the bad

from eopinions.com

(http://www.epinions.com/webs-Web_Services-All-Stamps_com/display_~reviews)

does NOT count in google reviews

"Total rip-off, misleading website information, useless

Written: Oct 02 '12

I created a Stamps.com account roughly two months ago when I was out of stamps and got sick of always running out to buy them. Assuming it would be similar to using online FedEx (where you can print a shipping label on plain ol' copy paper and affix it onto a package), I registered and gave my credit card info (BIG MISTAKE) even though everything I was reading assured me I would not be charged unless I opted for a monthly service. They also recommended I buy one of their scales and purchase a package which would provide me a supply of labels, packing materials, etc. I opt not to do this, since my mailing needs from home are few and far between. Upon going through the website and trying to figure out how to print out a standard .33 cent postage stamp, I gave up after about 15 minutes and didn't think anything else of it.

A week later I received my "welcome kit" which was equally as confusing as the website, containing some labels, a CD-ROM to download the label-making software, etc. For my very sporadic personal/home mailing needs, it seemed a little much.

Two weeks later my VISA card was charged a mysterious $15.99 "monthly service fee" and I promptly called and asked for the charge to be removed and my account be cancelled. The customer service rep, who albeit was very polite, would not take "no thank you" for an answer and instead offered to waive my service fees for a month and if I still wanted to cancel my account after the month went by, then I could call and do so. Fine.

One month later, I still have not used Stamps.com, and my account STILL has not been refunded the $15.99 from the very first month. I call and request my account be cancelled once again. Once again, I talk to a very nice woman who will not stop offering me more free supplies/an extra 2 days of service/another month of no fees until I firmly say "NO" (no "thank you" this time). She goes ahead and cancels my account - hallelujah - but when I ask her about the $15.99 fee from August she tells me she is not able to pay back that charge because it was from a time when my account was still valid and she is not able to issue the refund.

A little ticked off, I thank her, hang up, and figure I'll just eat the complete waste of $15.99. I can understand using Stamps.com for a small business or private office, however, for me, it was a total waste of time, money, and a complete hassle to try and get out of whatever "agreement" in fine print that I somehow missed when I created the account in the first place. I'm disappointed a company can exist that is as misleading as this one is, and I'm disappointed in myself for being duped by them! Never again!"

[... i skipped a year for now... ]

"Avoid the free trial--it could cost you in the end! Scale worthless.

I am sure that Stamps.com is a great tool for those who mail a lot. But for an everyday user who is looking for a convenient way to get postage without going to the post office, this service is a rather expensive way to get something you normally get for free.

First, be cautious of the "free trial period". To help secure your business, stamps.com signs you up automatically for the $15.99 monthly service, and conveniently sends no email reminders or cancellations. It's not until you start seeing the charges on your bank/credit card statement that you realize you have subscribed.

I tried the free trial and got the free scale (for $10 shipping), and did not have a chance to use it before leaving on a 3-month assignment in another state. Boom--four monthly $15.99 charges before I realized it, and for the $64 I received $45 in free postage.

The scale is a bit of a joke, since it is only useful for their site. It's not a scale that you can use to weigh things BEFORE you mail (e.g., to check weights).

The helpful and friendly customer service representative suggested that one of the many benefits of stamps.com is avoiding the hassle of going to the post office. But since I can order all the stamps I want for a simple $1 mailing fee, I can't justify $16 a month for the same service.

I really can't comment on the value of the service--since I have not used it yet. But I have to give them two thumbs down for the way they lure potential customers in. For that reason alone I am cancelling my subscription and will never be a customer of theirs.

Recommended: No"

Aug 04 '11

"one expensive membership that provides no service!

This company will charge you a monthly fee for providing absolutely no service. The only way to cancel this "membership" is to contact them by phone, and that itself is incredibly difficult. The reps are rude, unhelpful, and speak to you as though you are an idiot. There is absolutely no reason anyone should pay $16 a month just to be able to login to an account and print stamps, stamps which you must purchase in ADDITION to paying the fee. Plus you must also pay for the postage. I guarantee it doesn't cost $16 in gas to drive to the nearest usps store. Or just print from paypal.

The other downside is if you do wind up having an issue with the monthly fee, it is beyond impossible to get their customer service reps to listen to your complaints, and even more difficult to get any money refunded. This company basically stole $48 from me over the past 3 months. I have nothing to show for it except a couple bucks in leftover postage on my account WHICH I PAID FOR, and some blank stamps to print on WHICH I PURCHASED. And to top it all off, I won't be using either of these as I no longer want anything to do with this company or the services they provide.

Recommended: No"

Mar 28 '11

"Expensive, cumbersome, and a pain in the a$$ to get rid of.

I am not even a casual usage of the postal service. I do nearly everythign i can online. Maybe once or twice a year do I need to mail somethign the old fashioned way for one reason or another. I thought stamps.com could be an alternative way to get postage without havign to go to the post office (wchih i hate to do as much as anyone else.)

I happily registered for the service, believing I could purchase postage online, print it at the office, and be happy. I had NO CLUE they charge a $16 monthly fee to use their service. That is an outrageously insane fee for someone who does little to no mailing to pay (heck, I could pay $16 to a kid on the street to run to the post office and buy stamps for me, and it would probably be easier).

Naturally the minute I found out i was goign to be billed monthly, I got on the phone to cancel SO FAST. I waited on hold forever, and I eventaully got to speak to a friendly albeit pushy young lady who just wouldn't take no for an answer. I explained three times that the service is probably wonderful for people who do high volume mailing, but that's not me so i have no need whatsever for their service. She kept offering me extensions on my free trial, and finally i had to interrupt her and say 'Listen, I do not want to do ANYTHING today besides cancel my account today.' i finally got what I needed from her, but consistent with other reviews of this service, it was an ordeal.

Unless you spend hundreds and hundreds of dollars on postage as part of your business, this service is overpriced and probably not a workable solution for you. A major disappointment, because radio promos for this sertvice led me to believe that it was a great solution for busy people who don't like to go to the post office. Not true. They charge a fortune to use obsolete technology (who in 2011 sells software that ONLY works on a Windows platform? Are these people in bed with Microsoft?).

Recommended: No"

Mar 14 '11

"Great for casual use only, would never rely on for professional use

Stamps.com is a totally unacceptable shipping solution for anyone doing anything more than just casual shipping. I have only been using them briefly because my work unfortunately has not ditched them, but I already have the following issues:

1) When you fill out customs form information for a shipment, Stamps.com does not retain any of these details. If you use the customs "Description" box for anything important that you may want to review in your shipping logs later, you better take a desktop screen shot of every single order you ship out. Theircustomer support on the phone also informed me rather uninterestedly that retaining customs form information "isn't their responsibility" after the package is shipped. As if storing a potential kb or 2 of extra info on international shipments would be a big pain in the neck for them.

2) There is no way to disable their USPS address validation check when doing batch shipments. So if the USPS has a "Floor 8" and "Floor 10" listed in their database but no "Floor 9", expect Stamps.com to mangle your shipping address with NO option to disable or override. Keep in mind the USPS database is potentially 6 months out of date at any given time along with being incomplete for examples such as the one listed above.

3) There is a bug on the batch side of their software that causes postage to be issued but no label printed if the customer has listed their apartment/suite/PMB/floor/etc number on an address2 line (line break after their main street address info). When this error occurs the reprint feature does not work for the shipment so you must refund the postage and manually create a shipping label with the revised address. If you are using the batch feature with say an eBay store, expect Stamps.com to also choke on updating the shipping status of your item so you must also manually update your eBay item information with the manually reprinted label.

4) The batch feature has a delay in importing web store orders for up to 2 hours or so after the order has been processed at the external site. So if your customers place an order at 3:00pm and you need to have that shipment into the mail the same day by 5:00pm, don't expect to be able to use the batch feature to import your order information because it likely will not pull in your order in a timely enough fashion. Result? Manually entering the web store order info in stamps.com software and printing out your label that way. Then you must of course manually update the order information in your external store. Stamps.com really needs to work on a more real time solution for integration with external web stores. There is no excuse to not be able to import such compact amounts of data for such extended lengths of time.

5) Overall unstable software. It seems to be largely web based software so I experience unresponsive script messages, timeouts with Stamps.com servers, and other totally unacceptable errors and bugs on a fairly regular basis.

Recommended: No"

Nov 25 '10

"Very Difficult to Get Customer Service to Close Your Account! They Won't Listen!

Very Irritating Customer Service.If You Want to Close Your Account They Do Not Take No For An Answer! The 3rd Time I Called and Had Lost All Patience With Their Customer Service Speel,She Finally Closed My Account. I Started the Phone Call by Telling the Rep. that I Had Called Twice Before,two Weeks Apart Only to Get the Run Around When I Tried Previously to Close My Account. I Proceeded to Tell Her that I Just Simply Wanted to Close My Account.She Said "I'll Be Glad to Help You With That" And Then.....Here We Go! She Started the Exact Same Speel As the Other Reps When I Called To Close My Account.I Had To Finally Get Rude and Interrupt Her,Because I Was Not About To Listen to it Again!!! Even Then,She Continued To Giggle and Push Some More Even Though It Was So Clearly Obvious By the Tone of My Voice That I Had No Patience or Time Left For These People.I Would Never Reopen My Account With Them.They Are and Very Pushy and Persistent.While Not Really Even hearing What You're Saying to Them. Needless to Say,it Was A Horrible Experience! It Makes Me Very Leary to Ever Try Out A Business Online Like This Again.

Recommended: No"

Jul 07 '10

"Won't get MY money, nope, nope nope!

Stamps.com is a RIPOFF! Did you know that you can get nearly all of the services that stamps.com offers from the US Post office website - for free? Stamps.com makes its money from selling you their stamp/label products. Even the discounts they claim "they" give you are actually the post office discounts offered when postage is paid for online and printed at home.

Please don't get suckered in by their "free" month of service. It is almost impossible to cancel, because you can't do it online, and when you call, you are put on hold forever, listening to a staticky version of Kenny G ... it's like a college psychology experiment! When I tried to cancel, they told me that my trial had expired and a "new billing cycle" had begun, so I would be charged for both my trial month and the next month. It had only been three weeks since I had signed up, so I stood my ground until the customer service agent reluctantly agreed to remove the charge "as a courtesy" to me. Excuse me??

Finally, this is another company that outsources its customer service to India. I'm sorry, but this service is NOT that convenient and it's certainly NOT worth supporting.

Recommended: No"

Mar 08 '10

"Used to be happy but no longer

I've had the basic account for some time which is now up to $7.99/month. I ship between 5-20 packages a month so the pricing has gotten to the point where you have to consider the value. I've continued to use the service in spite of the unannounced price hikes since they offered discounted insurance rates. They insure through a third party which is substantially cheaper than the rates USPS charges, so even the 10% discount they offer has a huge profit margin for them.

Recently I noticed that they no longer offer the insurance discounts. I received no notification of the changes to the plan so I emailed asking why I hadn't been informed about the change. I got an email reply that totally ignored my question and instead was a sales pitch on how wonderful their service is. When I emailed back to say, 'hey, could you please answer the very specific question I actually asked you?' I got a terse reply which did not address the question.

I will be shopping around for other options. I've noticed their customer service ratings have gone down dramatically this year and I have to join the unhappy club. Too bad. Obviously their small business customers just aren't worth the effort anymore. In today's economy, you think they would want to keep every single customer happy.

Recommended: No"

Dec 24 '09

"Absolutely horrible!

I own an online retail business and I signed up for stamps.com to make the process of shipping orders much easier.

Instead their program only made things worse. It was impossible to correctly upload all of my online orders, even though their advertising made it look simple.

I also was shipped a defective 5 pound scale. I did not realize that it was not working correctly until it gave an obviously incorrect reading on a package. I am now very worried that I did not pay enough postage for many of my packages, and that my customer's orders will be shipped back to me soon. When I promise somebody their order by a certain date, and they do not recieve it, I might as well say goodbye to any future business with them. This also opens up the possibility of paypal chargebacks.

I also could not find a way to get a refund on postage that I purchased from them for packages that I did not send, due to the incorrect scale reading.

Long story short, my experience with stamps.com has been horribly stressful. I've lost money and customers. I am calling them as soon as they open tomorrow morning and I am hoping to get a full refund on the money wasted.

Recommended: No"

Dec 13 '09

"Rip off---BEWARE! Not a "free" trial ---

I signed up for a "free" trial period. Unfortunately it is not free as when the 28 days (not month as advertised) and you don't close the account, they change you for that month! When I called to complain, the Indian customer service rep told me that this information was in the long welcome email that was sent. After multiple attempts to sell me on keeping the service (even though I was angry at being charged for "free" trial), he said all he could do was to prorate my current months bill (gee thanks for nothing).

I informed the customer service rep that during the "free" trial period the website always gave me an error message. Then got the same error message when attempting to access my account section of the website. This meant that I couldn't see when my trial period ended or change my account type, or cancel. All my emails were not replied to. All the rep said was "I'm sorry to hear that...how about if I....". Also "you are not allowed to cancel your account through the website or via email. You must call to have it cancelled." WHAT A SCAM! SOUNDS LIKE A SLEAZE USED CAR SALES PITCH to me.

Given the high monthly cost of the service, the false sales pitch of a un-"free" trial, unresponsive customer service, faulty website (not fixed over a month), I would NEVER suggest using this company.

BUYER BEWARE!~

Recommended: No"

Nov 18 '09

"Total Scam to Deceive and Steal Your Money

Complete rip off and terrible service. Bait and switch is the perfect description. Had they told me up front what I learned after registering, I would have never joined but they concealed the details of their offer until after I registered and deceived me.

Only after ordering their "free" scale for $10 was I informed that the "free" postage is given in coupons spread out over four months so that they ensure that you're paying their monthly membership fees that whole time to make up for the postage.

Within the hour of registering and learning that information, I sent them an email to cancel my membership, halt shipment of the scale, and receive a refund for its shipping and handling. They have refused. It's the weekend yet they insist that all cancellations must be done by telephone only M-F 6-6.

It is now over 24 hours later and the scale has still not shipped but after three email requests they still refuse to halt its shipment and refund my shipping and handling. They claim that they can only halt shipment of an item if it is not in a "shipping soon" or "closed" stage of processing. So they must have put my order into that designation within minutes so as to prevent the possibility of a refund although they still haven't shipped it over 24 hours later.

I only wish I had found these hundreds of negative reviews before I registered.

Don't be fooled. Stamps.com is a total scam.

Recommended: No"

Nov 14 '09

"horrible - the worst customer service I've ever dealt with

I strongly caution anyone against ever using this service. It may work well for some people while they are using it. But, if you ever want to cancel, it is a nightmare.

I decided Stamps.com wasn't what I needed immediately after downloading the interface and I tried to cancel the service the same day without ever using it. Somehow, I accidentally opened a duplicate account instead of cancelling the service. I was not aware of this until two separate $15.99 charges showed up on my bank account.

When I called customer service about this, I found out that the service can not be cancelled online. Although you can sign up for service completely online, it can only be discontinue by calling in. This appears to be so that they can do everything possible to keep you from discontinuing, including hanging up on you until you give up. I came to this conclusion after being “accidentally” hung up on six different times.

It took seven phone calls with five different customer service representatives to get the accounts cancelled. They refused to refund me even though I never used a single cent in postage. I find this to be an extremely bad business practice. They cost me a lot of money and hours of my time trying to stop any further charges and provided me with absolutely zero service.

Recommended: No"

Nov 10 '09

"Stamps.com dupes with exorbitant service fee/no information on signup!

The registration process is misleading; they do not tell you about the $15.99 monthly service charge at the end of trial. No email confirmation on the charge either - you'll realize it only when you see the charge on your credit card. The email does mention the ostensible free $5 worth postage to get you started though. The email would probably be weeded out by spam filters of most email programs, so you won't always see it and there's no way you know you have registered! There's no way the customer service personnel would reverse the charge even when you mention you never intended to purchase anything from them. They'll try to lure you with courtesy postage credits that you don't have a need for or monthly fee waivers that will keep you in the system, and if you are not careful enough to call and cancel the account, potentially be duped again. And worse, they need you to print postage on their rolls and sheets, which they purportedly mailed to you!! And somehow, they imagine that you can print postage directly on your envelopes/packages even when you don't have any to mail. I think they are trying to give Ponzi a run for his money!

To add to your woes, the website is perpetually down with "limited functionality", which only allows you to change your password!

In a nutshell, not a product worth anything for individuals. USPS' online service is far more efficint, and all they ask for is a shipping/handling of $1.

Recommended: No"

Oct 13 '09

"Bait & Switch: Buyer Beware

The fine print is hidden so much after you subscribe that trying to go back and find out what you signed up for is virtually impossible. The email regarding your signing up doesn't tell you about the monthly fee, nor does going to the "terms and conditions" of the site.

The only way to find out the monthly fee is to search for it using the "help" button. But, it will never tell you exactly what you are paying.

They actually have three different services. ($15/mo, $10/mo and pay per use). The pay-per-use feature is by phone order only.

Oh and just try to find the closing your account fee. That's another hidden fee.

IMO, it's a bait and switch. The only time you find out what you're actually paying is when you enter your credit card information. After that, you're on your own to spend time scouring the site to try to find the information. It's not a link on the home page, it's in the FAQ's (sort of). It's not in the "terms and conditions" on the home page.

This is a conscious effort by a company to get your money and make you jump through hoops to find the information about what plan you're on and the fees you are paying.

Buyer Beware.

Recommended: No"

Oct 08 '09

"Good, too expensive, poor software

Cancelled Stamps.com account. After many years of being a client, I decided to finally cancel my account. The process was enlightning. First, I was offered a reduction in monthly fees from $16 to $10 and then offered one month free and $5 of postage if I would not cancel.

I had no major issue with this company but the software was never modified over the 6 years I used it and it is clunky with address books and general interface.

Gee, why did I not do this sooner to save money. Who knew. I cancelled anyway. $160 per year is just too much for the crappy software. I have found that I am no longer using it for postcard mailings which was my original need for this account. Mailing packages has become too expensive as compared to FexEx Home or UPS ground for most things.

The number of letters I mail are few. So why?

Besides, I had to use my PC software on my mac to even use it.

No, from now on I am going to buy stamps and put that $100 per year into fishing baits.

I wonder why there has been no competion on this software? Do you think Nancy Pelosi's husband owns this company too?

Recommended:

No"

Oct 07 '09

"Don't get sucked in by the promotional gimmicks and don't waste your money!

I was sucked into trying Stamps.com because the USPS site was down and they recommended Stamps.com as an alternative until their site was up and running again. This was Stamps.com offer at the time: Free trial for 1 month, free scale, free $10 postage, free $25 Amazon.com gift certificate. Not until after you sign up do you find that you are eligible for the scale and the free postage after 30 days of service and the gift card after 60 days of service. I stayed on after the trial to receive the postage and gift card. It's a complicated process in which you have to mail the promotion redemption coupon (using Stamps.com postage) to an address in CA. I mailed each coupon separately with the proper postage within the time limits and never heard from them. The promotional coupon for free postage claimed I would have the free postage in 1 - 2 weeks. The promotional coupon for the $25 Amazon.com gift card said to wait 6 weeks (which secures another 2 months of service fees for them) I have cancelled my service (which was another complicated process that included giving them lots of personal information including confirming the last four digits of my Social Security number???) I would not recommend Stamps.com but I would recommend using the USPS website. It's free and you don't have to buy special labels for postage.

Recommended:

No"

Aug 13 '09

"Terrible...I would never use them again.

Please read the fine print. There is a monthly service fee! Even if you do not use the service. I mailed one package 6 months ago and just received a $80 bill. I called and complained, but there was nothing they could do. I will never use them again. It is not worth the service.

I signed up for Stamps.com to send a package and save time from not having to go to the post office. Well, the service did work and my package did arrive to the destination, but I never used the service again. There should be a per usage charge not a monthly service.

Terrible...I would never use them again.

Recommended:

No"

Aug 07 '09

Not a useful service for me.

The company is designed to save you time by not having to go to the post office. You can buy your postage and supplies online and have them shipped directly to your house. It’s a good concept in theory, and if you spend a lot of time at the post office.

The good points are that you can print your postage at home and it is very easy to order more postage. You can also print directly onto the envelopes, and on paper for packages. The software also will save your address book so you don’t have to waste a lot of time typing in addresses.

