I’m moving to El Granada from Montara this week and trying to order services (phone, internet, etc.).

What a nightmare! It looks like in all online maps, addresses in El Granada 94018 resolve to HMB 94019. (Ave Portola does map correctly, but no other address in EG does that I’ve tried.) Google Maps at least puts the pin in the right place (but wrong zip) when you say EG, but Mapquest refuses to play unless you put in HMB.

I spent 45 minutes on the phone with AT&T;trying to find my house. I’m trying to get an online Comcast deal because of the big rebates, but all the online systems insist I’m in 94019 and Judy at the post office confirms that HMB will just send my cable modem and rebate checks back. Talking to live people at the service providers doesn’t always help since “The Computer Says…”

It seems like this is a public safety issue as well. I know the Coastside first responders know what’s going on, but it does not seem like a good idea to have the maps which we increasingly rely on be so wrong.

1. How do others deal with this?
2. How can we fix it? I put in a request for correction at the two online mapping companies (Navteq & Tele Atlas), but who else could help? HMB Public Works, the county?

I don’t understand the details but this is somehow caused by the fact that the HMB P.O. has carrier routes through El Granada and the USPS lists 94018 as some sort of subsidiary zip to 94019.  I think the only lasting fix has to be done by the USPS, and good luck with that.

Comcast thinks their office on Obispo Rd. in E.G. is in HMB.  That’s a bad sign.

Can’t you just give AT&T;and others a street address and a mailing address?

I just tried putting “94018” into Google Maps and it came back with El Granada 94018.

Comcast seems to understand the difference between our billing address, which is our PO box in El Granada, 94018, and our service address, which they do think is in Half Moon Bay, 94019. At least, they’ve never missed sending a bill to the right place and the techs always find us. I wish they hadn’t found us the day they disconnected our cable TV by physically cutting the whole feed and taking out our Internet connection, but that’s another story.

In general, I make every attempt to have vendors ship via UPS or other non-USPS carrier. For rebates, I use the street address with a zip+4, where the 4 is the PO box. I did have one situation where the vendor ignored the +4, but one irate phone call took care of that.  Some shippers have expressed concern that my address doesn’t validate. I’ve managed to assure them that UPS will find me anyway.

With their street view, Google maps now gets within 75’ of my residence, although, as you’ve observed, the search results seem to think I’m in HMB 94019, even though I entered EG 94018. I make every effort to give directions to service providers and, yes, sometimes getting them to listen is a pain. Those that don’t listen usually call the house when their nav systems leave them stranded somewhere near the post office. I haven’t lost anyone yet.

Anyway, along with the occasional grumbling, that’s how I deal with it.

I wish I had an answer but I’m mostly here to sympathize, and to add, try opening up an AT&T;account.  When I went to get my new cell phone, I spent 45 minutes arguing with the clerk at the AT&T;store that my home in Montara actually existed.  According to the “computer” my address was does not exist.  It took three calls to three different manager to get them to issue the phone.  I’ve also had problems with some we sites.  I love L’occitane products, but can’t order from their site, as it says my address is invalid. My end-around has been to simply ship to my work address in San Francisco, but I’m nowhere near to figuring out how to solve the problem. My home has been here since the 70’s so I’m not sure how long it takes the computers to catch up, but yeeesh!

Well, all the utilities got turned on in our new place (Love it! Hello, El Granada!), but it still seemed harder than it needed to be in 2008—and harder than when we moved to Montara, which I really didn’t expect. We have sidewalks in El Granada—that’s practically Manhattan! I love the Coastside and don’t want to “fix” it so that it loses its charm, but somehow having accurate maps & non-botched deliveries don’t seem too big-city to me! :-)

As everybody pointed out, I’ve learned to do the “Coastside two-address shuffle,” which usually works if somebody accepts a shipping & a billing address and you are sure what delivery service they’re using (USPS vs UPS/FedEx/DHL).  But when somebody has a rigid computer system (evidently like L’Occitane’s), I guess we’re stuck for now.

Google Maps papers over the problem by showing the right street addresses at least in EG. MapQuest knows where El Granada 94018 is, but refuses to place any street addresses there.

I guess the surprise for me was that I’d expected that somebody (HMB or San Mateo County public works?) would care. I’d argue it’s a public safety risk in 2008. I agree with Leonard that it might be unfixable as long as USPS doesn’t map us right, which probably means until home delivery, so I’m not holding my breath. I did submit a request to fix it to the two mapping data services—who knows?

But thanks everybody for the help and tips!

Welcome to El Granada, with (on average) the best weather on the Coastside.

One cheat that I just remembered that I use sometimes to circumvent web sites which check for and reject any address containing a PO box, and which only works when your address is a single family residence, is to put down only a street address, but with #nnnn after it to show the PO box number.  Most senders will think it’s an apartment number.  The EG PO seems to understand it’s a box #.  When doing this, also use a 9 digit zip of 94018-nnnn to list your PO box in case the other number gets dropped.  The EG PO seems pretty good about picking out a PO Box from this, in fact the Coastside post offices want you to always use the 9 digit zip.  Of course, if your residence and your PO Box are in different towns (e.g., if you’re keeping your Montara POB) you won’t be able to do this trick.

I’ll start a new thread regarding sidewalks.  Let’s keep this one on topic.

I started a new topic regarding sidewalks here.

Michael & I have to use our GPS Locator to find certain streets on El Granada when on our yard sale runs - even though Michael lived in E.G. for 15 years.  Not sure why - we just can’t get the hang of the place.