Is Stamps.com a Scam? - Comments Page 3

I worked for a fairly large company with a fair amount of mailing. They were using Pitney Bowes before I was employed. I realized Pitney Bowes was a rip-off due to billing us outrageous amounts for having late payments.Our payments were always late because they only gave us 20 days to pay but didn't mail our bill out until it was due...hence late payments.
So...I searched for a new way to print postage and came up with stamps.com.
It's perfect for small businesses with a good amount of mailings. I DID have some trouble getting my postage to print in the correct spots on the envelopes etc but eventually figured it out.
One thing that is costly is buying the sheets of labels to print your postage out on for other packages etc. But once you get started it is definately worth it. I loved the service and creating personal/business pics on my postage.
I too, had trouble when their service would go "offline" and I needed to print but as someone else mentioned it gets fixed quickly. So, don't wait till the last minute to print your postage.
Anyway, I loved the service and convenience. And it saved my company alot of money. (made me look good):)
I wish they had a plan for home use that was cheaper. I'd use it there too if it was worth it.
FIVE STARS for stamps.com from me.

I signed up for their 4 week free trial offer last night, only to find this morning that they are already charging me 17.99 a month! It's to late in the day to call so I emailed them and will be calling on Monday to both cancel my service and get my money refunded. NO WHERE in the process of signing up does it state that your card will be charged at that time.

I signed up. I couldn't get the PC to print the envelope right it printed the wrong way. I got a tech on the phone and it took 2 hours to get my printer to use the program correctly, I am not a computer wiz'. I am not sure how to order stamps and after reading all your opinions I will probably not stay with this. I will print out my $50.00 dollars of stamps and that will be it. I will try to cancel over the phone I am retired all I have is time. I can be on the phone foir a long time. Ha! If they give me a bad time to cancel I'm gonna play and not be so easy. That would be fun. awry aren't I? Well, wish me luck and I hope someone has a good experience besides small businesses. It does sound good for small businesses.

Death Hag,

The immediate $17.99 charge you have described is only a credit card authorization to verify your credit card account. Typically, this will be gone within 10 days. You will only be charged if you do not close your within the 4-week trial period.

To clarify, the trial is a no-risk trial, not a free trial. If you wish to avoid being charged you must cancel your Stamps.com account before the end of the the trial period.

If there is anything I can assist you with, please feel free to contact me at social(at)stamps.com, or call us for immediate assistance toll-free at 1-888-434-0055, Monday - Friday, 6 a.m. - 6 p.m. Pacific Time.

Chuck
Stamps.com

I am a stamps.com long time customer, and I just wanted to comment on all the comments about "$17.99"fee everyone is talking about. I agree that at first I was charged around $20.00. But after I realized I wasn't going to use it that much I found that they had a monthly plan that only costs $4.99 a month.

Originally I signed up for the $20 plan because I thought the scale was a good idea. But after a while I found I didn't use it. So when I switched to the cheaper plan, they never made me return the scale.

Just my 2 cents (or 44 cents in postage terms >I am a stamps.com long time customer, and I just wanted to comment on all the comments about "$17.99"fee everyone is talking about. I agree that at first I was charged around $20.00. But after I realized I wasn't going to use it that much I found that they had a monthly plan that only costs $4.99 a month.

Originally I signed up for the $20 plan because I thought the scale was a good idea. But after a while I found I didn't use it. So when I switched to the cheaper plan, they never made me return the scale.

Just my 2 cents (or 44 cents in postage terms >

You can download a program that will read the scale without Stamps.com software for $1.59 at www.claytoninvestments.com/stamps/

Oh here is their latest and greatest. They now tell you that if you signed up for their 17.99 plan, that you agreed to a 1 year term after the 4 week trial and if you cancel 2 months into it you will owe them for a whole year of service - WTF?!? when I tried to get a copy of this so-called agreement that I agreed to, it didn't exist. Can you say "Chargeback"?

Except for regular stamps, I can get the same services, and more, for domestic and international postage. I can print postage and customs labels with a discount at the USPS "Click and Ship" site. And no monthly fee or contract is required.

Signed up for the free trial in 2005, still getting billed to this day, though the card long expired. I currently get a monthly statement, which goes up about 20 dollars each time, and is at almost 1000 now for all the back payments that I have not paid. I canceled before the trial ended, and several times since, and refuse to call them anymore.

you must read this about stamp.com

I see no mention of this but I think this is a scam between the post office and stamps.com. We have been mailing international letters for years and a Number 10 envelope with a couple papers in it (around 6 oz) has always costs us around 98 cents (current cost).

However if I follow the stamps.com site for an international letter to Thailand and it will cost me $5.44 and there is no option for a regular envelope.