However there are a couple of things to be aware of. If you have a finicky printer (as I do) it can be difficult to print directly onto the envelopes. But they do offer special labels for you to be able to print your stamps directly onto that can be purchased only at stamps.com and the shipping is quite expensive. Plus, the labels are only functional. They are not pretty at all. Also, they are not like other call centers, the customer service agents have normal business hours (like 8-5 or something), which is good for the CRMs, but when you’re dealing in a different time zone, it can be quite inconvenient. They are in the Pacific Time Zone. So you must make a point to do your business with them then.

They get your attention by offering a 4 week “risk free trial” please do not confuse this with a “free trial.” The difference, according to a stamps.com manager, is that a “risk free trial” lets you try the service for free, then if you do not cancel within the trial period, you are charged for the entire trial period. With a free trial, the billing cycle starts after the promotional period. So you will discover if you cancel even one day late, you will be charged for the entire period, plus a pro rate for the one day you still had the service.

Overall, the software was relatively easy, the customer service agents were polite, but the service saves you nothing but time. If that’s all you want to save, then this would be a good service for you. And as far as the “risk free trial,” just make sure to call on time.

Recommended:

Jun 16 '09

Stamps.com do not offer any service to their customers.

Written: Mar 04 '09

This program does not calaculate postage correctly and I am always getting my packages returned. When I call stamps.com customer service they say the post office is not correct. The post office say stamps.com is not calculating the parcel post correctly as it does not ask for the dimensions of the package. I am so frustrated that I will not send any more packages with stamps.com.

I was trying to send a box 20X20X20 weighing 10lbs PARCEL POST from 33433 to 49512 Stamps.com does not allow me to enter the box dimensions. It therefore calculates the postage to be be 13.40 with 18c for delivery confirmation. the post office return the boxes stating that they need another 9.79 postage. Of course I loose the original postage through no fault of my own.

I have tried to explain to the stamps.com supervisor on 2 different occasions that their program is not calculating the postage correctly. You would think this would be a valid complaint and they would want to try and fix it. The supervisors at stamps.com are not interested. They keep refering me to the post office customer service. The post office say they do not control the stamps.com program. CONCLUSION. stamps.com will not always caluclate your postage correctly and you will loose the postage when the package is returned from the post office for incorrect postage. I would not recommend this program.

Recommended:

WORST COMPANY EVER. NEXT TO IMPOSSIBLE TO CANCEL. CONTINUES BILLING AFTER CANCELLATION ATTEMPT.

Written: Dec 31 '08 (Updated Dec 31 '08)

I had a stamps.com account. In January of 2007 my mom (whose credit card was on the account--I was an adult at the time though) called stamps.com and said she didn't want her card on that account. They took her card off (well actually, my mom cancelled the card before they did that) and my mom told me to call stamps.com to close the account or put a new credit card on. I tried to call them to close my account but they never answered or responded to my calls. I figured what the hell, since they can't charge me it's their problem.

Well, then they kept sending me statements every month saying they couldn't charge me $15.99 (or whatever) for this month, plus the previous months since January. About a half dozen times I responded to this email saying I wanted my account closed. They never responded. Finally today I got absolutely sick of getting these statement emails so I hunted down their phone number and called again. They actually answered!

They put the blame on me for not closing the account--even though I had tried. At first they tried to charge me the full amount that they said I owed at this point: $367.77. I told them that was ridiculous since I hadn't used the account in two years and I had been trying to close it. Eventually they brought it down to 50% of the original: $183.88. I stood my ground and told them that was also absurd. They finally "took it down" [to] one payment of $15.99. I told them that was unacceptable and if they wanted to keep the account open they could go ahead, even though it was not what I wanted them to do (and I said this), because they had no way to charge me. She then said she would close my account so at least I wouldn't be billed further.

After doing this, she said she would forward my call to corporate and it would ultimately be up to them what to do. After waiting on hold another 3-5 minutes (total call time was around a half hour), I got someone named Andrew on the phone. He agreed to close the account and "take me out of billing." He told me I had $22 in unused postage and asked me if I wanted him to mail me a check. I said no. He said "okay, we'll just call it even."

While I was being transfered to corporate, I got a few emails from stamps.com about my account closing, etc. One of the emails said that they had reduced my fee BY 15.99. I think that if I had agreed to pay the last amount that they had told me ("taking it down [to] one service fee payment of $15.99"), they would have charged me the $367.77 - $15.99, and then told me that what they said was "taking it down [by] one service fee payment of $15.99."

Another interesting thing I learned: the calls are not monitored. He said "no one listens in on these conversations" when he was referring to me previously trying to contact them and not being responded to. I think this means the calls are not recorded either.

Recommended:

Avoid this company like the plague

Written: Dec 29 '08 (Updated Dec 31 '08)

I think that STAMPS.COM needs some competition. This must be the WORST COMPANY on the market. My opinion is that their billing practices are criminal. Some months ago I sent them an email and canceled my service. Their service charge is excessive because I was mailing only a few letters per month. I found that Federal Express does a better job in shipping packages anyway. Through a different event I had cancelled my credit card. I did not use the STAMPS.COM service for months. After many months later, I now receive a bill that says I owe them over $90 and that they are going to continue to bill me unless I pay them the past due amount. STAMPS.COM never canceled my account. They just disabled my account and continued to bill for the service! They say I owe the amount even though they have had my account disabled for months! How can it be legal for a company to charge me after I canceled? How can it be legal for them to continue to charge me for months that my service was disabled by them? I believe they are intentionally setting up these accounts so that they cannot be cancelled. Regardless of what they say is the defined process for canceling an account, they knew I intended to cancel the account. They disabled my account, they never called me, they just kept billing me. If enough people are interested in a class action lawsuit against this company, I'm sure we can find an attorney that would be interested.

Recommended:

Have extra money and time? Want to experience new ad tactic? Jump in...

Written: Dec 24 '08 (Updated Dec 24 '08)

Internet postage is a wonderful and convenient thing, but Stamps.com gives it a notorious name.

This iniquitous merchandise will always try to trap innocent customers by using "No Risk", "No Upfront Costs", "4 Week Trial" as well as "Free Special Offer" on their promotion material. There is not any line or fine print mentioning the monthly fee or the hidden fee that will be charged for this service on those mailed material. Customer will never know the so called "No Upfront Costs 4 Week Trial" is never free until they call to cancel the service.

Stamps.com will charge you the monthly fee at the very last second of each billing circle so that even the "transaction date" for this bill will appear on your credit card statement as the first day of your next billing circle, not to mention the "post date". By using this "smart" tactic, they try to mislead you into believing that they are charging you for the right billing circle and the first 4 week trial would be free.

However when you call to cancel the service, the representative will tell you that the charge (which has the "transaction date" within the current billing circle) is for the previous billing circle and they will charge you one more time for the current billing circle since the "No risk 4 week trial" is not free, which sounds like robbery. Should you ask where their terms are, they would direct you to click their "Site Map" and followed several links to find it. I wonder how many people know where the site map link is.

What's the worse is that you cannot cancel this service by email but only by phone. Meaning if you remember to cancel it outside their normal business hours, you are screwed. You probably will be charged for one more month fee, should the next business day is within the next billing circle.

If you really want to use these services online, there is a very nice one out there with much better price and services. Here I cannot tell you a name for fairness reason. Try to google "internet postage", the first one of the normal result (not the ads) is always the best one. Hope this review would prevent innocent people from scammers.

Recommended:

Hidden gotchas and customer service as pleasant as licking a stamp

Written: Dec 23 '08

I decided to try Stamps.com because of a radio special that included a free $50 scale and $45 of postage. There was a 1-month trial, so I thought I may as well try it out.

I installed the software, which is handy and kinda nice, except it runs amazingly slow, is not very intuitive, and is missing some (what I thought would be) key features -- unfortunately I uninstalled it as soon as they (finally) let me cancel, so I'll have to edit this later if I can remember an example.

It was a couple of months ago, but seems I had to contact them once during the setup and customer support was helpful and friendly.

After the software was installed, my introductory packet came in the mail a week or two later. It included "coupons" to exchange for $10 of postage ... 1 per month for the next 4 months. So $5 of postage is credited to your account when you sign up (later I found out is only good during the free "trial" - more on that below) and $40 of the "free" postage is doled out in $10 increments as you continue to use their service for the next 4 months. The lowest plan displayed in their software is $17.99 per month and it goes up to $34.99 per month.

Regarding the free scale, you either get a 5-lb scale, or for $50 you can upgrade to a more useful one that weighs up to 25 lbs. There was a glitch while trying to get the order to go through. I finally had to leave and decided to try again later.

When the trial period ended I still hadn't used even the $5 free postage on my account so I called to cancel, but I was a day late. They had already charged $17.99 to my card, AND the $5 of postage was gone from my account! In talking to the support representative the "helpful" and "friendly" that I experienced when signing up were adjectives not to be found anywhere when trying to cancel -- the first OR second time. "Courteous" is another word that, though I was trying to shovel it in their direction, seemed to bounce off like a superball on a brick wall, and not back in my direction.

I was told the $5 of postage was gone because it has to be used during the trial period. And to make a long story shorter, our lengthy discussions revealed that you pay in arrears for their service, so I asked why had I already been charged $17.99 since the free trial had just ended and the new month was just beginning? Well, that first "trial" month is not a free month, but a "risk-free" month, meaning if you cancel during the month you don't pay, but if if you don't cancel you get charged the full amount.

I finally worked out with the agent that he would extend to me another free month (until December 23) to try out stamps.com, but if I still wanted to cancel be sure to do it by December 23rd or I would be billed another $17.99 in January (since you pay at the end of each month used). He also eventually agreed to add back the $5 of postage that had not been used during my free trial, er, risk-free trial.

I spoke with a very nice woman in support a week or two after that who helped me order the 5-lb scale. It hasn't arrived yet, but I have been notified that it is on its way. The packet that comes when you sign up includes self-adhesive lables to print stamps on. I couldn't find the packet, but wanted to try out my account and use some of the postage. When trying to print on my own labels I found that the labels stamps.com sends have serial numbers on them, and you have to enter the serial numbers in order to be able to print the postage that is already in your account. Not having those labels, I could not use my credits to print stamps.

December 23rd: Today is the day I was told to call by if I still wanted to cancel and not enter the next billing cycle. If I called to cancel partway into the next cycle, he had said the days would be pro-rated and I would only be billed for those I used. So I called to cancel, and she said I have already entered the next billing cycle (...why was I surprised?). This time, as with the las time I tried to cancel, Support was curt, abrupt, and sounded exasperated-but-not-quite-abrasive, even cutting me off in the middle of answering a question she had asked.

Since the billing cycle had already started, she said I could continue using their service for a month then cancel. I explained that the last person had told me to call in by Dec 23 (today) if I wanted to cancel still. She finally agreed to cancel, but still pro-rated today and charged me $.60, in spite of what I had been told before.

After verifying the account canceled, she said something bordering on sarcasm and hung up. I am always extra-polite on the phone and usually have that returned, but the only time that was mirrored from stamps.com was when I was perceived as a customer. Don't cancel their service if you can only stand for people to be nice to you! =o)

My main disappointments are not with their selective customer service or poor interface, but all the things that seemed to be kept under wraps until after the fact (free trial was actually risk-free trial; "free" postage has catches; free scale is all but worthless unless you are weighing manila envelopes; if they tell you what day to cancel by, do it a day or two earlier than that just to be safe; etc). I almost felt like I was playing a video game and, once I had lost, was shown all the secrets that I missed along the way -- most resulting in more revenue for stamps.com ... I never did end up getting even one stamp's worth of postage from them. I still might get a 5-lb scale for only $18.59 and 3 hours of my time.

They may be a great service for people with restricted mobility or who have large amounts budgeted for the many things they mail, but for anyone who is watching their budget, paying for this kind of service, and postage you would pay anyway, then paying on top of that to print on their paper ... a mistake I won't make again.

Recommended:

I would not recommend them for any services or products.

Written: Sep 10 '08 (Updated Sep 10 '08)

I am completely unsatisfied with Stamps.com. They send me a "free offer" in the mail with promises of a scale and postage. I wanted more information about the offer so I created an account. Once the account was created I found that the scale was "free", just had to pay the postage to receive it. They wanted $10 shipping for my "free" $5 scale. No Thanks. And the "free" postage needed to be printed on their labels (another cost) BIG No Thanks! I was not interested at that point, but failed to notice they were going to charge me a service fee at the end of my "free trial." My experience with "free trials" is that most companies notify you that the trial period is ending and they hope you enjoy their services enough to continue doing business and start charging you money. Not Stamps.com. They just started charging away. I had never revisited their site, nor did I accept any "free offer." I called to ask for my money back and they said "no, you should have read the fine print." Agreed. However they should also see I have not "used" their services in any way and should not be charged. Customer service at Stamps.com does not exist. I would not recommend them for any services or products.

Recommended:

Disreputable practices

Written: Aug 26 '08 (Updated Aug 26 '08)

You can do the same exact thing from USPS.gov as you can on stamps.com. The only thing that stamps.com provides that you cannot get from USPS.gov is the ability to print postage for First Class mail from your home or business. That may seem like a significant advantage that stamps.com has. But keep in mind that you can only ship packages or envelopes up to 13 ounces via First Class. Otherwise, you have to use Priority mail which you can print and pay for on the USPS.gov website. If you are shipping things less than 13 ounces, you can always use normal stamps.

So, stamps.com does not provide much benefit over using the post office website. And for $17.99 a month, forget it. Their service only really appeals to people with very specific needs and for most people simply does not have the value add to justify the monthly fee. Perhaps there are other value add services they have of which I am not aware. I don’t know.

In addition, I got stung by the monthly charge after I let the trial period slip. Most companies will refund you your first monthly charge if you let a trial period lapse then call as soon as you realize you were charged for a service you are not using. Well, the brass at stamps.com institute policies that don’t agree with that. They would rather entice you with a trial period, then ding you when you make a simple mistake by forgetting to cancel before the trial runs out. In today’s day and age where many people have accounts with dozens of websites and do much of their shopping, shipping, travel plans, etc. on the internet, it is unfair to hold people that sign up for trial to a charge them for a service they do not use then refuse to refund their charge if they cancel shortly after the trial period ends. Maybe unfair is not the right word since trial users do have to agree to a terms of service which outlines they will be charged. Maybe the better word would be disreputable. Actually, that is the perfect word to describe stamps.com. Not to mention I never recall seeing anything about a monthly charge. I suspect it was buried in a multipage agreement with an accept/decline button that I assume many people simply accept without reading at all.

I will never use stamps.com now simply because of this encounter. And I will advise against using stamps.com to anyone that may potentially use them. It has left such a bad taste in my mouth, that I am taking the time to post this. What a great way to build a solid reputation for a publicly traded company.

Recommended:

Stamps.com is a scam and they have lousy customer service

Written: Jun 11 '08

This site is a scam! They advertise a free trial period, but it can be next to impossible to get them to cancel your account whether the trial is over or not.

I mailed 2 Christmas presents in December using Stamps.com, and everything went fine with that. Then I called and cancelled my account a few days later. I've been out of the country working since that time. I was dismayed to see a charge on my January credit card bill, but I figured that it would be corrected on the next bill. I lost my credit card later in January and got a new credit card number, yet the charges continued! Even though the number of the account changed, the charges continued! Consumer Reports wouldn’t charge my account since the credit card number had changed, and other companies wouldn’t charge my card as well – I had to input my new credit card number into numerous online accounts before they would renew my subscriptions or allow charges, but Stamps.com had no problem continuing to charge me! Emailing Customer Support generated only standard emails saying I needed to call them on the phone about the account.

I finally called them up on the phone after returning to the USA, only to find that they won't negate the charges since December (even though I have not mailed ANYTHING since that time). They fell they are somehow due my $19.99 per month, for doing absolutely nothing, providing no service. They won’t give you any satisfaction anyway, saying that there is nothing he can do about past charges.

They advertise that you can cancel by just going to “Tools” on their software and choosing “Cancel”, but that option does not appear in their current software. You have to call an 888 number to cancel, wait a long time on the phone, only to talk to some guy in India, which also irks me as the Indian customer service people can’t even sympathize with you and are just making pennies a day in a third world country.

I cancelled by phone in December, figuring that was all I needed to do. Imagine all the time I’ve spent trying to cancel by email, online, etc. since that time.

Don't even get started with them!

Recommended:

Horrific experience, good software.

Written: May 19 '08

"How much does it cost?

$15.99/month - no hidden costs, cancel anytime."

Yes, you read that right. It (now) costs SIXTEEN DOLLARS EXTRA a month on TOP of charging you face value for the postage that YOU print. That is, YOU do all the work, and THEY charge you on top of what USPS already charges. I say, do you see a rip off here? I sure do - after being unable to cancel my "service" with them, I yanked my card (by conveniently forgetting to update my card number with them after my wallet got lost) and they sent my account to collections claiming about 4 additional months I didn't even log in under.

If it weren't for this ridiculous highway robbery of plainly hidden charges (they don't make mention of the $15.99/month fee on their page - it's hidden in the FAQ page of their site), they'd have a great service. USPS should pick up on a similar service. The only thing Stamps.com offers over more useful and less costly services like PayPal shipping or even USPS "click-n-ship", is that Stamps.com allows you to print postage straight onto standard envelopes, typically ensuring that they'll get there quicker and more reliably. I really like that. To this day I still print the shipping/return addresses on envelopes using MS Word - I just use regular stamps instead.

Stamps.com's epic downfall is their horrible billing system, plain and simple. If they would get with the times and stop charging an arm and a leg for a service nobody wants to even pay for, and (in the case of shipping labels) you can get for free anyway, they'd have a great service. They also require you to "add postage" to your account in increments of about 10 or 15 dollars (last I checked), so you can't just "bill it to my card" and not have a lingering "account balance" that keeps you coming back to spend more from.

As far as canceling their service, I found no such way to actually do so. On their site, in a hidden corner, I found a reference to calling an 800 number in order to cancel your service (and avoid that recurring $16/month charge even if you aren't using their service). No way to cancel an INTERNET service from the INTERNET. And there was no way I was calling an 800 number to be chewed out by some pushy "customer retention center" (like AOL) in order to cancel a "service" I shouldn't've even been being billed for to begin with.

Stay. AWAY. From. Stamps.com. For your own good.

Recommended:

Scummiest of All Scumbags

Apr 29 '08

I read about 20 of these reviews and no one spelled out the exact specifics of the bait and switch.

The only thing that comes with the trial is $5 shipping. The remaining offers are awarded AFTER the trial is completed (i.e. once you pay). The first month isn't free, just risk free (no charge if you cancel), so, your first bill is 32 dollars. At that point you get $10 postage, the amazon gift card and the scale (supposedly). The next month you pay 15.99 and get another $10 in postage. That's $48 for about $60 worth of stuff (the scale is worth $10 max)- stuff that, if you read previous reviews, you most likely won't even get your hands on and $25 of which is postage that you may not even use.

Add all this to the headache that you can't cancel online and have to call during Pacific hours... and this company becomes a bunch of serious scumbags.

The brochure gives the reader every impression that the free trial comes with everything (and there is no fine print explaining otherwise). This is fraud, plain and simple. If I had some extra time on my hands and could finance a huge lawsuit, I would sue the pants off these guys. Hopefully someone will.

Recommended:

Avoid like the plague unless you have money to burn with Stamps.com !

Written: Mar 27 '08

Hi,

Add me to the long list of unhappy customers. I bought into the BS and signed up. For a $ 5.00 shipment I have now paid over $ 63.00 for the "right" to buy postage.

So in June I signed up. In July I cancelled because it didn't seem like something I needed. I emailed requesting them to cancel my account. They auto-respond to your email saying you have to call to cancel your account (so someone can brow beat you into staying). Three months+ worth of charges racked up before they finally officially cancelled my account.

I tried to resolve this with their alleged customer service. They wouldn't budge even though I got $ 5.00 worth of postage for $ 63.00 !

So in November I paid them in full and tried to forget about their crappy service. In December they sent me to a collections agency. So I called and was to it would be taken care of. In January I received another notice and again their CS said it would be taken care of that it was mis-entered by one of their reps. In February I received another more nasty collections form letter. Again Stamps.com said it would be taken care of that it had to process out through one more cycle.

Now its March and the letters keep getting more nasty and still Stamps.com has resolved it with their NY collections agency.

Yet again an alleged supervisor claims that they would take care of it and even laughs at my frustration.

I'm sure there is a reason that Stamps.com has registered the domain name stampsdotcomsucks based on all the comments here.

If you want non stop irritation then sign up. If you want to throw away money every month for the "right" to buy postage, sign up.

