Send Money to Erie County Holding Center

The Five Routes and What Erie Says They Cost

Erie publishes a fee band for each, which is more than most counties do.

Route	Cost	Takes cash
Lobby cashier’s window, Holding Center only	Not published	Yes
Facility kiosk	As low as $5.00	Yes
Online, accesscorrections.com	As low as $6.00	No
Phone, 866-345-1884	As low as $6.00	No
Money order to the lockbox	Free of charge	Money order

“As low as” is the county’s own phrasing, so treat those as floors rather than fixed prices. The exact fee shows at checkout once the facility is selected.

The Cashier’s Window That Belongs to This Building

This is the clearest practical difference between Erie’s two jails, and it is easy to miss because the county buries it in a FAQ rather than on the deposit page.

While somebody is at the Holding Center, you may deposit money at the cashier’s window on the first floor, near the Delaware Avenue entrance:

Days	Hours
Monday to Friday	7:00 to 11:15 AM · 12:30 to 2:15 PM · 3:00 to 5:15 PM · 6:30 to 7:30 PM
Saturday and Sunday	7:00 to 11:15 AM · 12:30 to 2:15 PM

Erie publishes no equivalent window for the Alden facility. So if the roster moves somebody from ECHC to ECCF, this option disappears and you are back to the kiosk, the card routes or the post.

Separately, and worth knowing if you are trying to get somebody out rather than fund their account: the county accepts cash bail for city, town and village courts 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

The Free Route, and the Slip That Makes It Work

A money order costs nothing to deposit, and it goes nowhere near Buffalo:

Secure Deposits - Erie County
P.O. Box 12486
St. Louis, MO 63132

Make the money order payable to ACCESS SECURE DEPOSITS, not to the jail and not to the person.

The deposit slip is not optional. Erie states the slip must be included with the money order to process the funds and avoid delay. The slip asks for the person’s ICN number and name, and marks the sender’s name and address as required fields, alongside city, state and ZIP, an email address, a phone number, the sender’s date of birth and the amount. A digital receipt goes to the email address you give.

The mechanical rules, which exist because people get these wrong:

• Do not send cash.
• Do not staple, paper clip or tape the money order to the slip.
• US funds only. If the intended recipient cannot be determined, the money is returned to the sender.
• Type or write in black or blue ink.
• Check the name and ID are entered correctly before sending.

The form is published in English and Spanish.

Never Put a Letter in With the Money

Erie’s instruction is blunt and it costs people things they cannot replace:

Do not include any letters, stamps, photos or notes with your deposit. They will be discarded.

A deposit envelope is a deposit envelope. Photographs put in with a money order are not forwarded, not returned and not held. They are thrown away. Anything you want them to read goes in a separate envelope to the jail, under the rules on the mail guide.

The $2,900 Ceiling

The published cap is $2,900 deposited per day. That is high enough that most families will never meet it, but it exists and it is a daily limit rather than a per-transaction one.

Whose Number 866-345-1884 Is

The same number does telephone deposits and Access Corrections customer service. The company behind it is Keefe Commissary Network, based at 10880 Lin Page Place, St. Louis, Missouri.

Nobody on that line can tell you anything about the jail: not whether somebody is in custody, not visiting times, not whether a package arrived. For those, the Holding Center is 716-858-7638.

Care Packages Are a Separate Purchase

Erie’s package route is its own vendor site at eriecountynypackages.com, which redirects to the Access Corrections catalogue. That is a purchase you make from a catalogue, with the county’s quantity limits applied, and it is covered in full on the mail and photos guide because Erie treats packages as a mail question rather than a money one.

A deposit is different: it is a credit they spend on commissary themselves. Decide which one you mean before paying.