Is Stamps.com a Scam? - Comments Page 7

I had been wondering about both the utility and the ethics of stamps.com, initially inclined to favor it because of how it is marketed all over the USPS website (in fact, it might well have been a subdivision of USPS, given the way it is so comfortably situated there).

After minimal Googling, I found out what is going on, with all of these reviews here being very helpful. I'm not sure what the definition of "scam" is in any sort of legal context, but with all of the little tricks (e.g., barely detectable notification of the $15.99 monthly fee) they seem to engage in as routine business practice, I would say that "scam" is well justified.

I will not be dealing with these folks.

Stamps.com is a scam by my definition. I made what I thought was a standalone purchase of $5, and about a few weeks to a month later, I see the recurring 15.99 (or so) charge! If it was in the fine print, the print was pretty sneaky. Especially when you're just going on there to buy a single-item shipping.

More and more companies do this sort of thing.

Stamps.com is definitely SCAM!!!

I never signed in to my account, I have never used their any service and wanted them to cancel my account. But they keep charging my credit card with the reason of security hold.

When they want to charge there is no hold.
When I asked to cancel my account and refund my money, there is a security hold.

This is really ridiculous.

Hi -- we have tried to cancel Stamps.com for 2 years. They kept billing even after we had sold the business. There has been no activity on the account for years. When I asked for a supervisor and told him that we had canceled - but continued to bill for months, he told me that he woujld only credit me if I had a cancellation number. Stamps .com doesn't give cancellation numbers. We finally got this canceled through the credit card company.

I signed up online for what I thought would be a convenience- printing postage whenever I might randomly have a need for it. I’m usually a careful skeptic when it comes to weeding through the fine print for unwanted monthly fees. This one got by me somehow. It’s been 4 months so I can’t recall what the sign up procedure actually stated, but I know myself well. If I had seen mention of a monthly service charge I would never have signed up. I don’t use postage enough to warrant the $17.99 monthly “convenience fee”. When I called to cancel I asked for a refund of the three months I was charged for, since I didn’t use the service at all during that time. I was - politely - told all the reasons they would not... “Ma’am we sent you an email... there is a statement to the left of the box where you check out online that tells you about the free trial period... it’s a fee for the ABILITY to use our service...ma’am I don’t know how to explain it to you any clearer... when you balance your checkbook each month you should have seen it (it’s a small business acct and we travel constantly for jobs so I only balance it thoroughly about once a quarter)...” basically told me I was an idiot for not having known about the free trial period and that I could have cancelled at any time. They have chosen deception as a means of getting customers. For that reason I cannot recommend them. Scam? No. Deceptive? Most definitely. Don’t waste your money unless you do an awful lot of mailing every month. Oh, and they charged me $29.99 for my “free” postage meter...

Stamps.com is a scam! They are a legitimate company that uses fees to make money, pretty common but contacting them to stop is nearly impossible. I found they will not stop taking out the monthly fee. We had to call the credit card company and change our card number to get the fees to stop. Stamps has a phone system, but no one will answer. There are some reviews above that claim they got thru on the automated phone system, that is bunk. They only respond to not being able to get your money.

And no one mentions that our USPS has the exact online system to print your labels and it is free. You can get inexpensive labels at ULINE

Yes this company is totally fraudulent. Someone needs to investigate the individuals who own this company and file a class action lawsuit against them. Reminds me of the movie Wolf of Wall Street. The employees know they are scamming people so they need to be prosecuted. I will be calling some people I know within the Federal Government to let them know what’s going on.

Yes this company is totally fraudulent. Someone needs to investigate the individuals who own this company and file a class action lawsuit against them. Reminds me of the movie Wolf of Wall Street. The employees know they are scamming people so they need to be prosecuted. I will be calling some people I know within the Federal Government to let them know what’s going on.

We have been using stamps for 9 years. THey are far from a scam company. We love using that software. If you have a small business then stamps is great. If you are a regular person, then stamps is not for you. anna23@natureday.com. They get a lot of bad reviews and that is sad.

So frustrated! I ordered stamps ONE time! Then, I find emails, & now charges to my debit card that I did NOT authorize. They enroll you in an on-going monthly service, bill you, and never send stamps. I talked to 4 agents, and none of them can even find an account for me! Much less "cancel" anything! Today I am going to the bank, cancelling my debit-card, and reporting them to the fraud department to try and get back the $35.98 they billed me, for 2 months of no stamps!

Stamps.com might as well be called SPAMS.com

Good luck trying to cancel the account. Their website directs you to follow the steps noted below in order to cancel, but the close this account option is SIMPLY not there! You call their phone number and they put you on hold for over 45 minutes.

"In Stamps.com Online: Open the My Account drop down menu and select Manage Account. In Stamps.com Windows PC Software: Select the Account Tab.
Select the Change/Cancel Plan Tab.
Click close this account.

So they say "You don't have to go to the Post Office and stand in the long lines to buy stamps" !! Our mail man drops off an order form you fill out, write a check, and put in the mailbox. Stamps are delivered the next day. That's pretty slick and I save $215.88 per year over Stamps.Com.

Thanks for all writeup and the great comments. Unfortunately, none of it answers the question that brought me here -- privacy.

Typically, this kind of company uses software to collect data, and that is then sold to data brokers for a significant profit. Contacts and customers of small businesses is particularly valuable data, and I don't want my competitors to have access to that, even in "anonymized" form.

My unanswered questions: Does the software potentially collect data ? Is stamps.com's "privacy policy" full of squirrely legalese that would allow them to sell the data ?