Regards,

Terry

Recommended:

Not worth it

Written: Jan 28 '08

My daughter's first birthday is quickly approaching and I wanted to have photo stamps made for her party invitations. I didn't review stamps.com (SO out of the ordinary) and I wish I had it to do over again.

DO NOT ORDER PHOTO STAMPS FROM THEM! This has been a nightmare and I can't believe that a company endorsed by the United States Postal Service could be so shoddy. Wait a minute...maybe I can.

For 20 $0.41 stamps it was over $20. So expensive, but I figured it was worth it having my little girl's face on them that we forked the money over.

Once my order was placed the email confirmation states I'll be able to track my order. A few days later there is no record of my order. I email customer service THREE TIMES to ask what the status of my order is and I haven't heard from them to this day.

My stamps FINALLY came today and the picture quality is AWFUL! They are definitely not worth what I paid for them. I'd love to return them, but with the order not showing up under my online account I'd hate to send these back and not receive my refund.

What a joke this service is...do yourself a favor and stay away!

Recommended:

Bad customer service and difficult to get a refund

Written: Dec 04 '07 (Updated Dec 04 '07)

I signed up for one of there promotions that included a free digital postage scale that they charged $9.75 for shipping and handling. A follow-up E-mail stated my order would be processed in 1 day and shipping would take 5-9 business days. After 20 days I had not received the scale and called and canceled my account. In an E-mail I requested a refund of the $9.75. 3 days elapsed and I received an E-mail that the $9.75 fee would not be refunded even though I never received the scale. I called their customer support, spoke with Cli who stated the scale had just been shipped. When I told her I would not accept it at this point she referred me to a supervisor, Susan. Susan re-stated that they do not refund shipping and handling fees and that postage scale had been shipped. I stated to her that the scale had only been shipped after my E-mail complaint and I was going to proceed to file a complaint with our state's Attorney General. My call was abruptly disconnected. I called back and insisted on talking with Susan again. After a long wait she answered and said our call had been dropped. I am sure! She stated she was going to talk to a manager and arrange for a refund.

Recommended:

RIPOFF ... all I got was a headache!

Written: Nov 19 '07

First of all, I don't understand why there is a monthly fee for this service, and in addition you have to pay for your postage. What do you get for this fee? Any minor convenience could not be worth it. The only people I can imagine having a use for this are power ebay sellers. To start, I had a hard time figuring out how to use the software (and I am quite computer literate), then discovered I would have to buy special labels (more money!) or go through the process for every individual envelope I want to mail. Annoying. Customer service was appalling ... you have to wait a long time on hold just to get attitude and "slow servers" when you try to cancel. I swear they changed my cycle date on me, so when I called to cancel I was too late and had to pay another month. The guy told me if I called back on or before the 20th I would not get charged again. So I called back on the 19th and they are charging me again!!! I think the guy just put me on hold and pretended to check into my claim. I am mad at myself for not canceling on time and giving these scammers so much money. I am worried that they have my credit card number. I have learned an expensive lesson about free trials!!!

Recommended:

YOU'RE BETTER OFF WITH A POSTAGE METER!

Written: Nov 15 '07

Stamps.com is a fledgling service that has a lot of growing up to do before it merits your attention. The software only works well if you're willing to print on specialized labels; for the most part it will not print directly on envelopes (and I tried with 4 different, very common and very popular printers). The specialized labels are expensive enough to negate any savings otherwise realized.

The software is relatively slow and requires an internet connection, so keep in mind that you will not be printing any postage if your connection is ever down for any reason. Overall, its ability to work with existing software (WordPerfect, MS Word, etc.) and printer drivers is dreadful.

VERY IMPORTANT TO KNOW: The advertised offers you may see that promise free things like $25 in postage, a scale, an amazon.com gift certificate, etc. are all VERY CAREFULLY WORDED, because you will NOT receive them until up to two months AFTER the trial period had ended and you've paid for at least two months of service. ALSO, their customer service line is carefully tiered to direct calls for cancellation requests to a very slow offshore (in India) service, so you can expect to wait for a VERY long time to get through, if ever.

Those last two aspects of this company's tactics alone were enough to turn me off from ever dealing with them. Caveat emptor!

Recommended:

Ignored and Given the Royal Run-Around !!!

Written: Oct 28 '07

In December of 2006 I placed an order for some Xmas photo stamps of my (one-year-old) son after receiving an email offer for "Free Shipping" if placed by 12/31/06 (free shipping offer applied to standard shipping which is $2.99 for a single sheet of photo stamps). I placed my order and chose expedited (2-day) shipping which added another $27.00 to the order's total cost. I assumed that at least the $2.99 "Free Shipping" fee would be deducted from the total shipping/expediting costs at checkout but that did not occur. I emailed their support department numerous times about it and all I kept getting was reply (run-around) emails stating that it would be investigated and a that a credit would be issued, etc., etc., blah, blah, blah, but no credit ever materialized. So, I gave up trying. Beware when dealing with this company because their customer serice /support does not exist and pretty much what you get initially is what you are stuck with. Don't trust them or anything thay say and don't expect them to help you in any way. I am no longer using their company for anything.

Nearly a year later and still this issue has been left unresolved by Stamps.com and was merely ignored. I gave them the benefit of the doubt but yet after all this time nothing was done. What follows is my/our correspondence.

From: "Stamps.com Support" (support@stamps.com)

To: "David Tourney" (davemt@connecttime.net)

Sent: Wednesday, December 20, 2006 9:07 PM

Subject: Re: Support - David Tourney(KMM5222384V63155L0KM)

Dear David, Thank you for contacting PhotoStamps Customer Care. We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience and have requested a credit for your shipping charges. We apologize for the difficulties you encountered with your order and are striving to improve our service. We thank you for your patience and understanding. If we can assist you any further with our unique postage product please do not hesitate to contact our Customer Care Department. Sincerely, PhotoStamps Postage Services

Original Message:

It will be a week tomorrow since I sent this email and I yet to receive a response. If this is how Stamps.com customer service operates, you can bet you've got the last business from me that you'll ever see. I don't appreciate receiving emails offering me free shipping and then not giving it to me when the invoice is totaled. I guess all the complaints on the web about your company are pretty much accurate (just Google "Stamps.com Complaints" and you'll see what I mean). I'll be registering a few myself now. You just lost a customer (again it seems)!!!

Original Message:

From: "David Tourney" (davemt@connecttime.net)

To: "Stamps.com Support" (support@stamps.com)

Sent: Wednesday, December 13, 2006 6:36 PM

Subject: Re: Support - David Tourney (KMM5194894V30099L0KM)

Dear Mr. Fernandes, Attached is the actual email I received from stamps.com and the response URL is http://photo.stamps.com/Store/?source=si11019321. When I clicked on the "Start Here" button, nothing ever appeared again mentioning free shipping anywhere. I was under the assumption that the shipping discount would be applied at checkout but it never was. In fact, I looked up my receipt

from some photo stamps I ordered from Stamps.com last year toward the end of November I and was charged the $2.99 fee for shipping and processing back then (for standard shipping and processing). I thank you for your assistance in this matter.

Sincerely,

David Tourney

davemt@connecttime.net

Original Message:

From: "Stamps.com Support" (support@stamps.com)

To: davemt@connecttime.net

Sent: Wednesday, December 13, 2006 12:15 PM

Subject: Re: Support - David Tourney (KMM5194894V30099L0KM)

Dear David, Thank you for contacting PhotoStamps Customer Care. We'd be happy to help you with this! If you have received a Free Shipping offer, please provide us with any

promotional codes or special URL addresses associated with your offer for free shipping on your PhotoStamps order. With this information, we'll do our best to assist your further! If we can assist you any further with our unique postage product please do not hesitate to contact our Customer Care Department.

Sincerely,

John Fernandes

Customer Care Representative

PhotoStamps Postage Services

Original Message Follows:

Issue Type: Security

First Name: David

Last Name: Tourney

Email: davemt@connecttime.net

Phone: 724-444-1344

Comments: I just placed an order (#23053710) for some photo stamps and was charged $19.99 for expedited processing and shipping but I received an email from Stamps.com (dated 12/7/06) stating that shipping was free if photo stamps were ordered by 12/31/06. Now I understand that there is a substantial fee for expediting the order but even the standard shipping costs were shown as being $2.99 when I was selecting the processing and shipping times so shouldn't I receive a discount (of at least $2.99) on my order (or is the email just a scam to get customers to order the photo stamps)??? I checked over the email and there was no promotional code on it anywhere.

Sincerely,

David Tourney

davemt@connecttime.net

Recommended:

Poor experience and lousy service!

Written: Oct 08 '07

I was a customer of Stamps.com for 2.5 years and have to say, I wasn't impressed with their service at all. Switching to Endicia, it is now easier to write a review about Stamps.com because I have something to compare it too.

First off Stamps.com has lousy customer service. I had to use customer support 3 times during my entire 2.5 years and would rate them poor. Their software does not auto-clear the insurance field for the next transaction and ended up costing me over $28 in extra insurance that their support department told me I should have paid more attention. They were right, I paid attention so much that I looked for another service.

We are never perfect and our printers are never perfect. When you do a refund through Stamps.com for mis-printed postage, you never know where you stand. On some issues, I would mail end by misprints and would never hear from them again. On other issues, they would make it sound like they are doing me a favor by giving me a refund. Something to the tune of "Although your postage is non-refundable, we are giving you a refund anyways because we value your business."

With Endicia, I was given better tools for refunds and always kept in the loop of the status. They understand that printers jam, that humans make mistakes and they have a much better tracking system.

Also, when searching for alternatives to Stamps.com I was turned off my Stamps.com pending or filed lawsuits against competitors. It seemed like the mentality, if you can't beat them, sue them.

After switching to Endicia, I noticed it integrates nicely with other applications and with my business. Overall I give Stamps.com a BIG thumbs down.

Recommended:

Bad Service, Cancelled and still have been billed. F-

Written: Oct 05 '07

Stamps.com is a company that RIPS you off. I called to cancel my service months ago, and they had NO record of the phone call. They have kept sending me invoices adding up each month. I cancelled and they keep sending me bills. When i called today to tell them i am NOT paying for this service that i have cancelled and have not used for over 6 months, they told me they would cancel the account today and i would be charged 96 dollars.. LOL.. I can't believe they would try to do that. Because i didn't have a confirmation number for the cancellation and their customer service rep i talked to before did NOT make a note of my call, they are saying that i have NOT cancelled yet. DO not use this company, i waited on hold for the longest time and still didn't get anything accomplished. The Customer Service person i spoke to was mean and very rude. She kept interrupting me and repeating the same thing over and over again. The usps.com and fedex.com and ups.com customer service is much nicer, you can still print all your postage right from there sites and you don't have to deal with these rude people at stamps.com.

Recommended:

It's not worth the hassle.

Written: Aug 27 '07

As a brief introduction, I'm the network manager/IT manager for my office. They had purchased Stamps.com and its corresponding service prior to my employment. Mine is a sad and sordid story:

First Impression

I'd heard a little about Stamps.com, and thought it seemed like a good idea. I was under the impression it was a USPS service extension. I was not aware at first that it was in fact a private corporation. Things seemed to work pretty decently, unless you wanted to do anything other than Stamps.com on the machine. The program certainly qualifies as bloatware.

Meet the Parents

But, like all relationships, the little problems became hideous issues. I recently changed our server and reworked the network. The old network and server were literally on the verge of melting, and had been destroyed by the past tech. Everything changes over, and suddenly, Stamps.com loses recognition of our printer. So, in order to fix the problem, I have to uninstall and reinstall the program. Which is not as simple as it sounds. You have to access their site and download a special program to uninstall and reinstall their software or it locks and deletes your information. Pretty scheisty, I don't see any acknowledgment that I forfeit all information contained within the profile when I uninstall their program. Also, the old bloatware issue reared its ugly head. S.C had pushed tenebrous little connections to nearly every piece of software that had been on that computer. Things that were 6-10 years old and had been cleaned still had databases in S.C and would have become locked, read-only, fragmented files had I not had their special uninstall tool. Really scheisty.

Honeymoon's Over

So, all those little issues are fixed, but on reinstallation, it wants several pieces of information, and changes a few layouts. No big deal. All that is smoothed over. I assume our problems are behind us. This afternoon, the machine runs out of stamps. Stamps.com charges every time you click "Print Postage", it does not have a confirmation screen, or a failsafe. It does not disable printing when stamps have run out. It does not have any way to regain or petition for lost postage during printer failure. This is a simple thing to prevent, but shoddy programming creates a scenario where it is simple to dump a few hundred dollars in a few minutes. Which is precisely what happened. As others have said before me, when it's charged you, you're SOL. How's that for a Caveat Emptor?

Word to the Wise

Don't buy those stupid labels, they will only cause grief. Just print to the envelope directly. Better yet, shell the couple bucks an hour to have an employee go pick up a bulk roll of stamps at the USPS office. It's cheaper, it's less likely to fail. With the monthly surcharge, the botches, and the time required to troubleshoot the program, it'd be equally efficient to send your packages via UPS. Their program is not user friendly, their methods are more than a little suspicious, and their prices are ungodly.

Recommended:

Intractable, condescending, with little regard for the individual customer.

Written: Jun 18 '07 (Updated Jun 18 '07)

I recently submitted an old photograph of my father and his children in the backyard of our family home that I had intended as a Father's Day gift. The photo was rejected, I was advised, because it was "vintage." I assumed that this must have been a copyright issue, but I did a little searching on the net, and discovered that in 2005 Stamps.com had difficulties with the USPS because customers had sent in images of "undesirable" subjects (gangsters, etc.) that the Postal Service found objectionable.

While I appreciate Stamps.com's need to rigorously demonstrate due diligence in order not to run afoul of the Postal Service, I found that their remedies for corroborating the legitimacy of an image were onerous, and their communications on this matter were at best unhelpful, and at worst, condescending. Although I sent in four additional images intended to confirm the identities in the original, I was advised, after four emails, that I needed to send in a new order that would not be accepted by email (i.e. I needed to submit hard copies of the digital photos that I had submitted previously.) I was also interested to learn from a further posting on the net that the censorship imposed by this company is arbitrary (see:

http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/0831041_photostamps_1.html).

This should have been an easy transaction, and reasonable doubts about the legitimacy of an image should allow for a reasonable remedy. Stamps.com is fundamentally a service industry trading on the novelty of its product, at a cost per stamp that is roughly twice the actual cost of first class postage. It is clear from my experience, however, that they are interested only in volume, and care little about the individual customer. In most cases your experience with this company will probably be painless, but if your transaction requires additional communication, you can expect to be treated with condescension, intractability, and an infuriating disinterest in the individual customer.

Recommended:

Sounds cool but there is NO SUPPORT and customer service is a joke.

Written: May 07 '07

I was a stamps.com customer, but no longer (thank goodness!). I terminated my account today because I received some of the WORST customer service I have ever received from ANY company.

I tried to cancel my account because I could not even access my account for more than a month (I had wanted to use the service but was not able to because of this issue). Customer service, who is SUPPOSED to respond within 24 hours did not even acknowledge my REPEATED attempts to get in my account so I could not even use it. The phone service was a joke, I was put on a recorded loop that took me nowhere.

When I wanted to cancel, though, I emailed customer service and was immediately answered and told that I had to do so over the phone. When I tried this I repeatedly got that recorded loop that told me nothing and never real person.

Then, out of the blue, Stamp.com took $31.95 out of my PayPal account for "service fees." This was on an account that I NEVER COULD ACCESS!! When I called and demanded my money back I was suddenly placed with a live person (finally) who had a terrible attitude with me, was rude and basically said I was stupid and not smart enough to read the website (that I NEVER could access).

I find that this type of treatment is absolutely unacceptable. I have closed my account , but have been informed that I will not receive my refund for 6 business days. Now I am out MY MONEY for business days because of the company's inefficiency and extremely poor business practices as well as customer service that is virtually non existent.

Had Stamps.com's customer service responded to me several months ago when I initially contacted them for help, I would not have desired to terminate my account and this would not be happening. I feel that I have been scammed by Stamps.com.

It also should be noted that the "contact us" portion of the site does not say that you have to call to terminate the account. With most online service companies, you must go through you account to terminate the service so it stands to reason that this would be the same way.

Instead, Stamps.com locks you out of our account and refuses to answer repeated requests for help in accessing your account and then they charge you through the nose for it while you are powerless to do anything about it.

This company has been extremely unprofessional from the beginning I could get NO HELP in accessing my account.

This is the worst experience I have ever had with a company and it is the last time that I will do business with Stamps.com. If you are considering this "service" I would urge you to look elsewhere. Licking a stamp is, in he long run much more convenient than going through this scam mill.

All they had to do was reply to my requests for assistance several months ago. This is the worst company with the worst customer service I have ever encountered.

If you get the "free trial" offer, DON'T DO IT!!!! Run from this company as fast as you can.

Recommended:

If you want to waste your money--fine but don't waste your valuable time

Written: Mar 19 '07

Stamps.com is difficult to call directly and what should have taken a few minutes to do (cancel my service) took 45 minutes of wait time on hold with customer service. Each time I tried to initiate a refund electronically via the internet (it is an option in the software), the webpage requested was “undergoing maintenance.” Eventually, I was told to call an 800 number (which I did). I was then referred to ANOTHER 800 number for cancellation of service. I tried to cancel the first week but each time I tried, I was on hold so long that I had to give up and postpone for another day. I tried for several weeks and finally got through. The customer service rep was polite but could give me NO information on how to return the "upgraded scale" I purchased for $50. This scale by the way was nowhere near the quality of the scales sold by the USPS. It was plastic and if you placed anything larger than 8 x 8 inches on the scale the package completely obscured the readout which is not what you want when you purchase a scale rated to 25lbs (i.e you are going to be weighing stuff bigger than an envelope--hence the need for a 25lb scale versus the freebie 5lb scale)

I was surprised and disappointed when I realized that Stamps.com is a company that charges a monthly fee after the 30 day trial period (why? When Paypal does this for free), the “special offer” I accepted takes several months to receive by me the consumer, the company is in no way affiliated with the USPS, and all the labels and other printing materials are proprietary. Though, I might have considered paying a monthly fee, I was never given the opportunity to think about this prior to purchase. None of this is readily apparent in the advertising or software setup.

In fact, the packaging of the offer was I feel very misleading in that none of this is revealed until you have signed up and begin investing the time to use the service. They do not not make any of this information easy to find especially the information on returns and cancellation of service. It took me quite awhile to find out what my monthly fee would be once the 30 day trial had ended.

To add insult to injury, after I was able to cancel the service, they sent me an earnest letter from the head guy saying he was personally interested in my reasons for cancellation! I sent a letter similar to this review along with the enclosed form and NEVER HEARD FROM THEM AGAIN...

even after letting them know that I still had no idea how to return the scale I purchased!

Recommended:

Poor customer service, terrible experience.

Written: Jan 22 '07 (Updated Jan 23 '07)

Stamps.com is a website for postage needs. With their software, you are able to print your own postage from home on plain paper, labels, or envelopes. The software is free and if you sign up at the right time, you can even get a free postal scale. However, they do charge a monthly fee of $15.99/month apparently whether you use the service or not.

I signed up through MYPOINTS for a trial period. I believe there was free postage involved but I never figured out how to cash in on it.

The materials came in the mail although there wasn't much explanation in how to set up. I installed the software and it looks like it would be easy to use but I never did try it.

They will not allow you to cancel via email so I have called three times. Each time holding for 20 minutes. To date, I haven't gotten through to a person. I have paid two months of the $19.99 service fee, (which is how much they charged through the MyPoints link I used) keep in mind... I NEVER used the service. After trying to contact them and not getting through, I felt that I had no other choice then to cancel my credit card.

That got their attention!

I have received two emails from stamps.com asking me to update my billing information to which I have responded my wishes to cancel the service. I have not received a reply.

UPDATE: 6/9/06

I FINALLY got someone to answer email and my phone call! I cancelled! Our conversation stayed calm, he wouldn’t budge on the fees due, even when I told him that I would be reporting their service to the BBB.

UPDATE: 1/22/07

To date, I have received one invoice dated 10/25/06 stating that it was my "final notice" before they turn it over to collections. So far... no collections department has decided to contact me. By the way... I find that having my own scale and buying different denominations of stamps to have on hand and using the USPS.com website is much easier and cheaper than any so-called postage service like stamps.com.

Save your money and use usps.com for your postage needs.

