Monomark website.

The British Sunday Times also on November 16, 1997, Sunday had an
article on British Monomarks. I cannot paste that here as it is
copyrighted, but it does say the firm is old and generally respected
(although they have had a problem with workers stealing cash from mail
in the past).

Im short, I believe you can trust them just as much as any other
company with your credit card information.

Best,
Keystroke-ga