Few companies offer less value than Pitney Bowes. We’re renting what is essentially a glorified ink printer for $90 a quarter. It costs us roughly $200 a year in ink. Each time we refill the postage, it costs $6.99 for the privilege of using a credit card and $7.99 for the new postage to be “applied” to the meter, or essentially $15 a refill. So we’re paying over $500 a year, just for the postage meter. Why? More sinister, you pay interest on your available postage balance, currently 22% APR. In other words, they extend you postage ‘credit’ and you pay it at the end of the month.
I’m about to give DYMO a go. The printing device is bought outright and is yours forever. It doesn’t need ink. (It does need vendor specific labels, though they can be found on Ebay too.) It attaches to a PC or a Mac and can be shared out over the network, allowing it to be virtually standalone. I’d prefer a truly standalone system, but not for the $500 a year Pitney Bowes charges. I have a PC system running all the time anyway.
I considered stamps.com, but I’d rather skip monthly fees and we already have enough office contention for the existing laser printer already.
Everyone with PB is enrolled in Purchase Power by default.
What is the difference between prepaid balance and Purchase Power?
The prepaid balance at Postage by Phone® is like a savings account. You deposit money into this account (by sending a check, wire, or ACH) and it stays available on your account until you download it to the postage meter.
Purchase Power allows you to be billed for your postage. You can download money into the meter and be billed at the end of the month. Just like a credit card, however, there are fees for using this revolving line of credit.
Update, November 25th. I spoke with PB and, since I was going to nuke my account, was offered a relatively good deal. They cut the monthly rental in half. They gave me a months credit. I un-enrolled from Purchase Power, which apparently covered the meter rental, too, so it is now merely a regular quarterly bill. Postage is now paid via credit card, instead, which is actually sensible. I also found authentic PB ink for the 700E meter on, of all places, overstock.com for 50% of the PB cost.
Good enough, for now. The time to recoup the cost of a Dymo is now high enough that I don’t feel like messing with the whole office postage system right now. Might reevaluate the situation next year, though.
Update, December 9th, 2009. Finally nuked Pitney Bowes. Using the Dymo now. Ended up buying the Twin Turbo for only $150 from buy dot com, which was a great deal. So far, it’s been a great experience.
When I called to cancel, the customer retention tool at PB offered to rent us the meter for a mere $5 a month for the next year. I told him unless they cut us a cheque for $500, we’re walking. He continued to extol the virtues of a PB postage meter. Finally, he agreed to close our account. Sending the meter back via UPS prepaid today.
Good riddance.
Update, April 6th, 2010. So after getting collections threats from Pitney Bowes, we finally paid them money we did not owe them. Naturally, for the past three months we’ve been getting statements indicating exactly what we already knew — we didn’t owe them any more money! So now we have a statement credit!
I had to call to get them to send us the money they threatened us over that we never owed them to recover it. To their credit, they didn’t dispute it — the accounting system says so, so it must be true — and they agreed to send us a cheque, no questions asked.
What a fucked company Pitney Bowes is.