Recommended:

Ripoff, hard to cancel, too quick to charge credit card

Written: Dec 28 '06

I signed up for a 28 day trial period, and then never used the service. As I looked around the software, I came to realize it was more hassle than going to the Post Office. I thought the convenience might justify it, but never got around to using it.

So on the last day of my trial period after work I went on their website to cancel. I looked around for a while both in the program on my computer and their website and was unable to find a way to cancel online. I had signed up using the website and assumed I could cancel the same way. But noooo, I wish I had read the opinions here first. I had to call two different numbers. Of course by now their office had been closed for 20 minutes (grrrr) and boom, they charged my credit card. I sent two emails the last day of my trial period to two different email addresses telling them I wanted to cancel that evening. That didn't work either.

Changes they need to make to run an honest business:

1) Allow customers to cancel online.

2) Send an email about a week before the end of the trial period saying that they're going to charge the credit card.

3) If they can't stomach an easy solution like my first suggestion, have clear cancellation instructions including the 2nd, most important phone number in the above email. They sent me several promotional emails, why not send one about the credit card charge?

4) Put the cancellation phone number in a clear place in the software and on their website.

Recommended:

Beware--Deceptive, platform-specific, hard to cancel

Written: Dec 16 '06

I had two boxes of X-mas gifts to send and wanted to just be able to drop them in the mail bin instead of standing in line at the post office for postage. I figured in this modern age we should easily be able to buy postage on the web using a credit card and a printer.

I tried USPS.com first, but their system would not let me buy postage without printing shipping labels, which I did not want. So I Googled for postage, found stamps.com, and started to sign up.

Their signup page showed that I was buying a subscription package for $16/month that'd get me a free scale, shipping supplies, etc. Not wanting these, I phoned them and asked how to sign up to only buy postage. Their rep. assured me that the offer would only occur if I used the "promo code". So I entered my credit card info. After that their website tried to download their software to my computer. Windows software. To my Mac. With no prior warning that software would be required or that it would be platform specific.

Minutes after I cancelled the useless download I received an e-mail welcoming me to their membership and assuring me that my free offer would be arriving soon and my first month of membership fee would be waived but I would be charged from the 30th day on. So, just as I had feared, they did sign me up for the offer I had gone out of my way to call and say I didn't want.

As a result, I tried to cancel my account. There is no way to do so online; you must call a number. So I did. And after much button pushing to answer their questions, they said I "must" hang up and call a completely different number to continue canceling. When I did I was connected to an Indian rep. who I had a lot of trouble understanding and who asked me questions designed to prevent me from canceling. I was finally able to convey to him that I could not use their Windows-specific software so the membership was of no use to me. He closed the account. That was three days ago.

Today I received e-mail welcoming me to their members club.

Avoid stamps.com!!

Recommended:

HORRIBLE! DO NOT SIGN UP OR YOU GET RIPPED OFF ON FREE TRIAL!

Written: Dec 11 '06

HORRIBLE HORRIBLE I CANNOT SAY IT ENOUGH!

POOR CUSTOMER SERVICE, WORST ONLINE RIPOFF EVER!

You can do the same things at USPS.com FOR FREE!

You think you get your account right away, once you go through and fill out everything, it takes a couple days to activate so you can't use the account when you sign up.

FREE TRIAL ENDS UP COSTING YOU 31.99 Because you MUST call to cancel service. YOU CANNOT CANCEL ONLINE, but you can sign up online. I was a day late to cancel my "FREE TRIAL" and was billed 31.99 for 2 months service. There is no way to contact them via email - PHONE ONLY - Hours Mon to Friday only No weekends. I signed up on a Saturday, ONLINE, I should be able to cancel online. But they do not allow you to cancel without wasting a LONG time on hold (I waited 38 minutes) to speak with someone in another country who barely understood english, I could not understand their cust service rep, and they would not give me a supervisor. I changed my credit card info online to prevent being charged. Now they are trying to ruin my credit over $31.99.

DO NOT SIGN UP!

Jeff in Florida

Recommended:

Stay away - a good company is now a rip-off scam

Written: Nov 10 '06

I've been a stamps.com user for more than 3 years. About a year ago, they changed my $4.99 account to a more expensive option at $15.99 - without telling me. When I noticed the change on my credit card bill, I contacted them and after an hour's worth of arguing about paying only for what I signed up for, the representative found a "special pricing option" for $7.99 a month.

Everything worked fine until their recent "software upgrade" which was the biggest joke I've ever seen from an internet company. The "upgrade" basically disabled their software and prevents me from logging into my account.

Customer service is RIDICULOUS. It's beyond bad. Hold times are unreasonable; I've spent more than 5 hours on hold and trashed two portable phone batteries doing it, and never got to a human being. My last effort resulted in someone named David answering the phone and very politely telling me he needed to get a technical engineer on the line. He put me on hold and I ended up hanging up after 39 minutes. There is no way David intended to get back on the line and help me.

Cancelling your account? Good luck. The website says to go into your account and gives directions on how to cancel. Nice, except that thanks to their "software upgrade," I can't even get into my account. I've been calling for the last 3 days trying to get someone on the line so I can cancel.

Unfortunately my only recourse now is to have my bank cancel the credit card I used for Stamps.com, which affects automatic billing for several other internet providers, including my ISP, three websites, my cell phone, etc etc etc. Not a good solution but I'm going to do it.

Stamps.com used to be a good company. I don't know why they've decided to become known as the rip-off company of the web, but unless you want to add some significant hassles to your life, don't go near these people.

Oh, and the "free trial" which they advertised everywhere really is not free, and the "free month" it mentioned is only 28 days. The free scale they send you is similar to one sold in office supply stores for $6 or $7 and it consistently overweighs packages. I had a letter consisting of 2 sheets of 20 lb paper and a normal business-size envelope, and the postage cost the scale came up with was $.62!! I did not print the postage since this didn't seem right logically, and the post office confirmed that 2 sheets of letter stock and an envelope are not nearly the maximum weight covered by a normal $.39 stamp. Sometimes free means useless. In this case, it applies.

You can print postage from the USPS at home, or use UPS for packages if you have an account (easy to set up). Don't bother with Stamps.com - you will almost certainly get ripped off!!

Recommended:

Be Very Careful.....

Written: Oct 19 '06

I have been a faithful user of Stamps.com for about three years. It is a handy little gimmick but as others have said, you're paying an additional $11 for the sheets you print on PLUS the monthly service fees.

Here's the kicker though and the reason I am cancelling my service with them:

MISPRINTS ~ Just because you have a misprint does NOT mean you will receive a refund for this misprint. We had a temporary worker at our office. She was supposed to put in a sheet and print out 20 $4.64 stamps (the rate for Certified Mail, Return Receipt Requested) She put in the wrong paper!!!! It's been eight weeks, I can't get an answer about our refund even though I wrote to customer service. The rules state that in the case of a misprint, you must notify Stamps.com within 48 hours of the misprint. Well, this girl misprinted on Thursday while I was off, I returned Monday and saw her error and immediately notified Stamps.com. I mailed in the sheet she printed; that was in AUGUST. I am still waiting. They didn't say NO... they said NOTHING.

Bad move on their part. They lost a customer that uses about $150/month in postage.

Use USPS.com and order your stamps online. It's convenient, I don't have to pay a monthly service fee, and I won't have to worry about losing another $111 for a misprint!!

Recommended:

Very slow, overpriced and poor customer service.

Written: Sep 25 '06 (Updated Oct 08 '06)

I ordered PhotoStamps in early May to give as a gift to my mom for Mother's Day. Unfortunately, after I ordered these stamps it became apparent they would not arrive until after Mother's Day. I went to the site to see if I could cancel my order. No such luck. They arrived several days after Mothers' Day.

5 months later my credit card was finally charged for these stamps, but the charge did not include shipping. Not recognizing the amount and thinking I did not authorize that charge I contacted Stamps.com and my bank to begin a charge dispute and was issued a new credit card. It didn't occur to me that a merchant would charge me 5 months after a purchase until after the dispute was filed and I had received my new credit card.

In conclusion, I would not recommend doing business with this company.

Pros: Site is easy to use. Stamps were good quality and just large enough to make out photos, but not too large as to look obnoxious on mail.

Cons: Very poor and slow customer service. Slow delivery & processing times (expect 3 weeks). Expensive, with each stamp costing approximately $1.05. No cancellation options once an order is being "processed".

Recommended:

Nothing But Trouble - Stay Away!

Written: Sep 15 '06

I TRIED to sign up for the free trial, but had problems with the buggy software. I received an e-mail from Stamps.com saying they were sorry, but my account could not be opened. Probably due to corrupted information they received from the software constantly crashing when I tried to complete my registration. Tech support was not helpful at all and only had canned responses. They did not seem to have extensive experience or knowledge in dealing with the product.

I finally just gave up, thinking I was unable to get the software running and the account open. However, a month later I start receiving e-mails from them saying I owe them for service fees! I have e-mails saying my account could not be opened, yet they are trying to bill me for a service they were never able to provide. Trying to get this resolved has taken over three weeks, and it is like talking to a brick wall! They can't seem to do anything via e-mail regarding account issues, yet their toll-free customer service number is down (which they verified via e-mail, and ask me to keep trying - it should be up in a couple of days!). How much time and I supposed to take away from work to help them correct their errors?

Recommended:

BEWARE: Horrible Customer service. Too much hassle to cancel.

Written: Jul 25 '06 (Updated Jul 25 '06)

If you ever try to cancel this thing called "service," you may be in for a surprise! My story began in May when I wanted to cancel. I called and requested cancellation, but a month later, in June, I saw they charged my credit card again! I called to dispute it but they said they had no record of my cancellation, but they saw I had called to cancel. What a screw up! They also said they could not refund me the money for May, but that he would waive the June fee. I said, fine, but please make sure to cancel it this time. The guy emailed me the statement with the cancellation notice including a letter stating my June fee was being waived. Come to find out, the promised fee waive never happened. I called one last time and spoke to a manager and he said that he can't give me my money back because the cancellation came in on the same date of the billing despite the refund the previous person made a month before! I had to file a dispute through my bank to try to get my money they illegally charged to my account and also change my credit card number to make sure they never charge me again. My question is, why should it be this difficult to process a cancellation? This is ridiculous!

I guess if you feel like wasting your money, then try Stamps.com. I am still wondering why do you have to pay them $16/month for something you can do for free! I would never recommend them to anyone. They will simply steal your money!

Recommended:

Maybe okay if you use a lot, but several frustrations, too

Written: Jul 10 '06

It seems like it ought to be much better than it was for me. I'm very unhappy with the service. The software generally works well, although it is not overly idiot proof. Overall, it is much too expensive unless you use it all the time. Because I don't, I'm not sure if it gets more economical or not.

I have two big frustrations: (1) printing on their labels and (2) printing on envelopes.

PRINTING ON LABELS

When you include the cost of their labels, you add at least $0.03/stamp. This isn't much but you're paying an extra 10% versus just ordering stamps from the post office. If you want to print only a couple stamps from one sheet, say if you need $3.00 of postage, you end up having to send the same page through your printer multiple times, making them prone to jamming. If they do jam, you need to go through an involved process to return jammed pages to them to get a postage refund. I got tired of paying the 10% premium for the stamps and decided to just print directly on envelopes. A pack doesn't last long.

PRINTING ON ENVELOPES

I have yet to be able to successfully print on envelopes. The software prints upside down from my printer (HP LaserJet 5SiMx). When I print envelopes using regular software, say word, the envelopes line up right and print well. For some dumb reason, I have to put envelopes in upside down for Stamps.com. In this way, my printer always eats the envelope. I don't want to get a new printer just for this software.

The tech support seemed fine, professional and courteous. But, no matter how unhappy you are with the service, there are no refunds.

I think I'll save myself the hassle and go back to ordering stamps by mail.

Recommended:

It saves time but is more expensive

Written: Jul 07 '06 (Updated Jul 07 '06)

Stamps.com is another site where you can ship items from your computer. It is the best of its kind, but you have to pay a monthly fee to use the program. Well, it may save you time, but it really doesn't save you much money.

Money Saving? Count me in!

That was my feeling on this product. The site says that this program can save you 80 percent on regular postage meter. Well, that sounds good. Since I usually sell about two things on ebay a day, I wanted in. Since I am always shipping things, I basically memorized the price of all postage, and when I started the program I tried to ship something, and I realized that it was the exact same price. "Maybe it's just this one service..." I thought. Well I checked all the other services and they all were the same price. I personally find this as false advertizing. 80 percent off? I haven't found anything of the sort, all I have found is the same price.

The service features a big store, maybe this is where the savings come in. The store sells anything from scales to envelopes, but the prices really aren't that great at all. A 25 lb. scale costs $100, a little pricy I think. My favorite item from the store is the letter licker envelope moistener, you have to be mailing a lot of envelopes to need this. The store has just about everything for mailing and you can get free shipping on some things if you do other things on the program.

The shipping services that are on the program are as follows:

First-Class Mail

Priority Mail

Express Mail

Parcel Post

Media Mail

Bound Printed manner

Does Stamps.com save me time?

Stamps.com is a lot quicker to use than Paypal's Click N Ship or the USPS website shipper. You go to a page where you enter the address, the type of package, and the weight and you press print, it takes probably half the time of Click N Ship, which is good, but this time really isn't worth the extra money unless you have a very thriving business.

How much does it cost?

You get a free four week trial in which you get five dollars free for mailing anything, and then after the four weeks it costs $15.99.

Cancellation a drag?

To cancel the service, you must call a number, which is a lot more annoying than just clicking a button. I haven't canceled my service yet so I don't have much info on this matter.

Any cool extra features?

Why yes! I think the coolest feature about the program is the ability to print onto envelopes the address and pay for the postage. This looks a lot more professional if you are doing a business letter.

There is also an address book where you can click the name and choose to ship something to them, this is a cool little feature.

There is a type of insurance that is just a little cheaper than the regular insurance that claims to need no paper work to file a claim. I haven't used this service but I think this is a great idea and I will definately use this. I hate getting the insurance papers and having to spend months just trying to finish it to get it to the post office.

Recommended?

I would say if you are a big business and you want to save some time, definately check this out. Hey, you got nothing to lose, just cancel after your before trial ends and you will still get the five dollars of free postage.

Recommended:

They're looking for hungry fish--DON'T BITE!

Written: Jul 06 '06

STAY AWAY FROM STAMPS.COM! They are complete swindlers. I joined for the start-up deal of free postage(I had my own scale). I kept the service for 2 months & tried to cancel. The other review stated cancellation was easy, well that was not the case here. To me, easy cancellation is clicking a cancellation link & being done with it. Here, you must call customer service to cancel your subscription. Problem is, they seldom answer. I topped out at 30 minutes on hold with no answer. I began to think I was being ignored because my call was routed as a cancellation. I tried entering a different touch-tone option to speak to a representative but still was not helped. I actually had to cancel my credit card on file to avoid another month of charges for a service I was no longer using. I then e-mailed them to state I wished my account cancelled because they would not help me by phone. They replied I could not cancel by e-mail & continued to charge an invalid credit card instead of putting the account on hold. I began my phone attempts again and after a few attempts FINALLY spoke to a person(15 minutes on hold). I explained everything to this fellow and he offered to accept half of a $60+ bill. I wouldn't budge and refused to pay even half for a service I had long ago ceased to use. He finally officially canceled the account and agreed to waive the amount due. That should have been it but I received a letter 2 MONTHS later(a week ago) saying my account was successfully canceled but I owed them over $60 & they would be turning it over to a 3rd party collection agency. Their word means nothing & their service is the poorest I have ever encountered. Use Paypal and/or the Post Office web site to ship w/out the $16 a month fee.

Recommended:

AVOID AT ALL COST!!! HORRIBLE CUSTOMER SERVICE AND BILLING PRACTICES!!!!!

Written: May 17 '06 (Updated Jul 10 '06)

AVOID STAMPS.COM AT ALL COST!!!!! This has been a nightmare and I can't seem to wake up! I canceled my account with Stamps.com and my debit card associated with that account back in January 06. I was checking my bank statement and there was a debit out of my bank account made by Stamps.com in the amount of $63.96(4 months after closing my account) I called Stamps.com to find out why and how they charged my account. The lady told me that I never canceled my account and that my financial institution forwarded them my new bank card information...which I questioned and found out to be a lie because my financial institution told me they do not forward any information to anyone. The truth was they used my old cards authorization number to get my new card information and charge it! This is considered theft and fraud but Stamps.com says they are allowed to do this! I have filed complaints with the BBB and the FTC and still have not received my money back. I have put in a dispute with my bank and canceled my card again. I have sent emails asking customer service to forward them to management but they told me they can't do that and I would have to call and talk to a manager which is impossible! To top this all off I made sure my account was indeed closed and the rep told me I will be charged a additional $15.99 for 3 days!!! If your one of those customers that love Stamps.com and they are the best then your time will be coming sooner then later. !!!!!!STAMPS.COM SHOULD BE PUT OUT OF BUSINESS!!!!!! Hopefully if there is enough complaints that might just happen.

UPDATE:

I still have not received a refund from Stamps.com as of 7/10/06 and do not plan on receiving one through them. As for the dispute with my bank as of this day the debit is still under investigation and I have not heard from my bank about the outcome.

Recommended:

Try Terminating the Service; Increase Fees Without Notification

Written: Feb 26 '06

Don't use this company. Any company that makes it incredibly difficult for you to cancel their service is operating on a nearly fraudulent business model.

Those good folks who love Stamps.com obviously haven't tried to cancel their service. They make you use an actual phone to cancel. Of course, when was the last time you got on a customer service line and waited less than 20 minutes. After waiting 20 minutes, I hung up, and emailed them that they must cancel my service and that I withdraw any authorization to charge my credit card. They wrote back and insisted that I call for "privacy reasons." Right, I engaged their service online, and I have an ID and password. I can bank online with those things, yet, they insist that there are some "privacy reasons" why I have to waste my time on the phone waiting for their non-existent customer service to pick up. I'm going to have their charges canceled. They are not allowed to charge a card when there is no longer authorization to do so.

They also increased the cost of my plan by $10 without notifying me, at least in any meaningful way, like sending an email with the heading "IMPORTANT COST INCREASE IN YOUR SERVICE." They said they sent me an email but I never saw it.

Recommended:

Horrendous NON-EXISTENT Customer Service!

Written: Feb 07 '06

Horrendous, NON-EXISTENT Customer Service!!

First off, beware of the so called "free postage" offers they give you for trying the service for 30 days. You will get your $5 bucks for the first month but, you can only send in ONE $10 postage voucher each 30 days and only AFTER the first 30 days of service. In other words, you must stay on the service beyond the free trial to get $10 worth of postage(in the 2nd month) and another $10 of postage(in the 3rd month) all the while remember you are billed the $15.95 each month, INCLUDING that first, so called, "Free Trial" period. And, to top it off, find out that you must use their special postage labels to print those stamps to use ON the postcards that you must send back to them in a specific time frame to receive that "free" postage. Of course, nothing is ever free.

Now, once you attempt to cancel your account - here is where the fun begins. First you must search for the phone number to call customer service - as this is the ONLY information they give you in order to cancel your account. You will be dialing all throughout the day and getting repeated busy signals and then when you finally do connect it will be at least 30 minutes of waiting only to be disconnected.

Don't waste your TIME(because you will on the phone!) and your MONEY(Nuttin is free) on this poor excuse for a postage service.

Recommended:

Service fee too expensive, ala carte shipping supplies too expensive

Written: Jan 05 '06 (Updated Jan 05 '06)

This service only makes sense if you are a bonafide merchant that ships product through the USPS. If you are a person like me, who had hoped to use the service on occasion (i.e. print labels for mailing the occasional package, thank you cards, birthday cards, etc. etc.), chances are high that you will eventually find the service too expensive.

Additionally, I find the cost of their postal supplies (labelsheets, stamps, etc.) to be a bit ridiculous. For example, to purchase 125 stamps, it costs $3.99 plus ~$3.00 to ship. That increases the cost of each stamp that you use by 6 cents or thereabouts. So your 39 cent stamp really costs 45 cents. The self-adhesive parcel labels are worse. They cost $11.95 for a pack of 100 + $5.95 to ship it to you. So the cost of each package you mail increases by 17 cents. Over time that adds up and the cost pretty much wipes out the convenience. Not to mention the cost of ink cartridges over time. It simply doesn't add up to a whole lot of sense in my mind. It would be easier just to order stamps online from the USPS or to jaunt down to your local office supply store and purchase Avery labels. (The software supports other label formats besides their proprietary material however that is about the only redemptive aspect I can think of.)

