Cranky Customer

I as well have the famous Pitney Bowes machine in my office. One day before tax season it started malfunctioning and leaking ink. We called to have someone come and fix it to find out that even though we were paying big bucks for the machine, we did not have a maintenance agreement on it so therefore we were screwed out of help unless we paid for it. Well we didn't have the money to do that at the time so we just decided to pack it up, pay the lease and never use it again.

So one day when we were cleaning and preparing for the coming season I had a Pitney Bowes Rep come in the office. We talked, I told her how unhappy I was with it and why, she gave me her card with the promise of a call. Well time just flew by and I realized that she never called or anything so I sent her an email telling her how disappointed I was in her and her company. So we put it away stored in the closet and figured when the time comes we will just send it back. Well we started getting a call from them threatening to shut off our supply. WE had to laugh, we informed the girl that that would be ok with us since we dont even use it and we use regular stamps. Which may I say is WORTH the trip to the post office. We have currently decided that we are NEVER going back to them again.

We too had a bad experience with Pitney Bowes about 4 years ago. Our lease was up and they wanted me to lease some expensive machine to handle 500 pieces of mail a month. It took them forever to pick up our PB meter when the lease ran out. I shopped around and went with Ascom-Hasler who had a smaller, less expensive machine that would fit our needs perfectly. I never have to take the meter in to be inspected. Each year Ascom-Hasler mails me a form to fill out and return. However, I'm thinking when our Ascom lease is up, I might just go with self-stick stamps. Thirty minutes of my time each week is much cheaper than the price I'm paying for the postage meter.

You can't get Pitney Bowes to call you. I have the opposite problem. Their telemarketers have been annoying me incessantly for over a year. I've demanded repeatedly that they never call me again. The calls stop for a week or two and then start up again. If I'd known that there was anyone who WANTED to hear from them by phone, I would happily have given them your number.

At my new job, the firm has a PitneyBowes machine called a "Documatch." While it is a very nice machine for printing and stuffing envelopes, myself and my supervisor, ie the IT staff, are at a loss to do much with the beast because there are no manuals or instructions. (For one thing, it prints blank envelopes for Canadian addresses because it doesn't recognize the Canadian postal codes.) So far as I can determine, the manuals were separated from the machine on delivery by the PB people and were never seen again.

Our PB rep, who I met when I started this position a month ago, personally guaranteed me a manual. We haven't seen hide nor hair of him since.

Meanwhile, we discovered on the 'net a program called DAZzle from Endicia, which lets us print our own labels and e-postage. Does everything the PB postage meter does for us and more, except possibly for sealing the envelope. PB may not realize how thin the ice is right now... of course, if their rep never shows up again, they never will...

I've had a bad experience with Pitney Bowes myself. About 4 years ago, I had a fairly thriving eBay business and wanted something to reduce the trips to the post office and PB had a special offer so I thought why not. I got a small meter, a 5lb scale, 20 dollars in free postage and it was like 20 bucks a month for 3 months. I loved it!

But a couple weeks after I get it, I get a bill in the mail for 60 dollars. HUH? I called them up, oh well evidently they wanted me to pay for the first 3 months now and then after that it'd go up to their regular rate. I couldn't afford 60 bucks. So I told them I wanted to cancel my service, oh how they started quite a sales pitch to get me to stay with them and I refused to give in to it and demanded they cancel my service. Finally they relented. I still had the original box that all that junk came in. So I packed it all up, mailed it back, with the bill with CANCELLED written over the top of it. Kept a photocopy for myself for records. Sent it back certified so I would know for sure they got it. They did. A couple weeks later.... Another bill for 60 dollars.

I called them, told them I had proof I'd sent their equipment back, that I had cancelled and they had no business billing me. They apologized for the trouble and I thought it was over. Nope. About a week later I started getting phone calls. It took some time for them to finally get a clue and back off.

