Is Stamps.com a Scam? - Comments Page 6

Total scam, period

I thought I was signing up for a free service. I did not see anywhere on their site anything about a recurring monthly fee. I send mail out maybe once every 2 months and if it's a parcel, I login to USPS and use paypal. This service is useless to me and when I realized they were charging me a monthly fee, I could not find anywhere on their site when I could cancel this service and only found their number by googling stamps.com (fraud)

Stamps.com is definitely not a scam. I have used their service for 5 years for my online ecommerce business and have nothing but high praises for their service.

Here is a Stamps.com review: http://rijalda.com/stamps-com-review/

I agree the way and who stamp.com is marketing makes it a scam to this group of individuals. The marketing is sent to individuals who do not need the typical services of stamps.com.

For companies that use PB they are a good alterantive. It is better than paying $40+ a month for a 48 month to 96 (yes really) lease! And that does not include postage. However PB does save you time and gives you some discounts. But you need to be spending $500 a month in postage to see a $ savings.

PB would market the same way to companies who's spend rate would never jusify having their machines. So stamps.com is just the new PB scam when they market to wrong market.

For bigger spenders it is a good option verse PB.

I personally love the service. I'm a small business owner and Stamps.com integrates with ebay, amazon and zencart. Basically, every time I make a sale, Stamps.com imports everything for me. All I have to do it print it. Plus the postage is cheaper then using Paypal or the Post Office directly. For me the monthly fee gets absorbed by the lower cost for postage along with the convenience. It literally saves hours of time hand typing in addresses every month, not to mention the long lines at the post office.

The only scam I see is people trying to get a free handout from the company. They are indeed a business trying to make money to stay in business. There are no hidden fees here. To use their service you pay a monthly fee without other hidden fees!

At tax time you can access the whole years expenses and fees easily on their website. Just another reason I love the service.

Their insurance option is truly hassle free! I used to assume the USPS and their included insurance with Priority Mail International and Express Mail International was sufficient, but I was wrong. The tracking on a package sent to Brazil was "Stolen" and the tracking showed it like that. USPS would not refund the shipping cost or cover it under their included insurance without mounds of paperwork and phone calls. I eventually gave up! Now I only use Stamps.com insurance which is cheap and hassle free when shipping to "Suspect" countries like Brazil.

I got the mailer from stamps.com, and gave it a shot late at night before researching it. I was able to print out the free demo stamps, and then ordered the free digital scale. They charged $11.99 for shipping the free scale, and I received it a couple of business days later.

After seeing all the bad reviews, I figured I better call in to cancel before the free trial was up. My phone number matched the number in their system, so I got into their automated cancellation system. After a couple of offers, I was able to cancel, and got the confirmation emails. If I get any charges from them, I have the evidence that I cancelled and can dispute them with the credit card company.

I imagine their business model is built on people missing the $15.99 membership fee, and the cost of the scale is probably built into the shipping charge.

I suppose if I didn't live one block from a major post office this would be more useful, but I hardly use any postage anymore, and can order stamps from Amazon, so this isn't for me.

If you want a REFUND, after calling in select OPTION 4 on your phone. You can press the four as soon as the automated system says "for accounts press 1". This will get you to a person who can refund you your fees.

You can CANCEL ONLINE in many cases by going through "My Account" or "Manage Account" when logged in. You might have to do it through "change of service" link after clicking manage account.

You can cancel via email as well. Just write a very strongly worded one threatening to report them to the attorney general or better business bureau. They might make you verify a security question and your physical address in a follow up email.

If you have to call in and select the regular cancellation option, tell the agent "I just cancelled through your automated system, and it said I might be billed again. I don't want to pay another fee." The agent will cancel your account and waive your fee. At most you'll have to appeal to their good nature to waive the fee or ask for a supervisor.

Feel fre to update your article with my information if you would lik

Why hasn't anyone mentioned that you can print postage for free at usps.com?

Does anyone know what features, if any, stamps.com offers that usps.com doesn't?

I never recalled seeing anything about the monthly fee either and after I remarried and changed my bank card and got a new pin I got notified by Stamps.Com that they couldn't withdraw the fee out of my acct. This is almost 3 years after signing up. For awhile I got paper bank statements and do not recall seeing any payments to them or I would have canceled immediately. I didn't even use the site every month. I found out that I can print postage using Paypal without having to go through eBay.

Ive never heard of this company until today when I received an email telling me my free kit was in the mail and since I did not order a kit since Ive never heard of them so I don't know how they got my name and address so Im pretty pissed and I immediately forwarded their email to the usps postal inspectors scam alert. I hope they put their ass in jail.