Now if you had money to burn, you could use their label printers and buy rolls of labels to have a sleek integrated printing system but the additional cost (easily more than $100 by the time it's in place), in addition to the $15.99 minimum monthly service charge, in addition to the very postage itself just about prices out anyone looking to this as an occasional convenience.

Again, if you do moderate to high volume (i.e. eBay based merchant, mail-order merchant, etc.), then this may be an elegant solution.

Also, the system is prone to error (putting in the label sheet the wrong way, ink or cartridge running out at an innopportune time, selecting the wrong postage amount, etc.) There are unavoidable manual steps between the decision to print postage to the time you actually affix the postage to a package or print an envelope. Perhaps over time, errors can be reduced simply by getting more comfortable and learning lessons. In several ways, this takes away from the convenience the system sets out to provide.

Additionally, it appears unanimous: their customer service is not equipped to handle their customers. I was on-hold simply to cancel my account and it was 50 minutes before someone picked up.

The entire experience seemed to be rife with hassles and anxieties. There's pretty much no chance in Hades that I would try this service in the future. There are too many other viable options that make more economic sense.

Recommended:

Not worth the hassle.

Written: Dec 16 '05

I have used Stamps.com for several years. The nominal monthly fee of $4.49 made it easy for me to justify keeping the service. I got the postal scale free when I first joined, and that has been very handy for weighting larger envelopes to calculate postage. Large packages I still take to the post office or UPS.

I recently purchased a large quantity of their "NetStamps". The next month I noticed I was billed $8.99 for their "Pro" service which I did not sign up for. It was extremely difficult to find an e-mail address or customer service phone number on their web site to call and ask about this rate increase. I finally found the phone number and called yesterday. I was on hold over 30 minutes to be told an e-mail had been sent to me in October explaining the rate increase. I did not receive this e-mail. I was then told that because Stamps.com had upgraded their "free" software, the $4.49/month plan was no longer available, and I would not be billed $8.99/month, whether I use the service or not. I asked if I could return the large order of NetStamps I purchased and was told I could not as it had been over 45 days since I purchased them. Now that I am stuck with all these NetStamps I feel a need to use, but in order to do so, will have to keep paying the increased service fee.

I am very displeased with their current level of service and fee structure. Also know that not only do you pay the monthly fee to keep the account active, they also charge you an additional fee when you do use their service, plus you have to purchase their NetStamps and labels. The USPS web site has a list of other Online Postage providers you may want to take a look at first before signing up for Stamps.com.

I also had problems with jammed prints and trying to get refunds for unused postage. Most often Stamps.com did not refund my total loss, saying they did not have the proof they needed.

Recommended:

DO NOT EVEN THINK ABOUT SIGNING UP

Written: Oct 31 '05

DON'T EVEN THINK ABOUT SIGNING UP! It's cheaper to go buy a scale. If you go beyond the "No-Risk Trial," they will not only charge you for the next month but for the "Trial period" as well.

I signed up thinking I would give it a shot. Turns out you only get $5 in free postage until after the trial. Then you have to send them a post card to get $10 of your free postage, but you have to wait another month for the last $10 of the free postage. The scale also requires you to send a postcard and will come to you in about 8 weeks after you sign up(I actually had to call and ask where it was and it hadn't even been processed yet.) You WILL get all the free postage and the scale that you were promised, eventually, but you will have had to pay for their service for at least 3 months before you get it.

1 scale+$25 postage costs you about 50 bucks. Just go to an office supply store and buy a scale. It will save you money!

On top of that the customer service stinks! Each time I contacted them the hold was in excess of 15 mins. Once it was actually 30 mins.

Recommended:

Easy to use but the customer service is lower than low

Written: Oct 24 '05

I have been a repeat customer with stamps.com, partly because their start up kit is worth something (free scale, free postage) and partly because I couldn't find a replacement equally easy to use (tried endicia.com and it worked but it took me longer to figure out). During my time as a customer of stamps.com I have received horrific customer service to the point where you never want to hear their name again. I won't be going back, ever, and here is why:

The first time I was a customer, my scale broke after 2 months and I emailed asking for assistance as it was supposed to be under warranty. No one replied. After 3 weeks, I called them and the customer service associate was yelling at me that I should have sent it to them with the form that was supplied with my starter kit. Very unpleasant communication. I ended my contract with them. They asked why and I said due to poor customer service.

The second time, two years later, I did not receive a starter kit at all. I tried emailing and received no reply so I called and a very rude associate said I should have called earlier. He said the kit had been shipped and when I asked for a delivery confirmation number, he informed me they don't use delivery confirmation on their packages. Excuse me? They are stamps.com! I told him I was canceling the service but said I was entitled to the scale. After some bitc*ing on my part, he agreed to the scale but said I would receive no free postage. Fine, I said. I received a box shortly thereafter with a severely broken scale. Delivery confirmation was added. I gave up...

The third time, I had no issues apart from waiting very long for refunds on mis-printed postage. Took 2 months so receive that refund. I finally realized eBay/PayPal was working with the USPS and offers the service I need for FREE and I called stamps.com to cancel my contract. The associate was NOT unpleasant and asked me for a reason for cancellation. I told him, he said thank you and that was it.

Recommended:

Stamps.com would simply be happy to take your money and run.

Written: Sep 17 '05

Beware of their 30 Day Trial ... they're happy to simply take your money ...

When approached by stamps.com, I was just starting up a business and was anticipating doing a lot of direct marketing, and therefore a lot of mailing. This seemed like a good fit and decided to give it a try.

I did not receive their materials, including their recommended paper/labels for printing the stamps for close to 2 weeks after agreeing to the 30 day trial.

Other issues arose which did not allow me the opportunity to use/test their services. I had also since discovered there would not be nearly the demand for their services in my business. I contacted them and got a broken record response that they were unwilling to return the $180 since I was 3 days late to contact them beyond my trial period. I never once used their service and found this to be a ridiculously harsh response. If they were more confident of their services, they'd be more willing to break these agreements - at least within a certain grace period. Instead they seem more focused at taking money from their prospects ... not a good plan for their future. I, for one, will not recommend their services.

Recommended:

Avoid this company like the plague.

Written: Jul 25 '05

My issues with the company are these:

Several days passed before I received my welcome kit. It was only then that I could begin to evaluate the services. However, more days were not allotted to me despite that fact that I had to wait for the kit to arrive.

Once the kit arrived, I learned that my understanding of the “free” offer was mistaken. The placement of the wording on the “free” offer are misleading. It leads me to believe that $80 of free stuff is available inc conjunction with the trial. That is not the case, but I didn't realize that until after I has signed up. So, I decided to cancel the services.

I tried to call to cancel, but the number to call was well hidden. After finally finding it, I discovered that they aren’t open on weekends or after 7pm MST. This makes it very difficult for me, because of my work schedule. As a result, I was not able to cancel until a few days after my trial had expired. Even when I did finally get through, it was after waiting on hold for about 10 minutes.

In the end, contrary to the promise of waiving any fees, I was charged $15.99 for the first month when I barely used the servcie and certainly not beyond the scope of the trial.

Avoid this company like the plague.

Recommended:

One year later & still being charged for non-used service

Written: Jul 09 '05

I signed up with this service with the understanding that I had 30 days to evaluate their service and as long as I let them know I didn't wish to continue using it within the time allowed, there would be no charge. That was over a year ago and I’m still trying to get them to stop charging me.

You see, it’s a lot easier to open an account than it is to close one. You can open an account online in a matter of minutes. It really is as easy as the site implies. However, you have to call them to close it. And like any ‘good’ online merchant, this number is buried in the Service Terms with restrictions on when you can call to do so. They will not help you via email. You will be referred to their number.

Now, you may luck out and manage to close your account with no problems. I’ve had no such luck. It’s now going on about 18 months. They’ve skipped a month or two, but they’ve never actually quit billing me. Right now, I’m just treating their charge ($15.99US) like a non-negotiable budget item, as I don’t expect them to stop anytime soon.

How’d I get in this mess? I gave them my checking account number and let them set up automatic electronic debits from that account. I’ve since found out how this “convenient” service really operates. What most merchants (and banks for that matter) won’t tell you is that these automatic debits are practically permanent and cannot be revoked without the merchant’s consent. As a matter of fact, the merchant has to be the one that initiates the cancellation. Stop payments don’t work as there is no check number and no bank (to my knowledge) allows an account holder to stop payment to a specific payee. There’s absolutely nothing the account holder can do to stop them short of closing the account and due to the service agreements of most banks, that’s potentially more costly.

As it stands, stamps.com has gotten about $200 out of me so far and as I said above, I don’t see them stopping anytime soon. I strongly advise anyone to stay as far away from this company as possible. If you have to use an online postage service, try Endicia instead. I used them for a while and had no problem closing my account. As a matter of fact, I believe if your account remains inactive for a set time period, they will close it themselves. Stamps.com does not do this. They will charge you regardless of the activity (or lack thereof) on your account.

Recommended:

Bait and Switch - Don't Fall for It!

Written: Jun 24 '05 (Updated Jun 27 '05)

Like many others, I was sucked in by the offer of $25 in free postage and a free postage scale, with a four-week free trial. Well, you can't get something for nothing -- remember that.

Set-up was easy, although it annoyed me to have to give my credit card number during the free trial period. They sent the welcome packet pretty quickly, and that's when they reveal the catch -- you have to send in a postcard to get $10 in free postage, then after you become a paying member, you have to send in two more postcards, one for the scale and one for the other $10 (they credit you with $5 in free postage immediately).

I mailed the first postcard in immediately; I mailed two other postcards to friends the same day, and my friends got their cards two days later, so Stamps.com should have gotten the card about the same time. However, it's now 3 weeks later, the end of my free trial period, and they have never credited my account with this $10 in postage.

Stamps.com confirmed my free trial on a Sunday -- however, they won't let me cancel on a Sunday. When I went to cancel my account today, the Friday before the Sunday that my free trial ends, I found that the only way to cancel is to call Stamps.com -- although you can sign up on-line and do everything else on-line, they won't let you cancel that way -- and only Mon.-Fri., 6 a.m.-6 p.m. PST.

Update: I called the Monday after my free trial ended to cancel, prepared for a long wait and an argument, but I only had to wait on hold a few minutes, and the customer service rep was friendly and noted that I hadn't been billed yet, so he was going to process a waiver for the monthly fee since I was cancelling just one day after my trial ended. This experience makes me upgrade the rating a little bit -- I still wouldn't recommend using the service, but I didn't have the problems that many others seem to have had.

$16.99 is an exorbitant amount of money to pay for this service, especially when you can print postage from USPS.com. And their bait-and-switch tactics of promising free products and then not delivering them leaves a sour taste in my mouth. Plus, any on-line company that forces you to call customer service (and isn't open on weekends) isn't worth my business. I certainly don't recommend giving them yours.

Recommended:

Horrible experience! DO NOT use their service!

Written: May 12 '05

Stamps.com is the worst service ever! Actually their postage service is ok, but the added marketing tricks to lure customer in and over-charge them really angered me!

I saw their ads on free trial w/ $80 worth of bonus (includes a $20 postage and a small scale). So I thought this is a good deal, so I sign on. This is where the tricky starts, you don't get the free stuff ($20 postage and the small scale) until your first month with them, which means you actually pay for those items w/ their service charge $16+.

I was late to cancel because when they said 1st month free, it means 29 days and it's exactly 29 days. So customer service won't waive that charge. On top of that, first month is not free anymore if you past 29 days. So I was 3 days late, so I get charged at $16 for the first month, and then another $16 for being 3 days late. So I thought, fine then, I'll at least get the scale and the $20 postage. I mail in the coupon and waited for 2 weeks to get the stuff. The scale came and the $10 added, but the other $10 was never added to my account!!

Ok, I admit I fell for this stupid scam, but their customer service was rude and said "you don't get something for nothing!" Almost like saying "There are no free lunch, stupid!" Sure, I was fooled, but telling it to my face making it even worst! Horrible customer service, talked to two of them, all the same attitude. I guess for a company with this kind marketing trick, you got to have rude customer service to go with it.

So out of the whole ordeal, I paid ~$34 (plus a lot of work on my end) and got ~$15 postage and a small 5 lb scale (which I'll probably never use) and a bad feeling of being fooled. Too bad for them, I was actually thinking to recommend them to my company, but after this experience I will NEVER NEVER recommend their service and will never look back again. They are the worst! They try everything they can to squeeze money out of their customer.

Recommended:

good idea, but bad policies and bad customer service

Written: Apr 20 '05

It all started out well but went downhill.

The setup was easy but asked too many personal questions for my taste. The program downloaded quickly and installed easily.

The first hitch I ran into was that if you wanted any extra services such as signature or delivery confirmation you're still going to have to make a trip down to the post office to pick up the forms. To be fair you can grab a handful of forms when no one is looking and use them at home in the future.

The biggest problem I had was that they require you to send in postage that failed to print -- that doesn't make sense! My printer ran out of ink and nothing got printed. What was I to do?

I called customer service and was on hold for about 20 minutes just to be read some standard response off a computer screen telling me they needed the postage as proof that it wasn't sent. I asked how they'd know if I sent in postage that *was* successfully shipped and they told me they could tell if the postage had already been processed by the USPS. So I asked if they could check about my postage using those means but they said that it didn't work that way!

I used the service for a couple of months but after this I decided to cancel. The "Service Agreement" on the website says "You can cancel your membership simply by contacting Stamps.com Customer Support." So I sent an email to customer support and a couple days later I got a response back saying I had to call in. To cancel you have to wait in a different queue on their phone system and I was waiting easily over an hour.

I should also mention that by this time another billing period had just started (it was the first day of it) and when I called in they not only refused to give me back money for the latest billing period, but they suggested I stay on till the end of my billing period to get my money's worth.

Recommended:

Why am I paying to do all the work?!

Written: Apr 01 '05 (Updated Apr 05 '05)

I use to spend a lot of time at the post office because I did a lot of selling on eBay. I knew about stamps.com but I was hesitant to use it because I didn’t want to pay for the service. I eventually started selling more than I could do by hand and wanted to present a more professional look to may packages.

Hook

I reluctantly tried stamps.com because they had a nice offer package for signing up. The deals change from time to time but my deal was $25 worth of Free postage and a Free $50 digital 5 pound scale for me to keep even if I canceled the service. The free trial period lasted for 4 weeks.

Line

Very little is needed to get started using stamps.com. You will need a computer, a printer, a reliable connection to the internet, install the provided software, and buy the shipping labels. Postage is pre-paid instantly to your account through your credit card and more can be added at any time with a $10 minimum. If you miss print a label you can receive a refund for it. The stamps.com customer no longer needs to stand in line at the Post Office; they just drop the stamped items off at the Post Office.

Sinker

Once I signed up with the service I realized that I had to buy special labels for my printer. The labels can ONLY be purchased through stamps.com and they’re not cheap. Shipping for my labels was another $11. You also sign an agreement not to resell these labels so you can’t find them cheaper or recoup your costs if you decide not to use them. You have to have different labels for first class than you do for priority.

I was able to obtain my free postage and scale however was pretty peeved about how much of an ordeal it was to get it. You have to print a stamp off of stamps.com and mail in the post card to get the credit to your account for postage. You have to wait 2 weeks later to do the same thing again, and then again a third time after your trial ends. If you mail in your request too early you forfeit your free postage so I wrote the information on my calendar so I didn’t forget. You also have to submit a separate request for the free 5 pound scale. I have used my scale a lot over the past year and it still works.

It took a lot of effort to plug in the address that I wanted to mail the item to. The labels came many to a sheet but labels print out one at a time. I had a laser printer so was concerned that a sticker would come off and destroy the printer however I didn’t have any problems at all with the labels.

Once the label is printed you have to take it to the Post Office that day since the postage is dated. If you don’t get it to the post office in time you have to adjust the shipping date.

If you decide that you do not want the label you can mail it back to stamps.com for a refund. You have to physically gather the labels up and go to a page in the stamps.com software and fill out a request for refund and it must be signed by you. Then you have to mail it to them and it will be credited to your account after it has been processed which was 1-2 weeks.

There were MANY times when I would print postage and it would register in stamps.com that it printed, my computer said it was sent and the printer cued up but nothing ever came out or I would get a blank mailing address label. In this situation my money is just shot in the wind because you can not get a refund unless there is a label to show for it. This made me seriously irate after about $30 blew away I said heck with this and proceeded to cancel the service. There was no explanation why it printed blank labels and calling the customer support line was just wasting my cell minutes because all she could do was read her cookie cutter message off of the paper in front of her. I suspect that it was a software flaw because I didn’t have any problems ever printing anything including printing postage from other sources.

Cancellation was very easy, I was not erroneously billed. The one problem I did have but didn’t foresee was that I lost all of my tracking logs because I didn’t think to print them out. You can not cash out your free postage; you can only spend it at stamps.com

Overall

Another thing to consider is that you are automatically billed a $16 service fee in addition to the postage that you use no matter how much postage you use each month so if you’re just using it to print out stamps for a couple of bills it is going to be quite expensive. You sill have to pay the same amount for postage as you would at the Post Office so don't be mislead in thinking that the $16 covers postage because it does not.

The only benefit of stamps.com is that priority mail gets free tracking. You can purchase tracking for other slower services.

I spent so much time screwing around with these labels and process that it nearly drove me crazy. I suffered through this for 5 months and then threw in the towel. I now print directly from Paypal, it’s so much easier and works the way Stamps.com should have.

$15.99 is way too expensive. I've canceled.

Written: Mar 24 '05

I have been a customer for years. The service works very well, especially now with the new upgrade and the ability to reprint postage that didn't print properly the first time. I started out paying $1.99 plus postage. Then, they more than doubled the fee to $4.49. Still, this was a reasonable fee for the service. Now, they have more than tripled the fee to $15.99. This is no longer a reasonable fee for an individual that uses it for personal postage to mail bills and a few letters. I can pay most bills now online through my bank at no additional charge. I will now buy postage stamps directly from USPS and use UPS for package shipments. I canceled my stamps.com account today. They offered a $7.99 rate to stay. I would have stayed in the first place if they had only raised it to $7.99 instead of $15.99. This is a very bad business practice. I do not recommend this service. Cancel now if haven't already. Call 1-888-434-005 and go to the prompt for your account. I waited on hold for 6 minutes today. The wait is worth it. Until today I always recommended the service to my friends. Now, I have to advise them to cancel. I just read that stamps.com was finally showing a profit. And, that was before the price increase. This increase was totally unnecessary and they now stand to lose a lot of their loyal customers. Looks like very poor management from this customers point of view.

Recommended:

Poor customer service & deceitful billing practices

Written: Feb 04 '05

The signup process was simple enough. However, things fell apart from there. They're billing is done in monthly increments and it seems they lead you to believe that you get the first month free.... You DON'T!! It is only 28 days, and even that’s deceiving!

BEWARE!!!

If you want to cancel your service within the free trial period, you must do so no later than the 26th day since your initial signup. Cancellation requests take 48 hours to be processed so you need to stay on top of it. Of course finding a customer service phone number is almost impossible on their website, so here it is: (888) 434-0055.

This is based on the experience I had where:

1) I signed up

2) Never received the "Welcome Kit" via USPS

3) Forgot all about it until the 27th day.

4) Submitted my cancellation on that day

5) Was still billed for a month's service

6) Then received a letter from them threatening to send my account to Collections

In all fairness however, I finally got this resolved after speaking with a helpful supervisor today... Almost FOUR months after it all began.

Moral of the story...? A company that is this unfriendly to its customers doesn't deserve my business. The post office now offers automated shipping machines in their lobbies, I'll stick with that.

