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I'm trying to complete the final step of verification on couchsurfing.org and the country where I live (Dominican Republic) essentially doesn't have public mail. I've heard services like DHL can deliver to your door even if the postal system is unreliable. Does anyone have any suggestions as to how to get my location verified?

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If it proves too difficult, you could just skip the verification. I never did that, and it hasn't stopped me from using CS pretty actively. To most people your profile will be trustworthy enough when you start getting (positive) references, or even before that if you've filled in the profile well. – Jonik Nov 18 '11 at 7:27
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I would recommend stopping before getting verified and first reading this criticism of couch surfing and its founder and what they say might really be happening with your verification fee and what might not happen with it. Then decide for yourself or do some more research on other opinions. I just asked my friends in the room who is on couch surfing - all of them - and who has paid for verification - none of them. – hippietrail Nov 18 '11 at 9:16
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I'd try using a Global Positioning Satellite (GPS). The rate of technological advance has been wonderful in the past 20 years. – Tom Au Nov 18 '11 at 19:38
Absolutely no public mail at all, or just no delivery to the door? Is there a central location where mail sent via USPS to D.R. would be available for pickup? – Jonathan VM Dec 19 '11 at 23:37
@JonathanVM I can have mail delivered to a general location, however, I don't like this solution because it would make my profile indication a location that is different from where I actually live. – Keyslinger Dec 24 '11 at 15:55

1 Answer

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+50

As @Jonik said, you can skip verification, make some friends locally in Dominican Republic, get some references, and everything will be ok.

But if you want to verify yourself, I think, you should contact the CS team, especially Help Desk.
CS said:

Due to the number of postcards we mail out, we cannot vary our processes, and we almost have it fully automated, with very little human interaction. This is a good thing, since we have a very small, dedicated volunteer team that assists with verification issues.

So you really must contact some human to solve your problem.

Other way is to contact verified members from Dominican Republic, meet them in off-line and get some information from them.

Good luck.

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