Their business practices may not be the most ethical, but it's not a scam. I've used stamps.com for over a year and it makes it very convenient for those who run multiple online businesses like myself, because it processes all of my orders at once and I can print labels for all of my items at the same time (orders from various eBay accounts, amazon, and websites for example). The software works nicely for the most part, and the monthly fee is worth it for me. However, for people who don't run multiple online businesses, it may not be worth the monthly cost. Stamps.com should not market to the average person who doesn't need to print hundreds of labels a week, but they do and that's where they get their reputation as a scam.

It's not TECHNICALLY a scam, but they are happy to charge you for a service you don't use forever. And when you try to cancel, I had to hold for 18 MINUTES to get someone on the phone - so they make it as difficult as possible. If they were an ethical business, they would have two options: (1) the option to cancel their service online, and (2) a free service that charges a small convenience fee for usage - such as $0.50 to print postage (which I would pay in the holidays!). BUT they don't offer that, because they want to bill you monthly for a service you don't us. Near Scam, if you ask me.

Unless you rent a postage meter (another item from the dinosaur era, Stamps.com is a money pit. USPS, PayPal, eBay and even Amazon offer free postage printing services (just pay the USPS postage rates) for their sellers. And since the USPS snuck in the back-door rate increase last week (eliminating the savings for printing your own postage), there is NO savings in using stamps.com. If you, as a small business (not talking about utility companies here) have so much postage you need to farm it out, you can realize real saving by printing your mailings carrier sorted and having a local service affix the postage. Stamps.com may not be a bonefied scam, but their days as a worthwhile service are past. Buggy whips are dead.long live the buggy whip.

Felt totally scammed when i got my credit card bill and saw the $15.99 charge. They did cancel it finally after trying to retain me with their BS other services, etc.....Never saw the monthly service fee disclaimer, so it is strategically placed to miss it. That to me is a scam!

I didn't feel it was a scam. Yes, I may have missed the mentioning of a monthly fee. It did give me the impression that you installed the software and the only time you had a charge was when you actually used the service of purchasing stamps or package mailing. Since I don't use the post office that much because of auto electronic payments, etc...it doesn't benefit me to keep stamps.com.

I knew it was going to cost $16 per month for the service after the trial period of one month ended. I decided to try it anyway. I did not know there was also a basic plan at the time. I received the scale within ten days. Everything worked great except I called to cancel because of the monthly fee being too high for me. The phone call to cancel was not answered by a live person, however it would have been easy to cancel though I decided to accept the basic plan offered at $6 per month. So far I am happy with stamps.com.

I am very disappointed with this site. I too got started with the free weeks. Loved the idea of printing out stamps at home and all worked very well until I found out about the service charge. I ordered new sheets to print stamps on last week. They were not expensive and I got 5 sheets for $4.95. I only use postage occasionally now, so I didn't need to get a lot of sheets. Got them today. I went on the site, signed in with my user ID and password and I could not find anywhere to print my stamps. So, I saw I could upgrade my account and that is where I saw I would be charged $15.99 a month. So, I called them. I too was put on hold for a few minutes. A very nice gentleman helped me. But he was the wrong department. I asked if I couldn't just put money on my account and print a sheet as I needed stamps, like I did before. He couldn't answer my question so transferred me to another person. That person said, no, they do not do the prepay anymore, I have to pay $15.99 a month to print stamps. I asked her why they would send me the papers to print stamps when I can't. I also asked her why they are keeping my $1.87 that is a balance on my account if I cannot print stamps. Anyway, I cancelled my account and will have to just go to the post office or order them from the post office. So disappointed though. I liked printing my stamps.

The site has been nothing but a scam in my experience. I initially cancelled the account over a year ago, only to find out a few months later that they were charging my account. After contacting customer support about it, I was informed that I had never made an attempt to close my account before and so I closed the account a second time. Now I receive harassing phone calls, emails and letters from them claiming I owe them money for an account I closed because my debit card changed.

I am a former letter carrier of 25 years. This stamps.com service is not for the ordinary household. It is for businesses and even then it's not a good deal. Only if you are in a big city and going to the post office (or local UPS store) or other mailer is a big hassle and far away. There are people who do not want contact with other people and for them not having to go to the post office and interact with people is wonderful....but for the well adjusted person, stamps.com is pretty much a scam....just legal enough to be legal but ordinary people would call it a scam and be correct. And it will cost you more than save you in almost all cases. Stay away.

Did not make it clear that there was a monthly charge. When I got my first bill after using 1 time it was for $47 and I only bought 2 or 3 dollars in postage. When I called to complain that I had not received any bills till I had 3 service charges racked up I was told that there was nothing that could be done and I had to pay In addition I never recieved the free scale I was supposed to recieve. I immediately closed my account.