Then a couple years ago I decided to go with stamps.com and used their servie for almost 2 years before I had to cancel it because I was tight on money and couldn't afford it even though I absolutely loved it. And they were great about it, they did give a small sales pitch but did take no for an answer and while they did charge me that final month's fee, they did cancel my service and never hassled me again. When I can afford it again, I'm definately going to go back to stamps.com.

I tried to get a Pitney Bowes machine for my tax practice and ordered the 3 months free with one year lease option. I got an insert with a flag on it for my imprint and NOTHING else. Yep, no machine. But that didn't stop them from billing me for it each quarter including the 3 months "free" period.

I kept calling them for a while because I had hopes that somehow they would eventually deliver the machine to my home, but no luck. Finally I tried to cancel the service which I had not been provided, but that didn't happen either. I finally got someone to realize that I did not have nor did I ever have a Pitney Bowes postage machine and that they had $50 of my money inside the machine wherever it was. I eventually got my $50 refunded by Pitney Bowes but they were very rude about it, demanding that if I should ever "find" the machine that I had to return it to them. They continued to bill me for its rent for a couple of years until I called management and the sales rep repeatedly. It took two and half years for them to stop billing me for a machine I never had and a service I never received.

To make matters worse, Pitney Bowes bought my commercial printer in Texas, The Drawing Board. I loved doing business with that company until PB screwed it up. They somehow set up two accounts for me under my home phone number and my job phone number. They continued to post payments to one phone number when the money was owed on the other. I would get refunds of overpayments and dunning notices in the same mail. I could not get them to combine the two accounts and finally had to stop doing business with The Drawing Board.

Thank goodness and USPS for the new Automated Postal Centers where I don't have to wait in line to ship my tax returns and organizers. And I make my own stationery on the computer. Pitney Bowes is the pits.

I can explain the rotten service that Pitney Bowes offers.

Years ago I had a machine and in desperation at the impossible wait time for service, took the machine to the Toronto office for repairs. In the office they had one of those in/out boards for all the staff, they listed 7 sales reps and one technician.

I am new to Pitney Bowes after getting a deal in the mail. I've had a terrible experience with them so far. My business is supposed to use the bulk mail service from USPS. First, I received the wrong meter, but that was okay since we did not really know which machine we wanted and so we understood the confusion.

Then we made the correction and they sent the correct machine. But we had to pay an extra $59 for them to add an 'inscription' that would say 'PRSRT MAIL'. This change is downloadable but would still take 5-7 business days they said! The reps you talk to are quite frankly the rudest reps in the market, you get the feeling you are dealing with a 3rd world company (I have this experience). So after a week, we download the update and it says 'NON-PROFIT'. It's now been more than three weeks, I have mail piled sky high and to correct the order, I now have to wait for another 3 days. O, how i wish I knew what I was getting into.

I just started working at Christopher and Banks, a clothing chain, and today we got a call from Pitney Bowes. I'm only 27 so I don't have a heck of a lot of experience in retail, but I do have enough to know that for something like a postage meter you have to go higher up than the store manager. One of my co-workers took that call and when she told me who was on the phone, trying to pitch something, I mentioned your experience to her.

Sounds like Pitney Bowes is a victim of stuffed corporate suits who are out of touch with reality. I've found many corporations and companies are plagued by that.

I also had unbelievably bad service from pitney bowes. It is a long and sad story. When I mentioned it to someone who owned a mailing service he said none of the direct mailing companies would ever use the junky mail machines from that disfunctional PB company. So PB foists their clunky junk onto small businesses. I'll never do business with them again and I tell everyone I know to avoid them too.

Oh, I almost forgot to mention: years ago PB was selling copier paper. Their "reams" only had 400 sheets instead of 500. They basically shorted you 20%. They charged the same as the guys selling an honest 500 sheet ream. Finally got busted for it because the word ream means 500 sheets I guess. Anyway, the customers got reamed you could say.