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Comment by Shank | Hacker News Reader

> Although its odd your error message is seemingly saying a personal address doesn't work, unless "private mailbox" means a privately rented commercial box, like UPS.

Yeah, services like Earth Class Mail specifically hand out addresses that say "PMB XXXXXXXX" where PMB is "Private Mail Box".

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My personal address isn't my business address. They are different. Mixing the two, while seemingly innocuous, actually can mean opening myself up to liability issues or a good argument that the biz that I operate isn't actually different from me the person. This isn't going to matter in 99% of things, but if you are ever sued, can be used as a reasoning to actually be able to retrieve damages from you the person versus just from the LLC. It's one of the reasons to try to have a strong separation early on in the biz, if you can. The IRS also doesn't like the mixing funds and such with bank accounts. It's the same reasoning, just different domains.

I get that (and agree separating biz and personal as much as possible is 100% best practice)

But there are tons of legitimate businesses operated out of residential addresses (therapists, psychiatrists, chiropractors, etc). It’s not abnormal to use a home address for business purposes.

I’d recommend checking with your lawyer to verify, but I don’t think the address on your stripe (or even bank) account would legally make a difference

I am facing this issue where I received an Earth Class Mail PMB XXXXX address when setting up my Stripe Atlas account and registering my business (I am a US non-resident), and now my account is being threatened to be shut down in 14 days if I don't get a new address. Is this a problem with Earth Class Mail addresses all being P.O box / virtual addresses? Or have I just gotten unlucky with the address I was dealt?

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