Is Stamps.com a Scam?
I hear radio ads for Stamps.com, promising the ability to print postage stamps at home, and $100 in bonuses. Is Stamps.com internet postage legit, or a scam? |
What's the Deal With Stamps.com?
Stamps.com is an Internet postage service that's heavily advertised on talk radio and other media, offering you the convenience of printing your own postage, and bypassing long lines at the Post Office. They also promise a $100 bonus which includes free postage and a digital scale, just for signing up as a new customer. Can this Internet postage service do everything it promises and make your life easier? Do they really give you the $100 bonus?
I signed up for the service and found out the good, bad and the ugly. So let's take a look at the claims that Stamps.com makes, and see if they deliver...
Printing Postage From Your PC?
Yes, you really can print postage using your own computer and printer. The Stamps.com software lets you print postage directly on envelopes, or on special sheets of "peel and stick" paper. You can print First Class or post card stamps, Priority or Express mail postage, or any specific amount, based on the size and weight of your package. I have to admit that's pretty cool, and the obvious advantages here (aside from the coolness factor of seeing real US postage stamps rolling out of your printer) are that you save gas, money, time. You don't have to drive to the Post Office, or wait in long lines. I say less time spent in government offices is a good thing.
Stamps.com will also turn your photos, or your business logo into postage. They make this possible with a customizable interface on the site that lets you choose a picture, manipulate it to your desire, add border colors, then purchase for a fee.
Save Money and Look More Professional?
The Stamps.com website claims that you will save at least "80% compared to a postage meter." I'm assuming they're referring to the cost of buying and operating your own postage meter. I've never done that, so I'll take them at their word.
Other advertised features are that your mailings will look more professional, and that you'll never overpay for postage again. This must refer to the feature in the software that lets you print addresses and postage directly on your own envelopes. Yes, I suppose that's a professional look, and a desirable thing if you run a small business. And I'll admit to occasionally putting an extra stamp on overstuffed envelopes, just in case they're over the weight limit. But with the free digital scale and the software, you can figure out exactly how much postage you'll need for a large or overweight mailing.
However... I had some problems relating to those last two points. First, I never got the digital scale they promised. It's only been two months, so maybe it'll eventually arrive. Or maybe not. And the software would not print correctly on my HP OfficeJet Pro printer. For some reason, the postage wanted to print in the wrong spot (half off the page) and after an hour of fiddling with the options, I gave up.
No Hidden Fees?
I do have a gripe here. If you go to the Stamps.com website, then click on the Signup button, it's fairly easy to miss the fact that there is a 4-week trial period, and a monthly fee of $17.99 to use the Stamps.com service after the trial period. And that does NOT mean you get $17.99 in postage to use each month. That fee is just for the "convenience" of printing your own stamps. So you're saving the Post Office money by using your own stamps and ink. And presumably it reduces labor costs, because all those Stamps.com customers won't be showing up and making the lines at the Post Office even longer. But you still have to pay $17.99 a month for convenience?
I'll grant that this service fee wasn't exactly hidden in the small print. But I'm sure a lot of people miss it in their haste to sign up and get the free scale and $45 free postage. I'm usually pretty good about scanning for gotchas, but I'll admit this one slipped by me. I didn't find out about the $17.99 monthly fee until I saw it on my credit card 4 weeks later.
$100 Signup Bonus?
But what about the "$100 Signup Bonus"? They're pretty clear on the website that the breakdown of this is as follows: $45 in free postage, a $50 digital scale, and a $5 supplies kit. I could quibble over the actual value of the digital scale, but let's just assume it's a deal. However, they are NOT clear on WHEN you get the free postage. Upon signup, you get $5 instant free postage. If you want, you can print your $5 worth of stamps, cancel the service, and walk away.
But how do you get the other $40 in free postage? There's the rub. When your free supplies kit arrives, it comes with four post cards. Each one is a voucher for $10 in free postage. And AFTER the 4 week trial period is over, you can send in one voucher per month. But of course you'll be charged that $17.99 monthly service fee. So your $40 in free postage will actually COST you $31.96. I did not see this mentioned anywhere on the Stamps.com website, so a pox on them for not being upfront about this.