Recommended:

Stamps.com is anti-customer

Written: Oct 11 '04

Stamps.com is a ripoff. I signed up for their service b/c as a mother of three kids under the age of 2, getting out and to the post office was a major ordeal and hassle. I should have realized when the software caused my computer to have issues that it was a bad deal from the beginning. I signed up, received my $5 free postage and downloaded the software. Apparently I made a mistake while inputting my password when setting up my account for the first time and did not realize it until I tried to logon the next time. I used the "send my password" button, and waited..... and waited.... and waited.... a month later, nothing. But, there *WAS* a $15.99 charge to my credit card, you can bet on that! So, I open the software again, try to input my password, again, receive the "wrong password" error and immediately try again with the "send my password" button. And waited... and waited... so, finally, I call their customer service number, after wading through pages and pages of "do this.. if that doesn't fix it, do that....if you finally can't get your problem resolved, click here and we'll give you our information" tech support system. What a JOKE! You have to spend 30 minutes trying to find a phone number for them just to contact real people. And only after 17 minutes (that was the shortest time I spent on hold without hanging up - with 3 kids that age, how can I sit on hold?) When I returned to my full-time job, I sat on hold until I reached a human. That took 3 days of trying at various times before having to give up due to being on hold for such long times. Apparently, I was not the only person having problems. This was all going on while I was also e-mailing this horrible company to try and resolve the issues. The one time I was able to log on to the service, I thought the layout/ease of use was wonderful! I finally reached a customer service employee who was very helpful and canceled my account at my request. She also waived the final month's fee b/c I was so dissatisfied. I received an e-mail today from them after requesting my $31.98 (two months worth of fees) to be credited back to my credit card account in which they stated that they would not refund my money although it showed that there were no logons and the service went unused. I do not think it fair that due to THEIR incompetence (in my opinion, their software malfunctioned in not sending my password, therefore I was unable to log onto the service) that I should not receive a refund of my service charges. I would definitely NOT recommend this service to anyone. Not because of the $31.98 I was scammed out of but simply for their lack of good customer service, inaccessability and poor business ethics.

Recommended:

Overpriced, with horrible customer service. Don't bother signing up!

Written: Sep 29 '04

I signed up for stamps.com at a time when they were offering a free 4 week trial, and after the end of the trial service would automatically continue at the regular rate. The service was fairly decent, although it was quite slow, and printing took a long time. In reality it would have been faster to hand-write the addresses on my envelopes, or use a simple word processor and use a regular stamp (which are readily available in vending machines and in stores). Additionally their "Shipping Label" feature is really no different from the USPS's own Click-N-Ship service which is free to use on www.usps.com. It took a long time to receive my "free" scale, and I only was able to get one of the $10 "free" postage credits after searching out their well hidden customer service number, which is only open from 9 to 6 and spending 25 minutes on hold, talking to an unknowledgeable representative (I called because they don't respond, or even acknowledge emails to customer support). Finally when I decided to cancel the over priced service, I discovered that for "security reasons" I had to call them to cancel my service on their hidden phone number, and again spend 25 minutes on hold just to cancel. To my surprise the representative said that their would be a final fee of $15.99 that would be charged to my card. Surprise! I realized that they had charged my card for $15.99 (at the end of my "free" trial and had assumed it had been for the second month (the first paid month) of my service with them. Apparently, they bill not in advance but after the month is complete. So the $15.99 already charged was for my "free month", and they wanted to charge me for the month in which I was currently cancelling in the middle of. Apparently, even if you cancel in the middle of the month they'll still charge you the full $15.99 for a whole month. While it's not a lot of money, Stamps.com made a very bad impression on me, and was very un-interested in helping me, instead angrily insisting that I was wrong that it was a "risk free trial" and not a free month. Currently their offer is a risk free trial, but at the time I signed up in August it was a first 4-weeks free. So I guess they apply their new policy to me after the fact. All in all my experience with stamps.com has been horrible, and I would recommend that you don't even bother signing up for their "trial" to begin with. The free scale is crap too. Instead I'd recommend the USPS's Click-N-Ship service, or using traditional stamps (stamps.com will not save you time, it will make you waste more time). If you're looking for an e-postage service, such as if you're mailing small packets/First Class or Media Mail (which Click-N-Ship doesn't support), look into Endicia or Pitney Bowes' ClickStamp service.

Recommended:

LACK OF CUSTOMER SERVICE STAMPED ME OUT!

Written: Aug 30 '04 (Updated Aug 31 '04)

I joined Stamps.Com for the convenience of being able to buy stamps on-line, print up stamps right at home to save the hassle of going to the post office, and have the availability to ALWAYS have stamps! Stamps.com had a great incentive to join, with $10 of free postage and a free weight scale. It seemed like a great deal! I had been with STAMPS.COM for two months and FINALLY got discontinued, after many long attempts of holding on the phone. The program was easy to download, and overall easy to use on the computer. On day 29 of having it, I had not received the free scale, no free stamps, no "welcome package" but did receive a $15 charge on my credit card. Thus began my first attempt of LONG holds with customer service.

My first phone call with Stamps.Com was a long hold of at least 30 minutes before I spoke to a real, live person! I told them of my concern of getting charged on my credit card, but not receiving the free scale and postage. I was then told I was to receive a "welcome package" shortly (it was already 29 days) and that in that package was a return postcard to request the free scale and postage. So, by the time I return this, it could be another 30 days before I receive this? This was confirmed, that this could happen. I then requested to discontinue my service with them. I was put through to a supervisor, who apologized that I never received my welcome package, and in order to keep me as a customer, they'd bypass the return postcards, and send out immediately the free scale and would put free stamps on my account immediately also. I hesitantly, agreed. I did get the $10 worth of free stamps immediately.

Three weeks later, I finally did get the scale. Within the same week, I needed to buy more postage on-line, but was having problems with their website, and so I called them. Again, began my long holds, two times hanging up after being on hold for 45 minutes. I tried again a couple of days later, and again after 40 minutes, finally spoke to a live person, and decided because of the lack of customer service, to discontinue my service. He said he'd do that, but because I was one day over the month, I was then charged for a month of service! I discovered this on my on-line banking account, and called them back, AGAIN, for another 45 minute hold. Once I spoke to a live person, I had to be put through to several people, explaining the lack of service, and thankfully, the supervisor agreed, and said stamps.com is working on getting more help, but understood my concerns, and reimbursed me for the monthly charge.

I am thankful stamps.com did see my concerns, and agreed with me, but after almost 3 hours of phone time with several days of trying to get through, it was a lot of hassle! If you are a large business, that uses a lot of stamps, it might be worth the $15 monthly fee, but for a small home business, and the waste of time, stamps.com stamped me out!

Recommended:

Rip Off!

Written: Jul 16 '04 (Updated Jul 16 '04)

My experience with Stamps.com has been horrible. The only 2 good things about it was the blissful illusion that I would never have to go to the post office again and that I would get free stuff. The illusion didn't last long however. Yes, gone are the smiling faces at the Post Office, where you get exactly what you pay for, and in is money lost to printing errors and on the phone for hours on hold or talking to someone who will inform you that stamps.com takes no responsibility whatsoever for the service they provide.

I have had to fight with them several times before to get refunds after a stamp was misprinted, but this last time drove me to cancel the service and write this review.

What happened was that I put money into my stamps.com account with a credit card. Then as I tried to print some priority labels I had a printing error. Even though nothing was printed money was still pulled out of my account and for some reason it did not show in the account activity feature. I found out the hard way that they do not keep a record of your transactions! If you dont have a record, the misprinted paper for example, they will not refund! They will blame it on you, blame it on USPS but they will not give you your money back and so in the end you will pay a hefty price indeed for that postage.

I have done an internet search and apparently I am not the first one this has happened to, or probably the last.

I am also using the current upgrade which is 4.2 I believe (or 4.02, I can't check because after my account was cancelled my software stopped loading after the first attempt, hmm there goes all the proof of my account activity).

The last frustration came with the customer service who will give you the major run around and will not give you any information to contact a higher-up. No names, no numbers; in my case just an email address (they tell me that department will not take phone calls only email) to a cryptic sounding department: The Office of the President. Ambiguous and anonymous, yes. This is their exact quote when I requested the name of a supervisor I could contact and the name of the person I was corresponding with:

"Stamps.com's Privacy and Security Policy protects the identity and

safety of all of its employees, and we do not release their names and

addresses."

My advice to anyone would be to avoid this rip off company. The idea is good and the potential there but can you really do business with someone who has financial access to you and yet keeps no records or accepts no accountability? It's a dangerous game and your hard earned money is the prize.

Recommended:

Only worth it for the first two months

Written: Apr 10 '04

Since upgrading my skills has turned out to be an endless proposition for me I sell quite a few used texts online. When I got an offer to get a free scale and $25 in free postage and a rebate on one of the rewards sites I belong to I decided to give Stamps.com a try.

After a couple of months I have realized that continuing after the third month when there would be no $10 postage credit simply isn't worth the high membership fee of $15.99 a month, which honestly gets you almost nothing.

That $15.99 doesn't even include a monthly supply of shipping labels, you get a choice between buying their products which average around a dollar a sheet, or you can go to your local Office supply store and buy your labels there. If you don't spring for labels, Stamps.com is actually MORE work than putting stamps on the items you're going to be mailing.

Another thing to consider is the hassle you'll encounter if your printer malfunctions or worse yet if the sample labels they send you get stuck in your printer as happened with me. Stamps.com will usually not replace misprinted or otherwise unusable postage.

You're also not able to batch most printing, and you can only batch the same exact type of printing on the expensive forms that Stamps.com sells you as opposed to giving away.

Most special services such as delivery confirmation, certified letters, and insurance still require you to go to the post office for your purchase.

Actually after two months of using the service, the only thing I got out of the deal was the scale, and since I haven't priced scales, I'm not sure if it was really worth the $50 that Stamps.com claims.

I paid $47.97 for $25 in postage, a digital postal scale that will weigh items up to 5 pounds, and three sheets of postage labels. The label snaffu ate up about $7 in postage.

Stamps.com certainly won't save you any money, but it must be saving the postal service some, savings they are not passing on to customers. It isn't clear whether the Stamps.com site is directly affiliated with the postal service or not, but they are at least a postal service agent, and someone is raking in the dough hand over fist on this site!

Since you can't mail items that weigh over 16 ounces in a regular mailbox due to heightened security if you're mailing heavier items, you'll still have to stand in line at the post office.

How Stamps.com is staying in business at $15.99 a month has me stumped! If you need the scale and don't mind printing your stamps yourself, you may find using the service for a few weeks worth while. The free postage and scale require you mail back post cards and wait a few weeks.

Recommended:

Closing Your Account with Stamps.com is HELL!

Written: Mar 12 '04

When I used the Stamps.com service for my small business, I really didn't have any big problems. Simple to use. No Hassles.

However, I found that this company is really disorganized in their customer account handling. When I closed my company down, and closed my account with Stamps.com, the real horror story began.

First, Stamps.com requires you to call a particular phone number during the certain hours to close your account. The only thing is that the Hold Time is over 30 minutes. Then you go thru all the questions about closing the account, but in my case, they never closed it. In fact, they opened Another Account for me. Now I had multiple Stamps.com accounts.

Each month, a bill comes, but since they are trying to charge my business account that I closed, it never goes thru. I email. "Oh No", I get back --- I have to call this particular phone number during particular hours to close my account.

Again, I go thru a hold time of over 30 minutes. Again, I am assured the account(s) are now closed. But, alas, they are not, and the billing continues.

I send more emails. And again I get that Oh, I must phone this particular number during particular hours.

After this weekend I will be filing a complaint against Stamps.com with my local chapter of the Better Business Bureau in the hopes that they will help me close my account with Stamps.com.

My screwing around with this company trying to close my account(s) with them has gone on now for over a year. No one at this company seems to care about getting this problem solved --- just racking up monthly charge after monthly charge.

During this past year of monthly charges, I have never used the account.

It's too bad that a nice concept like the model for this company is totally trashed by inept or unorganized customer accounting. I hope that anyone else that wants to end their relationship with this company does not go thru the mess that I have been going through.

Recommended:

STAMPS.COM Sucks! Software errors.

Written: Feb 10 '04

Stamps.com sucks.

I own a computer store and we sell a lot of products online. Hiding the postage amount, the convenience of preparing several packages and the price are all perfect.

Unfortunately, the software will lock up and freeze. We had it on one office machine and the stamps.com software worked for about 2 weeks. After 2 weeks, it started crashing every other time you tried to print. This is extremely annoying- I had to restart the program about 20 times to print 10 labels. Stamps.com tech support was unable to help. They say “Our software ju8st doesn’t work on some systems, we don’t know why.”

Being a computer repair center, we troubleshoot around 5,000 systems per year. So, we figured there was just a conflict in the system. We formatted the system and reloaded all of our software, including stamps.com. It worked correctly for two weeks and then the software died again.

We just replaced ALL of the office system, including the printer. Guess what- the software worked great for about 2 weeks, and then died again. This unit is a 3ghz machine w/ 1gb ram and runs all of our applications perfectly.

The Stamps.com software is seriously flawed and they even admit to it!!! It may work for some people, but not us. We use the address book and print about 20 labels per day. We are still using their software, but it is defective and we are currently looking at our other options and are ditching stamps.com.

Recommended:

Great Concept but (Very) Poor Execution

Written: Dec 27 '03

I really wanted to like it. Great concept. You can print all sorts of postage from your home. This includes all mail classes and all special services. They even offer private insurance.

The problems are all around connectivity to their postage servers. I have a butt kicking cable connection which routinely top 5mb per second transfer so I know it isn't me. At first I was thinking it was because of extra activity on the weekend. But even days after the holiday, it still sucks wind! I have connections time out all the time.

The event that finally killed me was a misprinted postage label for $1.55. So I said, no problem, I'll just fill out the form to get a refund. I actually timed out trying to download the form to get a refund. I have a feeling that they need server upgrades or at least some sort of a monitoring solution but do not have one?

It's really a shame. Features are terrific. You can print on envelopes, all sorts of labels, plain paper. They even have these cool Netstamps that allow you to print any postage amount you want and just use it like a regular stamp. They now offer electronic delivery confirmation as well with a good price that ranges from free to 13 cents.

I just wish their service was usable! Unfortunately due to the response issues (which are extreme) I just cannot use the service.

Recommended:

Good service until you need CUSTOMER service.

Written: Oct 23 '03

Stamps.com is a cool tool if you use it enough to justify it's hefty expense.

I actually really like their service. I use a DYMO LabelWriter to print out special labels with the address, postage and return address stickers. It's great for the small side business I have selling old books and stuff on Amazon. It's a lot more convenient than buying postage at the post office and with the meter, you can drop packages over 1 lb. off in any mailbox rather than the hand delivery at a Post Office.

The system covers all types of mail including media mail rates, which is very nice.

A few issues, however, they take forever to reissue misprinted or incorrect postage. Over a month has not been uncommon for my account. (I've only sent it in twice, and honestly, if it's less than 60c, I don't even bother.)

My biggest gripe, their absolutely horrendous customer service. They offer a "free 29 day trial" which is exactly as it says. If you stay to day 30, you're free trial isn't free anymore...you just paid for your first month. I think it's pretty tacky marketing practice to advertise something which most consumers will think is a free month to try it out. If they hadn't provided $25 of free postage, I would have been livid.

If you cancel the service, before day 28 you're okay. If you change your plan day 28 or after they'll charge you the higher price. I think I changed the service literally on the 29th day, and instead of charging me the $4.95 for the next month, they're charging me the $15.99 again.

The most odd thing, if their customer service reps were a bit more polite, they could probably diffuse the anger of their clients. But they literally said to me: "That is why it is not called a Free trial but a 29day No Risk trial. We will not credit your account for the difference. We apologize for any confusion."

Overall, great service until you need customer service. Funny though...they're always quick to process the charges.

Recommended:

Automatically withdraws money from your bank account

Written: Aug 06 '03

I've used the service a lot and have had lots of wasted postage. I just recently found out you can apply for a refund. The price of the service increased dramatically and they never told me, but they automatically withdrew founds from my account without my permission and put my checking account overdrawn. That should be illegal. Service is very expensive. There is really no reason for it. Unless you are too lazy to buy stamps I wouldn't recommend it. I bought the service because I want my envelopes to look professional, but you can print envelopes just as easy with Microsoft Word and if you goof up an envelope you aren't wasting any postage.

Recommended:

NOT PLEASANT AND NOT MONEY SAVING

Written: Jan 22 '03

I had to download twice because of a problem in their system. When I printed my stamps, instead of 25, it only printed 20 but still charged me for 25. When i called up to complain, they apologized and said I lost the 5 stamps and if it continued, they could do nothing about it since they could not see it on my computer - so they practically called me a liar to my face! With the introductory offer of $25.00 in free postage, they only sent me 1 postage label so I had to buy more in order to print out my free postage.

If I put all of my time and monies spent together in getting free postage, It would be cheaper and I would save money by going to the post office and buying $50.00 of stamps at one time and I would still be saving money in the long run.

Recommended:

Good service, just don't buy postage if you don't use it all

Written: Jan 09 '03 (Updated Jan 09 '03)

I've used stamps.com on more than one occasion. I found the service very easy to setup and install. The envelope kit always arrived, though it took almost two weeks which gives you no time to use the free 30 days of service with these included supplies. My main complaint about the service was purchased postage. Each time I've purchased additional postage (in addition to the included free postage) I've had problems getting the unused postage refunded. On the first occasion I had no choice but to dispute the charges with my credit card company. On the second occasion every time I would email in they would reply back with a canned "call us to receive help message". When I call in they say "we see it hasn't been mailed yet, we'll take care of that..." I call back weeks later, and get the same reply. Seems fishy to me... Otherwise the service works as advertised.

Recommended:

What a ripoff

Written: Sep 27 '02

I have been a member of Stamps.com for a while now and paying $1.99 each month for the service. I received an e-mail eplaining they were raising the monthly rates to $4.49 (approximately 125% increase). I canceled the service the same day that I read the e-mail but because they sent it so close to the date of increase, my new billing period had already started. I have now received notice that they automatically billed my credit card for $4.49 for the a 5 day period! I will not pay this and want them to issue credit to my credit card. When I contacted them, I was only told: "The email about the price plan change was sent on June 21st. The account was closed on July 10, this was after the beginning of the next billing cycle." I understand what they wrote but since my billing period startes on the 5th of each month I don't think sending a notice on the 21st of the previous month is enough time. I don't check my e-mail every day and didn't get the message in time.

Recommended:

Unsatisfied Customer

Written: Sep 26 '02

The Bottom Line

Without any customer support except for email, I DO NOT RECOMMEND AT ALL!!!!

We never received our "welcome" packages on the 2 accounts we opened even after emailing them and letting them know. We were told that they would be sent out immediatley. We never received them, were not able to contact anyone other than email, and no one followed up after the email contact. There is no individual to call, aboslutely NO CUSTOMER SERVICE!!!! We closed both accounts, again this can only be done via email and it was limited as to the reasons why we cancelled and only an "email" was sent acknowledging our cancellation - a "form email". Pathetic! Honestly, I expect to find charges on our credit card for the "free" trial simply due to the fact how poorly this company is managed.

Recommended:

end of page 8

from consumeraffairs.com

consumeraffairs.com/online/stamps_com.html

for some reason this site doesn't have any positive comment

8/25/11

I cannot express how disappointed I am in Stamps.com right now. I just tried to cancel my account (which I was not able to do via email or online) and--after a long wait on hold--was told by their customer care team specialist (a.k.a. sales retention staff) that instead of cancelling my $17.99 account, I could downgrade to a new basic plan at just $9.95. I asked why I was not previously made aware of this option and why I could not find it on the Web. I was told by the agent that since "it was just adopted," the basic plan is not posted on their website yet. Well, its very interesting to see blogs written well over two years ago that Stamps.com has had the basic plan ($9.95) in place for a long time and this is simply their "customer un-caring" way of customer retention. Furthermore, they also told me that if I wanted a credit on my postage account, I would have to wait 13 months to get a refund--putting the blame on the repayment cycle from USPS. Although the postage may have been paid to the USPS, it is complete horse hockey that they will not immediately refund my money if I cancel my account. As a CFO of multiple companies, I can tell you that any non-government company has the ability to "hold in reserves" money for refunds and can and should refund immediately so as to not create the bad will that Stamps.com is creating for itself. Shame on Stamps.com's "customer un-care" strategy!

scott of San Diego, CA

8/11/11

Jessica* is the automated service to cancel any subscriptions; however, "Jessica" is only available during West Coast business hours. If you call outside those hours, you must call back to talk to an automated service.

Funny how this company will sign you up with minimal interaction, yet you have to jump through hoops to cancel. Will see if I have any charges on my credit card since I canceled within the "trial" period.

I noticed that my account had been upgraded to the $15.99 pro plan after I had initially signed up for the introductory plan. I only logged in to my online account to find out how to cancel. I never authorized the upgraded plan, and am glad I managed to contact them during the trial period.