I have spoken with both the Post Office who if you call them on it they will say a 6 oz letter gets counted as a package or large envelope but if you don't mention it or if you take it in you will be charged 98 cents.

For me, I don't mind cause I know I can pay 98 cents and not worry about it (they have never been returned) but I feel for all the people who just follow the stamps.com site and presume that its correct and the USPS is making a killing off these people. So sad. :-(

SCAM SCAM SCAM SCAM SCAM. Beware.

If you have any problems with Stamps.com, just file a BBB report. I have heard that you will receive at least some satisfaction from the company after doing this.

Never really thought about Stamps.com but I have thought a great deal about the extensive shipping experience via eBay/PayPal & the USPS online site. One day last week the USPS online site was not funcitonal so I thought exploring the options associated with Stamps.com would be worthwhile. Like a food I assumed the service was similar to USPS online service but with additional features such as the ability to copy/past an entire address vs the endless fields on the USPS online site. I never even noticed a monthly fee until receiving some information in the mail!

In conclusion, some quick research on the Internet resulted in endless complaints about the monthly fee and difficulty associated with cancelling the service; and guess what, the fee issue and the cancellation issue were both real! The fee had already been charged and the number to cancel the service is operational limited hours.

AVOID STAMPS.COM

And I sent a complaint to USPS also about Stamps.com

My parents have used Stamps.com for their business for years... never had any problems. They got their free scale (which doesn't weight anything over like 5 lbs, so they bought their own scale anyway). My husband and I now have our own small business and are going to be opening a stamps account soon. For right now, we use the USPS website, which does the exact same thing, except it's not as easy to navigate and it's a little more time consuming. They may have horrible customer service, but that doesn't make it a scam. Thecompany does what it's supposed to do. They print stamps.

Stamps.com is the biggest ripoff I've dealt with on the internet yet. I contacted them-their website right next to the USPS and assumed that they were connected with the post office. Whoa. They took a $1.oo out of my account once and then $9.98. No big loss, but they got my bank account number because I truly thought they were connected with the USPS. After finally getting to the USPS website I was informed there was NO connection. And, I received nothing for my $9.98.

I would like to make some comments about Stamps.com For these purposes I should tell you that I know someone who works for Stamps.com. From what I have "heard" Stamps.com is a very good system for people who own a business, or who send out a lot of things (and I mean - a lot). For those who send out just a few things, it's not worth paying for (and the "savings" on shipping are the same "savings" you get from USPS.com).

What you are paying for, in the monthly fee, is the software that allows you to integrate your sales data / address books and so print out addresses and postage at the same time. This works well for big companies, as it saves them man hours.

The problem is that Stamps.com is being marketed to people who don't have a use for the service. The "$45 in free postage" is a great sales tactic to people who send out a few letters or packages. But asside from the initial $5 you have to pay the monthly fee in order to get $10 of postage a month - which is NOT worth it to send out the occasional piece. There are many sales tactics that are completely legitimate (after all, everyone should know to read the fine print before putting in their credit card details, which many companies rely on us NOT doing!) but are possibly ethically questionable. There are many forums with people who complain about Stamps.com, and claim it's a scam. They have over 400,000 happy customers who use them every day - and there are always dissatisfied customers for even the best company.

I guess my message is two things - if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is - and that we should all be very careful who we give our credit card details too.

Everything you say is true, but there is one point you missed. The supposedly free scale isn't totally free. You have to pay nearly $10 for shipping on the scale, and you don't find that out until after you have signed up and given your credit card. You can opt out of the free scale, but you have to pay close attention to all the options presented to you when you sign up for the trial. And if you do opt-out, they'll keep bugging you about it until your trial runs out...

Save yourself money And hassle....you can download the Free Shipping Assistant from the Post Office, and do all your labels/printing etc. for Free!
Or, if you don't need yet another program taking up space in your computer, you can also get all the info you need and print postage at the post office website...again, for Free!

^^X^^

I signed up with them not planning on getting any free scale or anything. I just wanted to print a shipping label. Turned out I didn't have any acceptable label paper so that was that. Of course until I reviewed my credit card statement and saw a $15.99 charge on it. I used their feature to close the account, of course they did not close my account when asked. I'm sure that they must have had somewhere on their web site about the subscription fee, but I didn't see anything, and I'm better than most at noticing details like that. None of their emails said anything about me authorizing any monthly charges to my credit card, there was no receipt or anything. Just the fact that many people have missed the bit about the expensive subscription and the difficulty of canceling the account wreaks of a scam to me. I'm attempting to resolve this through different avenues. I think I felt they would be more legitimate since USPS provided a link to their site. I suppose for now on even if I think a place is a trusted site, I better Google their company with words like complaint, scam etc. first.