Why am I paying to do all the work?!
Written: Apr 01 '05 (Updated Apr 05 '05)
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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.
Company Information
Address: 12959 Coral Tree Place; Los Angeles, CA 90066-7020
Website: www.stamps.com
Phone: 1-888-434-0055, Mon-Fri 6AM-6PM (PST)
Payment: Visa, MasterCard, American Express, Discover, Diner's Club.
The address your credit card has on file for you must match what you give stamps.com.
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