How to Cancel Stamps.com
Cancelling your Stamps.com membership cannot be accomplished using the software, or by email. After poking around in the Help screens, I learned that it must be done by calling Customer Support at 1-888-434-0055. I called, and after waiting on hold for just a minute or two, I was connected to a very polite rep. She asked why I wanted to cancel, and mentioned some of the benefits of remaining as a customer. I said no thanks. She then informed me that I was eligible for a "Basic Account" at a reduced rate of $9.99 a month, and that she would waive my regular service fee for 1 month.
That's classic "customer retention" stuff that you'll get if you try to cancel a credit card, an AOL account or many other services. If you still want to cancel at that point, just keep saying no, and they'll reluctantly do it.
So Is Stamps.com a Scam?
If you look on the web, you can find people who love the Stamps.com service, and those who hate it. I found complaints from people in online forums who said they had to wait on hold forever when trying to reach customer support. Other claimed that they were still getting billed after cancelling their accounts.
So I headed over to the Better Business Bureau website. They actually rated the site with an A, but of the 30+ users who commented, most were negative and Stamps.com only received one star out of five. But keep in mind that very few people visit the BBB website with the intention of writing glowing reviews. The "A" rating implies that the company is operating in a trustworthy manner and has made a good faith effort to resolve any complaints.
Although I am disappointed by the scant mention of the monthly service fee at signup time, and the lack of clarity regarding the "free postage," I can't go so far as to declare Stamps.com a scam. The software does work as advertised, and if you run a small business that does a lot of mailings, the convenience of not having to go to the Post Office could make it worthwhile. There are also discounts, such as 10% on insurance, up to 10% on Express and Priority mail locally, up to 8% international rates, and free USPS supplies. But I doubt that most people using it for personal household stuff would consider it a good deal.
What's your opinion? Have you tried Stamps.com? Tell me what you think by posting a comment below...
|
|
|
This article was posted by Bob Rankin on 23 Sep 2009
| For Fun: Buy Bob a Snickers. |
 |
Prev Article: What Is Silverlight And Do I Need It? |
The Top Twenty |
Next Article: What Does System Restore Do? |
 |
There's more reader feedback... See all 133 comments for this article.
Post your Comments, Questions or Suggestions
|
Free Tech Support -- Ask Bob Rankin Subscribe to AskBobRankin Updates: Free Newsletter Copyright © 2005 - Bob Rankin - All Rights Reserved About Us Privacy Policy RSS/XML |
Article information: AskBobRankin -- Is Stamps.com a Scam? (Posted: 23 Sep 2009)
Source: https://askbobrankin.com/is_stampscom_a_scam.html
Copyright © 2005 - Bob Rankin - All Rights Reserved
Most recent comments on "Is Stamps.com a Scam?"
(See all 133 comments for this article.)Posted by:
David Nichols
14 Mar 2016
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!
Posted by:
Sincronicity
08 Apr 2016
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.
Posted by:
Joe
25 Apr 2016
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.
Posted by:
Sunnie Dringenberg
01 Jun 2016
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.
Posted by:
Tauffy
06 Sep 2016
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.
Posted by:
Coleman
26 Nov 2016
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.
Posted by:
Joseph Glenn Parker
04 Mar 2017
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.
Posted by:
Rick Christensen
16 Mar 2017
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.
Posted by:
david
21 May 2017
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.
Posted by:
Tunc
26 Sep 2018
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.
Posted by:
Jeri
26 Mar 2019
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.
Posted by:
Amy
07 Jun 2019
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...
Posted by:
Erik Hansen
03 Oct 2019
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
Posted by:
P
22 Oct 2019
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.
Posted by:
P
22 Oct 2019
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.
Posted by:
anna23@natureday.com
25 Feb 2020
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.
Posted by:
Jeannette Scarpello
21 Sep 2020
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!
Posted by:
Mounir
05 Jan 2021
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.
Posted by:
Stephen Victor
06 Jan 2021
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.
Posted by:
Rob
11 Apr 2021
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 ?