Stay away from this dishonest company. Prior to lease renewal they called to tell me the lease rates were going down. I got a summary of charges, which were close to what we had agreed to. A month later they call to tell me I am past due. It turns out they changed my mailing address and did not send me an invoice. I asked for a fax so that I could pay right away and suddenly the payable is three times the amount, past due interest @ 24%, service charge, admin. charges and something called ValueMax. This is apparently some kind of service plan, it is actually a scam.
when I asked to cancel the contract I was told I had to pay out a 60 month contract. I am so annoyed with this kind of dishonesty I am willing to pay just to get away from these scum bags. Guess what? They can't tell me the pay out until I fork over a $50.00 service charge. This is a very dishonest company, do not be fooled by them.

The worst transaction I have had to endure in over 25 years of office experience. A simple postage meter. $20/month rental for one year and I'll be spared that occasional trip to the post office. Sounds like a great deal, right? WRONG. WRONG. WRONG.

The only straight shooting Pitney Bowes does is in their loss-leading initial rental offer: $20/month for 12 months. Month 13 and 14 came along and the price more than doubled. It's a small amount to begin with, so it escaped my attention. I then receive a hand-written fax from a sales rep. In very informal language [like I know her or something] she informs me it is time to renew my lease [lease? what lease? renew?] and instructs me to simply sign by the little x's and fax it right back to her -- and oh! I get a $5/month discount! [Lucky me!] There are multiple pages of 6-point illegible font with little circled x's at the front. I stupidly sign when the document is presented to me in my usual fat pile without much scrutiny [guess I just don't deal with enough companies who use 'techniques' to get business as opposed to providing good value and service].

A few weeks later, I realize I am now paying $39 for the same machine I was previously paying $20 for, so I investigate. Lo & behold, I have signed a contract for 60 months!! It is still very recent, so I call back my sales rep, [she's my friend after all]. Hmmmm, not so much.

At this point, I am motivated to check out the competition. The equivalent machine under a 60-month contract would cost me $15/month.

After multiple squeaky phone calls, I spoke to a woman in customer retention who reminded me of my kindergarten teacher. The end result after consuming 3-4 hours of my time [I had to throw numerous tantrums over several weeks] was a reduction of this lease to 12 months. Yay! A reduced sentence!

But my FAVOURITE is the valu-whatever-it-is [forced] insurance plan. I can escape the $7 adder to provide replacement/repair protection for this miraculous piece of equipment IF I ADD PITNEY BOWES AS A LOSS PAYEE ON MY INSURANCE. SERIOUSLY?? This irritation caused me to investigate the replacement value of the machine. $1800. This basic machine is perhaps the least sophisticated of office equipment, a notch above the adding machine. [For some bizarre reason, you cannot buy a postage meter outright.]

And today the final insult that propelled me to sing it out from the mountain tops, a bill with a due date of January 1 that arrived in my mailbox January 11. It says I will be charged a $12 fee (13% of the amount owing) if it is not paid on time. THE WRITING IS ON THE WALL! [Lessee, safe to say 13% x 12 months = 156%/anum = usury, don't they call it?]. Oh yeah, and 2% per month on top of that.

Pitney Bowes is a very familiar name in postage meters. I was impressed, albeit irritated, by the sheer craftiness used in sticking their customers to long-term contracts with forced and quite unnecessary insurance coverage. There are other options. Stay far away, especially if you are a small business or charitable organization.

I have been receiving multiple Pitney Bowes flyers via US Mail every week for almost two years. Upon receipt of the first flyer, I called PB and asked that the organization be removed from their mailing list as we have no use for their services. I was assured it would be.
Over twenty-five phone calls and two years later, guess what- I'm still getting the flyers! I wish I could file a harassment lawsuit. What a waste of my time. And what a waste of paper and money on their part. Even if I might need their products in the future, after this, I would not even consider using this company.

I am writing this complaint in regard to my postage by phone account with Pitney Bowes. Below is their address.

Pitney Bowes
2225 American Dr
Neenah, WI 54956

I cancelled my account back in Feb. 2006. When I contacted Pitney Bowes over the phone I told the customer service representative specifically that I needed to cancel the account, which they agreed. Later on they sent me an invoice asking me to pay $50 for them to pick up the postage meter. There was nothing on the original lease about a pick up fee so I called them again. They told me that this is their company's policy and if I don't pay the pick up fee they can't process my cancellation. I had a credit of over $300 on the account so in order to get the credit back I paid the fees. Since they are a big name in the postal industry I assumed that they would credit me back the remaining balance after my return was processed. But I was wrong. On June 11th, 2007, 1 year and 4 month later, I received a statement from Pitney Bowes. It shows on the statement that I have a remaining balance of $315.49 on my account. Also they charged me an account maintenance fee of $50 for a CANCELLED account! Feeling furious I contacted the customer support and spoke to Josh. He said altough my account was cancelled they did not know whether I would need a new meter in the future or not so they kept the money in the account. I said I never asked for a new meter how could they make such an assumption. He said people do this all the time so to save trouble they kept my money! And since there is money in my account it is considered active and a maintenance fee is charged. I then asked him how I can get my money back. He said I have to submit a separate refund request by fax or mail. He later send me a link to the request by email, but he did not refund me the account maintenance fee.

I can not believe that I have to send a separate refund request to get my money back. If you cancel a credit card or return a merchandise to a store, do you ever need to send a separate refund request? The equipment return fee is even more absurd. I need my money back including the account maintenance fee of $50. And I urge everybody who wants a postage meter to consider other alternatives.

Kaibo Hu
Playcom, Inc
Orlando, FL 32804