David of Bangor, ME

8/1/11

On first part of June 2011, i called to cancel the stamps subscription as I no longer had an online business. Agent made it almost impossible to cancel it ... arguing over and over again how I could still use it for personal use .. even tho I stated I had no use for it, either business or personal. Had to call back to get someone else to help me - by then they told me my subscription payment was due. I had a balance that they would not refund - and still do $21.04. I told them I was NOT using the service and would not pay for something that I had been trying to cancel and refund my balance.

To date, I still cannot get the balance due me.

carol of Tomball, TX

7/26/11

I cancelled my account online, but was charged $15.99 the next month. I called the customer service and they said I had to cancel online, but I had no account to sign into. I was transferred to customer service because I wanted a refund, and I was told I had to call in for a refund, but that the $15.99 was a valid charge.

I informed them that I was going to file a complaint to consumer affairs, and the attorney general in Tennessee. The representative talked to his manager, and they refunded me the fee.

Sue of Brentwood, TN

7/8/11

They attempted to charge a (fortunately, closed) card of mine with no authorization.

jon of bozeman, MT

3/2/11

Signed up for service to print a shipping label. I did not print any, and 4 weeks later I saw a charge on my credit card for $15.99 for a subscription. Nowhere did I see anything asking me to authorize any charges to my card for any subscription. I tried to cancel using their web site where they have a category for cancel, but they do not cancel, they email you to call them instead during limited hours.

I have no receipt for any subscription or any other agreement, their site indicates that no charges will be made to your credit card and it is risk-free. After researching this there are many complaints from individuals who were duped by them, some were charged in the hundreds and have gotten no use out of the service at all. None of their correspondence says anything about signing up for a monthly subscription. Their response said there was a link to a web page that mentioned somewhere on it about the charges. They have an illegitimate practice of trapping people by not being forthright with what they intend to charge on your credit card.

Darrell of Fair Oaks, PA

10/4/10

I phoned on 10/4/10 to complain that I am being charged for a service that I have NEVER used. They said that I signed up November of 2009; This confuses me because my credit card has changed since then. How could they charge a credit card that I didn't have last year??? The supervisor told me I must have filled out an online survey. They said that they couldn't refund me all the monthly fees of $17.95 per month, only the last 2. I've (just now) read other complaints that many still get charged after cancellation... and they too were charged for a service NEVER used!!! This company should be put out of business!!!

Cancellation # 101004-000828

Erika of Merrimack, NH

9/14/10

I was offered a risk-free 30 day trial at no charge with a $25 Amazon.com gift card offer. I called and cancelled it before the 30-day period and for some odd reason. they don't have a record of it. I called and cancelled 2 days after the billing cycle started and even told them that I wouldn't mind paying the two days that I went into the billing cycle. They refused and not only that, I did not receive my Amazon.com gift card. This is the worst Customer Service by far! Do not fall into their scheme for the FREE 30 Day Trial...it is not FREE!

Rosalyn of El Monte, CA

8/10/10

I thought I was on a site that was part of USPS. Immediately my bank got suspicious as Stamps.com attempted to put through 12 transactions within the first 5 minutes. I immediately canceled my card. Thankfully no payment went through. They would have drained my checking account if the bank and I hadn't caught it in time. I tried to contact Stamps.com to cancel within 15 minustes of my registration but they do not provide any link on their website. They did not provide any customer service tel # either.

I googled the company and saw compaint after complaint for the same issues. Upon the first statment I made several attemps to call them being on hold for in excess of 30 minutes. I have written letters every month since and still I keep getting statments with the balance growing larger each month. They have ignored my correspondance and 9 months later it is still not resolved. I am hoping for some assistance in getting this erased.

Angeline of Charlotte, N

7/22/10

Company did not cancel account as they promised my wife. When I reviewed the credit card statements she was shocked to find SIX MONTHS of continued billing. No hardware was ever sent as the account was requested to be closed, but stamps.com continued to charge my wife's credit card. We called (7-22-10 4:00pm) and both CSR Bryson and CSR supervisor Crystal J. refused to refund the charges. In fact, Crystal J stated (and I quote) "Dawn (her supervisor and director of customer care) does not take phone calls, ever." when I asked to speak to her supervisor. Crystal J. also said, "I don't find it odd that an account remain idle for six months. That's normal" THAT'S NORMAL?!? I informed Crystal J. that I would be writing this complaint as well as challenging the charges with American Express if she would not resolve the issue. She suggested "that's the best thing to do." So, here we are. Stamps.com stole $96 of my wife's money, a public school teacher, BTW.

Chris of Henderson, NV

7/11/10

I keep getting notices that this .com co. had attempted to charge my credit card- but they were not successful. Today's was $575.00!I have repeatedly told them to cancel any and all accounts I may have with them. I have told them NOT to charge my card. I have no record of signing up for anythin; maybe one of those scam "free laptop if you complete this survey" How can I stop these people?

James of Marina, CA

6/26/10

This company has been charging my credit card Since July 2007. My wife pays the bills, so I did not realize this error on my Visa statement until a day ago. Unlike many here, I NEVER signed up for a trial offer! They sent me my supposed sign-up email, and it has a bogus email address that is not mine (this is why I never realized it!). After checking on the web, I have discovered that there are hundreds of people who have been scammed by this same "business." $575

Victor of Oak Hills, CA

4/6/10

I haven't been paying too much attention to my credit card bills, but when i started to recently, I noticed there's this 17.99 monthly charge from STAMPS.COM which I have no idea where it's from. so I gave them a call, and turns out that somebody has used my credit card #, my phone number, and my name, and THEIR email account (annelisetia@comic.com) to create a STAMPS.COM account since september 2008!! I am pretty sure it was from one of the ebay sellers who I have paid before (that's how they have my name, address, phone number, and credit card number). it's not completely STAMPS.COM's fault, but they could have been a LOT more careful before they let someone open an account like that.

Bryan of SF, CA

3/22/10

I signed up for a trial account when I was completing a completely unrelated order for another company. I was asked to sign up for a trial account to proceed. I did not know that Stamps.com obtained access to my credit card information. They charged my account for the trial period that I was not aware of. I requested a refund of the 17.95 they charged, but they refused.

Bryan of King George, VA

3/5/10

I opened a trail account with stamps.com on 1/27 and was unaware of a $15.99/mnth charge. There was no mention of it on the site when signing up and asking for your billing information. I assumed I was providing that for the postage. I receive an email later that stated I signed up for "Pro" account. I called to cancel my account on 1/29. The customer service rep used negative option selling and apparently never canceled the account because I said OK at some point. I used their service once for a total of $3 in postage.

I called to cancel again on 3/5 and was on the phone for several minutes and had to tell the rep SIX times I wanted to close my account because I kept getting those leading questions. I was also told that I'm in the "middle" of a billing cycle, which will end on 3/26. Today is 3/5. I don't see how three weeks being left in the month requires me to get charged an additional $15.99 for services I still have barely used! So total I was charged $31.98 for $3 in postage services.

I am completely disgusted with your service and will be filing a compliant with the BBB.

Loriann of Monroeville, PA

1/12/10

After Stamps.com was unable to print a stamp successfully, then offered no refund, I closed the account before the free trial period ended. Stamps.com confirmed that the account was closed and that I would not be charged. Stamps.com sent me a collecitons notice months later demanding $38.41 and threatening to turn it over to a collections agency. I recommend not using stamps.com because the customer service is often difficult to contact.

Corey of Santa Ana, CA

1/5/10

I emailed the company asking if I ordered a stamp set,would I receive it by December 10th of 2009 if I ordered it at the time. A women by the name of Mary replied and said yes, and to email her when I placed the order. All I received from them was an order confirmation, and have not received my order or heard from them since.

I have emailed this person many times, and still have yet to receive a response. There is no phone number available on the site (that I can see), and I do not know what else to do. I would like the item I ordered, or my money back. If someone can contact me to let me know what I can do, I can forward you the email of my order. Thank you. I never received the service I paid for. I ordered a stamp set, and no one ever responded to my emails asking where my order is.

farida of coral springs, FL

2009 and earlier

Purchasing "international postage" through Stamps.com is RISKY! If your printer fails to print the label you will have the POSTAGE COST deduced from your STAMPS.COM Account balance (which is billed to your credit card). You CANNOT REPRINT your label without purchasing the postage. Stamps.com will not refund the label as they simply bill USPS for the postage, so you must wait for them to refund your money to your STAMPS.COM Account and than CLOSE YOUR ACCOUNT to have the money place back in your account.

I sent the following complaint to their customer support, press, etc. along with a request to have my account closed my credit card refunded: "Hello Stamps.com- I would like to just write and express my completely UN-SATISFACTORY expirence using your "website" and "PRO" Software. I created a new STAMPS.COM Account with the intention of shipping two pieces of mail internationally. I installed the software in a working environment, and it loaded and ran normally (Note: Normal function for your software was various unnamed alerts, pop-ups, and one instance of the software crashing completely in a stable, updated Windows 7 environment)

"Next I "purchased postage" (the feature that charged my credit card). When I went to print my postage, I discovered that my printer was poorly configured and I wished to "reprint" my label. After exhaustively researching STAMPS.COM help material, I gave up, the functionality in the software WAS NOT AS DESCRIBED. Upon calling your telephone support, I was informed that there was NO functionality in your "international shipping" to reprint labels? Additionally, the money that had been deducted from my credit card to pay for this UNPRINTED postage must be requested for a return from USPS (that your company had no control over refunds for postage?!)

"I had additional problems with my printer, and in the end was sunk for nearly $200 in postage when I only needed roughly $50 worth. I have submitted refund requests to USPS via your website. I doubt these will come very quickly, and since your company has NO CONTROL over the money that you deduct from my credit card, it seems pointless to pay a fee to STOP PAYMENT on my card. Additionally, I'm told by your customer support that I will only have my money refunded AFTER I close my STAMPS.COM account. Which I will be requesting right now. I will syndicate this complaint by whatever channels I can discover to hopefully help others avoid the unfortunate situation of using your company to purchase their postage! Thanks for nothing, Jordan"

Jordan of Westminster, CO

They stole our money. took it from our CC when we were told in writing they would not take any money from us or our account for 4 weeks from trial start date, They took it in under 4 seconds after we hit submit on the CC page. Caused a domino affect in our account bouncing checks because every penny is accounted for. they caused 4 bounced check fees of 25 each

Rich of Cape Cod, MA

I found out today that I have been billed $17.99 per month and I signed up for a free trial in Jan 2009 and called to cancel my acct before the trial was up,so I called this a:m after being on hold 30 min.3 times,and the lady said she saw I hadn't used it after the 1st day i signed up in jan. and yesterday they charged my debit 17.99 again,I told her I had cancelled and demanded a refund to which she said,We don't do that because there's no note or conf.# and I replied,That's not my job,I don't work there...and she began getting ruder so i hung up but this is ridiculous and no one should have to PAY for what they didn't buy? My husband passed away and i barely make it now on a very fixed income!

Cathy of Whitepine, TN

This company has been debiting my credit card Since 12/28/2005. I have a vision problem and had not been able to check my Visa statement; but this month my daughter helped me and I discovered that Stamps.com had been billing me (up to and over a total of $700) for a product or service that I did not request. After checking on other websites, I have discovered that there are hundreds of people who have been scammed by this "business."

Marilyn of Spicewood, TX

I was never informed about a monthly "license" fee of $17.99/month until GE Financial Services discontinued our bank credit card and I was slapped with a past due invoice of $52.81; or my credit will be harmed.

Catherine of Pensacola, FL

I signed up for the 4 week free trial and tried repeatedly to download the software via their website. I got error message after error message and never got the software downloaded. I emailed their tech support via their website and rec'd no reply so I wrote them off. Needless to say, there is a nice 15.99 service charge that shows up on my credit card a month later.

I got on the website got a number to call a CS rep and was told that the 15.99 was just to use the service and doesn't include any postage or product. I explained that I couldn't get the software to download and install and had tried to contact them for tech support with no reply. She politely explained that it didn't matter if I've NEVER used it or didn't have the software, they still charge. AND...to cancel, I would have to pay another months service charge before the service could be cancelled!!!! DO NOT DO BUSINESS WITH THESE PEOPLE!!!

LeeAnn of Saint Joseph, MO

Just wanting to order some stamps, I ended up on stampsdotcom via the usps site. I thought I was still on usps, so I did supply my financial info. I did not order anything; I did not submit any request for an order, and I did not authorize anything.

When they sent a "welcome" package, I emailed them and told them that if I had accidentially joined their program, to please cancel it immediately. They did not respond, so I called them on 6-1-09, and informed them I wanted to cancel any connection with them. I was given a confirmation number, and I thought it was taken care of.

I was not told to call back again on June 11, 2009. Why would I think I had to cancel more than once?

They charged my account for $19.99 on 6-13-09. I called them on 6-15-09 and asked them to return my money because I never authorized anything. They actually acknowledged my call to cancel but claimed they told me to call back.

They also admitted almost every customer calls to cancel, and they use that opportunity to trick people into thinking they've cancelled when they haven't. I think this is clearly theft. I also wrote the post office and told them I think they should reconsider their endorsement of stampsdotcom.

Barbara of North Little Rock, AR

This is an update to a complaint I filed earlier. I discovered that I was charged $35.98 (two charges of $17.99 on April 16, 2009 and May 16, 2009.

Back in March (two months ago), I had responded to a postcard ad for a free trial for postage service, and only AFTER being required to submit credit card information did I discover that the service is available ONLY to PC users and not to Macintosh users. Computer requirements were NOT available on the website and had I known that the service is not offered for Mac users, I would NOT have given my credit card information. I wrote two email messages to them to complain about this and told them I did not want to ever use their service and that I don\'t trust them with my credit card information. I never used the service and I had assumed, given my complaints and the fact that as a Mac user and couldn\'t use the service, that the service was immediately cancelled.

Now, TWO MONTHS later, I checked my bank account today (May 17) and discovered that my credit card had been charged on April 16 for $17.99 and again on May 16 for $17.99. I DID NOT AUTHORIZE THIS CHARGE. I HAVE NEVER USED THEIR SERVICE.

I have read the reviews on the BBB website and found that many others have been scammed by Stamps.com in a similar way and have had great difficulty in getting their money refunded. I have also found many other websites detaiing the fraudulent practices of this company. The BBB rating for this company should be an F!

My credit card was charged a total of $35.98. I did NOT use this service and did NOT authorize this charge. I want it refunded IMMEDIATELY.

Allison of Austin, TX

Stamps.com has charged my credit card on May 16, 2009 without my authorization.

Back in March (two months ago), I had responded to a postcard ad for a free trial for postage service, and only AFTER being required to submit credit card information did I discover that the service is available ONLY to PC users and not to Macintosh users. Computer requirements were NOT available on the website and had I known that the service is not offered for Mac users, I would NOT have given my credit card information. I wrote two email messages to them to complain about this and told them I did not want to ever use their service and that I don't trust them with my credit card information. I never used the service and I had assumed, given my complaints and the fact that as a Mac user and couldn't use the service, that the service was immediately cancelled.

Now, TWO MONTHS later, I checked my bank account today (May 17) and discovered that my credit card had been charged on May 16 for $17.99. I DID NOT AUTHORIZE THIS CHARGE. I HAVE NOT USED THEIR SERVICE.

I have read the reviews on the BBB website and found that many others have been scammed by Stamps.com in a similar way. I have also found many other websites detaiing the fraudulent practices of this company. The BBB rating for this company should be an F!

Allison of Austin, TX

signed on for the free trial.I then sent in an email to cancel and you stated I had to call. I followed your instructions. (twice) Both times I was placed on hold for over 30 minutes. No where in their terms and conditions does it state that you have to call in order to cancel your membership. Therefor, its is bullshit when I go to your site which where I sign up but yet I have to cancel differently. I will file a report with BBB on this organization.

I am being charged continually will still be charged until they answer the phone. Its easy to get in but very difficult to get out.

Kevin of Lufkin, TX

Lots of negative press for stamps.com! Their customer service was not very good at the beginning, but has greatly improved.

I use the very basic service. It has saved me much time from having to drive to the post office as well as gas.

Stamps.com is not for the person who occasionally mails a package. I sell some things on ebay, and it is a snap to print out the postage.

Richard of Winston Salem, NC

The scams and cons that are on the internet should have a pop up put on them by government consumer affairs that warn consumers. And it should be made legal by passing a law. If you like this idea remember to give credit where credit is due.

Typically, as I have read others who have had problems with Stamps.com, however they are not the only scams and cons on the internet, I had the same problem with them. I am a 60 years old totally disabled widow who up till 2 years ago had a high 700 credit score. I have had millions of dollars of medical bills over the last twenty years and have paid all of them and kept my credit home and auto. However because of the internet and a simple add I put on ebay I had all kinds of scams that started zappping my checking account and I filed all the necessary legal reports but I was still out.

I have a decent income but even the best can be brought down. It finally lead to me having complete identity theft. Now I can't even use one of the Debt Counseling services as there are too many letters of scam about them. Looks like after living my whole life with integrity which is why I have always paid my bills, is that it says something about who I am as a person, and it looks like I will have no choice but to file bankruptcy and loose all that I have worked for at 60.

Bank Fraud, ID Theft Fraud, Loss of several thousands of dollars. I have severe chronic pain from 33 head and back surgeries and stress causes my pain to go up, so it has increased my pain level and my general ability to live life with some wellbeing.

Ca of Dallas, GA

I signed up for the free 4 week trial of stamps.com, but never used it because it was more of a hastle than just going to the USPS site. I was not aware that I would be automatically charged a $15.99 fee after the 4 weeks and when I say the charges I emailed customer service to explain that I didn't know I would be charged and that I had never used the account. They refused to reimburse the charges, so I replied back to close the account immediately.

Almost 2 months later, the $15.99 was again charged to my bank account. I emailed again that I had already closed the account 2 months prior and needed them to refund the charges. They replied by saying that the account had not been closed because accounts can't be closed by email - only by phone --something they failed to mention when I emailed to close the account. I then called and closed the account - that I had thought was already closed. I made this call 1 day after the $15.99 posted to my bank account.

The very next day another charge was posted to my bank account for $4.65. When I again emailed about this new charge that was made after the account was officially closed, I was again told that there is nothing I could do to get it reimbursed, without even getting a legitimate explanation as to why that extra charge was made. I was given some nonsense about billing cycles and partial charges, but It was only 1 day after the previous charge was billed, and it only took that long because it was after business hours when the charge showed up, I called the very next morning- I could not have incurred any partial charges in less than 1 day

Technically, over $35 in charges, but I was willing to cut my losses about the first charge, as I should have been more thorough in reading the fine print about the automatic charges. I will not accept, however, the second $15.99 charge when no one told me I had to call about closing the account and I thought it was closed, especially since I did not get charged the following month, but another month later. Also the $4.65 that was charged after I called and officially closed the account.

Heidi of Torrance, CA

Signed up for trial offer and received $5 free postage which we never used. Failed to cancel before the end of the 'trial period', and charged my credit card for a year of 'service fees' (191.88) for a service I will never use.

I've called them twice now to cancel but they claim I still owe the service fee. Called my bank to report 'unauthorized' charge but still hasn't been resolved. I'm probably out almost $200 for something I don't even want.

Krys of Indianapolis, IN

Recently, while using the Internet, I received an offer for a free gift card?. As a condition of receiving the card, the participant must review several advertisements to which they will or will not subscribe. After a lengthy process, the ad prompts you to select at least two of these advertisements as a requirement to proceed and receive the free gift card. Stamps.com was one of the 2 ads I selected and subsequently paid $5.00 for stamps that I could print at home.

Stamps.com withdrew the $5.00 from my account; I never printed nor used the stamps or services of Stamps.com. I have received a Second Collection Notice from Stamps.com for $31.98.

I have refused to pay any money, and have asked for the $5.00 back. I just want to alert consumers - this is not the first time that I have done this on the Internet and have paid for services I never received.

Jacqueline of Vallejo, CA

Has been charging my checking account 15.99 every month for a year. I closed my checking account and now my savings account is being charged by stamps.com. I have emailed and called several times, and have rarely been answered. I was told in an email that they would not close the account.

Steven of Cape Coral, FL

I was suckered into signing up with Stamps.com on a trial basis when I foolishly clicked on the get a free laptop scam. I tried to cancel online but was unable to, which I found to be absurd, since I signed up online. When I tried to call to cancel I was left hanging on the phone several times for long periods of time waiting for someone to pick up. They never did. I assumed they would send me a welcome letter or something, and I would reply to that and cancel my trial account. Well, I never heard anything from them, EVER. I forgot about them until the first charge came through on my credit card, and when I finally got through to cancel, not only did they refuse to refund the money for a sevice not rendered, the charged me for a full other month!!!

They were singularly unpleasant and intractable on the phone as well. Everyone needs to know what a shabby and useless service this is and do NOT click on ANY adds, and DO NOT sign up for Stamps.com. Use the post office, it's free.

I'm out 32$ for NOTHING

Dana of Athens, GA

Stamps.com offered me a free trial which I signed up for. Then I decided to give it a try for another month after the free trial ended. But it was not worth the $15.99 per month fee and so I call to cancel my membership. The customer service told me that I am billed for 2 month fee $30 including the free trial. Why do I have to pay for a FREE trial? The reply I got is that when they send me a welcome email at the beginning, it included the terms for paying for the free trial after it ends and I continue to receive service. But the representative I spoke to prior to this fail to mention it when I ask her if I will only be billed for 1 month and she said yes. Now the customer service refuse to refund my money and I can't do anything about it. This is FALSE advertising, a FREE trial should be FREE and the representative should clearly tell me that I will be billed for the free trial when I ask her if I only pay for 1 month. Stamps.com have horrible customer service and it's making false advertising to lure more customers.

I did not want to pay for the free trial, I think it's unfair and unreasonable. The customer service refuse to give me a refund.

Joyce of Ridgewood, NY

I signed up for stamps.com and attempted to cancel several times and was unable to. I have called truthfully almost 20 times and have been on hold for probably in sum an hour and 20 mminutes, my longest call lasting 30 minutes. I have called at all hours of the day and have never once gotten a hold of any living, speaking human being. I have not even used any of their services, unless you're counting their toll free 1-888 number. I've emailed their customer service and have not gotten any response.

What's more is I have done a google search on their company and found others who have had the same problems. One person specifically stated she had to threaten litigation and get a cease and desist order to stop them from trying to collect money from her. What annoys me is their internet site bears the USPS symbol, stating they have approval of the USPS. Currently, I have called my credit card company in order to put a stop on any of their charges.

Anjulie of Slc, UT

We signed up for the trial period and tried to cancel. Their customer service line required us to be on hold for at least 45 minutes each time we called (three times). When I finally got through (after the trial period) they would not refund the $24.99 that they charged our account. We had NEVER used their service or used ANY stamps services ($0.00). Their resolution group refused any refund. NOT FAIR!!

Time and my $24.99

Carol of Merritt Island, FL

I want to complain about Stamps.com. I signed up for a 30 day trail free offer, on December 22, 2005. I decided not to use the service that they provide, which is printable stamps. I have been trying to cancel the membership before the trail offer is over, and I have been put on hold for over an hour. I have tried calling on four separate ocassions, and its always the same issue, being put on hold for outrageous amounts of time (30 minutes or more). I sent an email expressing my resentment in being put on hold for so long. The company emailed me back stating that I have to call in order to cancel my membership. I feel that they are purpose holding the line to discourage consumers from canceling memberships.

At first I did not know the full terms of the offer. When I learned that my credit card would be billed $24.99 monthly, I decided I do not use that many stamps, and felt that being a member with this organization would not be beneficial to my family, and self.

Susan of Bronx, NY

When looking over my bank statement, I noticed a 15.99 charge from Stamps.com. When I called to inquire about the charge I was told (after being put on hold for 35 minutes) that my account with Stamps.com had been updated to the 15.99 plan. I had agreed to a 4.99 monthly charge when I signed up in 2001 but did not at anytime agree to a 15.99 monthly charge. Stamps.Com had taken it upon themselves to decide I needed an upgrade. I have reported them to various agencies and am seeking to file a class action suit on behalf of others who were scammed. I canceled the account with Stamps.com

I have unusable sheets of unprinted stamps now that I feel I should be reimbersed for, in addition to the unauthorized bank debit.

David of Athens, TN

I wanted more information on Stamps.com (an internet postal service) so I signed up for the free 30 day trial on May 3rd. I cancelled the trial on June 3rd (Friday night)after deciding it was too difficult and time consuming to use and never did use the account at all. I received an email on June 6th thanking me for using the free trail and telling me that my account would be cancelled. On June 8th, I was billed 15.99 on my Fifth Third Debit Card for the free trial period (which I never used). I had to provide a credit card in order to try the FREE service. I was also billed again for 15.99 on June 9th for dates June 5th-June 7th.

My bank charged me a $66.00 overdraft fee for the charges from Stamps.com that I wasn't suppose to be billed. Stamps.com did not cancel my account until June 7th even though it had been cancelled on June 3rd. I am out $97.98 for a service I have NEVER used or willingly agreed to the terms. In investigating further, Stamps.com has numerous complaints filed against for billing people for services they did not use nor were aware that they were being billed.

I am out $97.98.

Tracy of Beavercreek, OH

Tried using Stamps.com as a 'free' trial, when I realized that their free offer included a monthly service fee I tried to cancel (with e-billing and such I use maybe 1 stamp a month). I went to the www.stamps.com website to cancel only to find that you have to call to cancel. After attempting on three seperate occasion and holding for longer than 20 minutes on each attempt, on the 4th attempt two months later I finally got through. After cancelling my account with Stamps.com I was sent an email that I would be receiving a closing bill for 2+ months! The last time I called I spent a total of 51 minutes on hold with Stamps.com and with two seperate people including a manager named Sarkis attempting to resolve this bill and they stated they would not reverse the charges. Be careful when Stamps.com tells you they are offering you a free trial!

Two hours of my time wasted and non-resolution of the amount owed by Stamps.com

Joseph of Irvine, CA

5/20/2005

I ordered stamps.com in 2001. I used the service one time. I've attempted calling several times and the wait time on the phone has been over 20 minutes. I'm usually working and cannot wait that long. Stamps.com does display any other way to cancel your service on their website. You will navigate for an hour with no means of cancelling service.

Stamps.com has been sending me monthly bills for over two years. I have sent customer support emails and they refuse to cancel and say I can only cancel my subscription over the phone. Finally, after several attempts my service is cancelled and now they're saying I owe them 80+ dollars. As I've said before, I haven't used one stamp since 2001.

Frank of Los Gatos, CA

5/10/2001

I was offered a trial offer with $25 in free postage by Stamps.com for 30 days no charge. Well this service is worthless, to send a stamp you have to log onto the internet every time and I used $3.85 worth of postage out of $25. I emailed them before the 30 days was up and cancelled the service and never used it after that. Well the following month I received a $15.99 bill they took the money from my checking account. I sent them an email stating the above and called their number. The number just gives you a recording to log onto their web site. I have tried to email them serval times about this and do not receive a reply.

I'm not sure how much they've taken out of my account They claim it's $15.99 a month. The rep told me it would be #4.50 month but after reading the paperwork the rep checked off some premium service at $15.99 month.

Gary of Chicago, IL

4/25/2001

I stopped my service with stamps.com back in Feb 2001 , they sent me a check for .33 for unused postage. I took the program off my computor. well when I got my bank statement Feb 25th It showed 1.99 taken from my account from stamps.com. well that was okay because I think that I stopped the service in the middle of billing period. Then March 25th came and I was charged again. I tried contacting them no response. Then today April 26th got my bank statement and it shows they are still taking 1.99 from my checking account. I asked the lady at the bank if I could stop them from doing that she said it would cost me 17.00 dollars. Also back in Dec they took out 1.99 three times, they claim they forgot to take out the months before.

the amount lost is min. but I just want them to stop billin me for something I'm not recieving.

Lori of Gettysburg, PA

2/18/2001

I keep getting messages from Stamps.com that I don't understand. When I reply, they simply send me another set of FAQ's which don't answer my specific question. I have asked to speak to a real person and cancelled my account and both requests have been ignored.

I'm trying to resolve this matter but feel I am going around in circles. I am totally disabled by Fibromyalgia and am now facing back surgery. I just can't take anymore canned email from them and expect to get this straightened out.

Susan of Ojai, CA

from resellerratings.com/store/Stamps

it DOES count into google reviews

"They have the most confused phone system and customer service department of any company I have ever dealt with."

Aug-25-2011

"shipping rates for product are outrageous.(too much) You sell postage and printing supplies. The post office gives free shipping for all supplies. I can see a nominal fee but $5 or $6 for a few sheets of paper? come on."

Aug-23-2011

"I want my $15.99 back...the "STAMP" wasn't what I thought it was. I am out of work and BROKE so please reimburse that money back (it hit my bank today 8/17/11) and drop me from your deal. "

Aug-17-2011

"Stamps.com is not a program that I will use."

Aug-04-2011

"They refuse to give refunds by deliberately placing the account on 12 month hold even though an immediate refund and cancellation were asked. I was waiting for half a year until I found out the refund process was not even completed."

Jul-29-2011

"Not happy and will cancel soon. Price said 50% off. When you get to the final screen it is 30% off. False advertising."

Jul-27-2011

"Expensive $16-35 per month even if you mail NOTHING. Don't think you only pay for postage, you pay postage AND a monthly FEE just for being a member. NOT economical for casual mailers, go directly to USPS web page and register for NO monthly fee, discounted web postage, and front door pickup etc. To cancel this expensive monthly charge you must call them, wait on hold a long time, get a sales pitch, instead of a simple cancel online. Scale stopped working after minimal use."

Jul-18-2011

"Stamps.com engages in highly deceptive advertising. I was promised $5 postage and a $25 Amazon.com gift card to "get me started" with Stamps.com. However, after I'd already registered and agreed to try Stamps.com, I was informed by the CSR that those items would not be sent until after the 30 day trial period had ended and only if I continued with Stamps.com beyond the trial period. Despite the language used to describe the promotion, those items would not be included in the "welcome package.""

Jul-15-2011

"I subscribed to Stamps.com after receiving a direct mail piece. Although it was easy to sign up and quick to get set up, I had to really search through the account information to find out what the monthly charges on the account would be. It's easy and fast to use if you do a lot of shipping and saves a ton of time by relieving you of the necessity to stand in line at the post office (especially during the holidays--ugh!), but you would have to mail A LOT to make it worth the $16.99 monthly fee. " 4 stars

Jun-04-2011

"What a rippoff - $15.99 a month, use it or not, on top of your actual postage costs. I signed up for it when I signed up to sell on Amazon.com (another ripoff as well). I don't know how I missed that monthly fee, but I just noticed a charge on my card this month and had to call and completely shutdown my account. No refunds for unused month(s) - Yeah." ResellerRatings.com TOP REVIEWER!

May-18-2011

"Do not join- they keep charging you even after you discontinue and refuse to refund"

May-05-2011

"I dont like it and dont want to continue using it ,to much set up work and password ,the stamps I was sent got printed buy mistake and are now unusable"

Apr-22-2011

"when i went to print stamps my p.c. made a surprise error. my pc printed some kind of an advertisement for HP desk jet printer all over my stamp page making it worthless. can i return this stamp page for a new one? My serial nu. is B81691. Please help me get started on this fine program. I'll will buy a new pc so this won't happen again."

Feb-17-2011

"1. I had difficulty getting off a page on your site. Perhaps the addition of a "previous page" or "cancel" would help.

2 The turn around time is too long. From the 12/12 to 12/17 with delivery on 12/21 negates the purpose of these stamps."

Dec-17-2010

"Using USPS tracking is the most pathetic and useless program I have ever seen. I find no value in providing a tracking number when 3 days AFTER the item is shipped there is STILL no information on it's location. Stamps.com Estimated Arrival Date: 12/17/2010 - 12/21/2010 in the email sent to me but yet their website shows

Estimated Arrival Date: Dec 20 - Dec 24

Ship Date: Dec 14, 2010

Tracking Link: Still Processing USPS " 4 stars

Dec-15-2010

"It rather looks like I was "snookered" on this purchase from Stamps.com. I thought that I was simply purchasing a scale (and paid for it with a credit card), but it now looks like I will have reoccurring charges of which I was unaware. The scale was delivered on time and as stated, but the "strings" attached apparently make this a very bad purchase; only time will tell."

Dec-15-2010

and the response to this by a stamps.com rep

“Hello, I am sorry for any confusion that our offer may have caused you. To clarify, there are two ways to obtain the scale we offer:

1) The scale can be purchased outright from our supplies store. It is available for $50 and comes with free basic S&H.

2) If you sign up for a monthly subscription to Stamps.com's PC Postage service, you can have the scale sent to you for the price of S&H. The monthly subscription is $15.99.

If you choose to cancel the service within the first four weeks, you will not be billed for the monthly subscription fee and the scale is yours to keep.

Thanks! Chuck Stamps.com”

Dec-15-2010

"I was very disappointed in this order. It was for a "free" welcome gift for signing up for the USPS online package shipping program. I was not notified until a day after I agreed to the order that there is a $9.99 shipping charge. I tried to cancel but because the notification came on Sunday, there was no one at the 888 tel number. By the time I could reach someone, it was too late. There need to be more information about the actual cost of the "gift" so people can make an informed decision."

Dec-14-2010

and the response to this by a stamps.com rep

“Betty74, I am sorry to hear about your frustrations with Stamps.com. The $9.99 charge that you mentioned is only charged to customers who choose to redeem our free scale offer. We message the S&H charge both on our homepage (where we say "Pay only S&H") and on the checkout page where you can select this as an optional purchase (on this page we list that exact dollar amount that will be charged). In addition, we send an order confirmation as soon as the transaction is complete. Again, I would like to apologize if any of our messaging was misleading to you. If possible, please email me at social(at)stamps.com so I can have someone investigate the charges made to your account.

Thanks! Chuck Stamps.com”

Dec-14-2010

"P.O.'d w/ this service. i cancelled the service in July 2010 w/ a rep. named Travis. I do not use the service in the summer. Instead of cancellation going thru, on his end he decided my account needed to stay active.I did not know this, no email to tell me account was active. My credit card was charged on 10/16/2010. I called billing on 10/18/2010,I was told by a man named Jackson that billing charges are for previous months of service. I stated this was BS,I am being charged for a service I cancelled in July.So I am out the money charged to my account and there is no refunds. Still mad about crap service, I would expect this from the likes of Best Buy. BWCA44"

Oct-18-2010

and the response to this by a stamps.com rep

“Hello, I am sorry to hear about your customer experience with Stamps.com. If possible, could you please email me at social(at)stamps.com so I can investigate this for you?

Thanks! Chuck Stamps.com”

Oct-18-2010

"I was called this morning and asked if I wanted to buy the promo. I did and later when I tried to download it, I couldn't get it. I have a Mac and it will NOT work on a Mac. She didn't ask what computer I have. I cancelled but it was too late to stop the scale so now I am out the shipping charge and will have a scale I can't use. Tech said I have to buy software. I am very upset that I was not told this upfront. You should send me a cd with the software that I need. I was really looking forward to using Stamps.com. This was not a good experience. I am very surprised you don't have this for Mac users."

Sep-14-2010

and the response to this by a stamps.com rep

“Hello, I am sorry to hear about your frustration with Stamps.com. If possible, can you please email me so I can investigate this issue for you and look into what we can do about the shipping charge?

I can be reached at social(at)stamps.com

Thanks! Chuck Stamps.com”

Sep-15-2010

"I ordered the package site unseen. Once I found out how much the monthly was I cancelled. (you only find prices after ordering) However, my order could not be stopped even though it had not shipped. You need better internal communication. I will refuse order upon arrival and not pay for shipping."

Sep-14-2010

"The stamps.com software and service is excellent. I have also used the alternatives and stamps.com is significantly better. HOWEVER, the customer service is not good. There are good people there but it is consistently bad which usually means it organizational and cultural. The drive to the post office is much more stress free than the prospect of any discussion with their customer service...."

Jul-23-2010

and the response to this by a stamps.com rep

“I am sorry to hear about your experience with Stamps.com's customer service. Is there anything I can do to assist you? If so, please email me at social(at)stamps.com. Thanks!”

Jul-23-2010

"I am unhappy with my service thus far. My stamps were set to be delivered between June 11th and June 15th. it is now June 20th and they still have not arrived. I need these for my wedding invitations, and will now have to use the plain post office stamps :("

Jun-20-2010

"I'm not really to sure how I am going to save money by use this product. I have been trying to find out how it can show the saving. I now it is going to convenent, but how is it saving me money. As much as I can see so far, the stamps cost the same as the post office, here you have to puchase the labels if you want to do it that way. Or you can just print it onto the envelopes, but that still cost ink. Are we getting a discount on the stamps that we produce or what? I wish I could find the answers to that question. I have already looked at the FAQ's and nothing. Can some help me clear this up." 4 stars

Jun-17-2010

"I wanted to print stamps online but non of the serch engines offered were non that I had. I also couldn't find them to download and I have a windows 7.now its june 23, I had to cancel because they charged me for two accounts a charge I was not aware of s&h 2 times for 9.99 ea"

and the response to this by a stamps.com rep

“Bear55, I am sorry to hear about your frustration using Stamps.com. Unfortunately, I cannot quite determine the problem that you encountered based on your comments. Are you having trouble downloading our software? If so, you can find it at www.stamps.com/download Does this help? If you would like additional assistance, please feel free to contact me at social(at) stamps.com so I can provide additional support. Thanks!

Chuck Stamps.com”

Jun-23-2010

"I was scammed. I was told the order was free an that they only needed my credit card info to charge me if I went past the free trial period. But they charged my credit $10 shipping and handling for the "Free" order. Looks like they needed my credit card info for something else!" 5 stars

Apr-15-2010

"I am completely sorry that I ever signed up with Stamps.com.

I couldn't find what I wanted on the website, was required to register AND give credit card information without requesting to purchase anything (just part of registration) and then still couldn't find what I was looking for, which was what should have been a straightforward transaction- purchasing postage for a flat rate box.

In addition, as soon as my registration was complete, the website went directly to an advertisement which was deceptively designed, so that if you clicked to get off the advertisement, you were automatically allowing a expense to be added to your credit card (Stamps.com had already taken the credit card information for no good reason). I also keep getting a million emails because "you signed up" (to receive these notices), which I never would have done, so either the website was again deceptively designed or one is automatically added to the email list. I keep getting emails that say they are now sending me something that I "ordered", which, again, I did not do. Am VERY sorry I ever went to this website. I want out!!"

Mar-25-2010

"I'm not able to print postage. I called and got a partial credit. Then they charged my visa again and said I am being charged for a subscription and not a service. Why would anyone pay $9.99 a month for a subscription to nothing? Finally they said they would close my account but would not refund my money. "

Nov-03-2009

"I opened an account with Stamps.com thinking it would be extremely convenient. Unfortunately, I supplied a 15-character username, and the software only allows you to type in fourteen. So, I never got to even try my account. Their support personnel was not helpful at all, so the issue went unresolved until finally I was able to cancel my account... or at least I thought. After my "free trial period" was up, I was charged $17.99. So, I called to cancel my account (again). After jumping through hoops for 30 minutes (listening to the advantages of an account I couldn't log into if I wanted), I was told my account was really cancelled this time. Oh, and I get charged a cancellation fee as a bonus. HORRIBLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

"Terrible company. Stay away from these crooks.They still owe me about $30.00 for a label that failed to print. Don't say I didn't warn you."

"I've been on hold for 40+ minutes to cancel my account. This is a nightmare!!"

"Internet postage is a wonderful and convenient thing, but Stamps.com gives it a notorious name.

"Signed up for free trial. Service is OK. You have to call a phone number to cancel, you are put on hold for 30 minutes, and then they have the balls to try to just extend your trial instead of actually cancelling."

"Scam company; I signed up for a free trial because they promised $25 amazon gift card - only to discover that after putting my cc information and signing up, the gift card is delivered only after the free trial expires ( no mention about that on the promotional material ). no automatic account cancellation - you have to call 1800 number that re-routes to you to Indian speaking cs. terrible, stay away!"

"I inadvertently and foolishly signed up for a stamps.com trial as part of something else I was signing up for on-line. I then cancelled. Later, I discovered I was still being billed and called again to cancel. I was told they could cancel me, but would still charge me for yet anothe month for their service, even though I've never used it."

Aug-10-2006 first entry on this site

Not Worth My Time, I signed up with a trial, and I'm glad I did... after really looking into the site, it's nothing that I would use on a daily basis (or pay a large service fee for every month).

I've been trying at various times throughout the last two weeks to cancel my membership with stamps.com... and their site always seems to be 'experiencing difficulties'. And there is NO phone number to call... or one that I can find. I ended up sending a customer email to let them know that I would like to disengage myself from their site - we'll see if that works?

Sep 18, 2009 http://www.trustpilot.co.uk/review/www.stamps.com#402420