So maybe you have seen ads or been sent emails about Stamps.com and their “free trial” to use their program. And honestly, I signed up for the “free scale”. What made me decide that it was a worthy investment was the following calculations. You get one free month of service, a free scale, and $20 in postage.
Now in order to get these “freebies” you basically have to keep the service for at least two months beyond the trial. You get the scale and the first $10 in postage after you have renewed beyond the trial period, and the second $10 credit of postage after your second monthly renewal.
Well, at first glance, that appears that I can get $20 in free postage and a free scale for spending $31.98. To me, that translated into $11.98 for a scale that I would have to pay twice as much for elsewhere…so yes, I said, it appears to be a good deal. I was wrong.
The first problem arose when I did not get credited for my second set of $10 postage until well into my third month of service. At that point, I eventually had to email support and ask for my credit! And before you ask, yes, I sent the card in on time with all the information so that it SHOULD have been processed before that third period came around. So that added another $15.99 to my bill. Now, I am at $47.97 for $20 in postage and a scale. So now I have paid $27.97 for this scale that I had originally based my “good deal” assessment on.
Well, I also ended up purchasing $10.00 in postage and $7.06 in NetStamps to print the postage on. OK, well, I am not even going to count that in my down fall because I did receive something (postage & the NetStamps) to print on. However, don’t be fooled that the $15.99 monthly fee is the only charge you will incur when using this program. You still have to purchase special stamps to print on if you aren’t printing directly to the envelope or postcard being mailed.
Of course, my biggest qualm with this whole “free trial” experience was that when I finally called to cancel, I was told I would be charged $15.99 one more time since it was the middle of the billing cycle. And at first I was OK with this because it does state in the service agreement you will be charged a final charge for the month you are in. The thing that got me was the customer service rep stating that the $15.99 was going to be charged because Stamps.com charges in arrears. OK, hold up, there is the problem. No, they don’t. Or if they do, then I got charged for the “free trial period.” Let me put it out here like this.
I signed up on May 17th, 2007. Therefore my “free trial period” ran from May 17th-June 18th. I was then charged on June 19th for $15.99. That is fine if the charge was for the coming month. But if Stamps.com indeed charges in arrears, then that charge was for my “free trial period.”
I was charged $15.99 again on July 19th, August 20th, and then today, on September 6th as I closed out my service. Therefore, I used the service for May-June, June-July, July-August, and August-September partially. That is 3.5 billing periods. I was charged for four billing periods.
Where is my free trial? It apparently didn’t exist. And when I explained this to the customer service rep, she agreed with me but “that is the way Stamps.com does it. And yet and still, that last charge would be billed and it was already on my account before I even hung up the phone. Then she tried to get me to lessen my service and call back and cancel later. I know this is her job, but I had already explained to her that Stamps.com had scammed me out of a free trial period, so why in the world would I keep the service even one more day?
So consumer beware. It’s all in the wording they give you. Stamps.com’s “free trial” is NOT free if you keep the service to get the “freebies” you signed up for. I can assure you that after I ended up spending $81.02 with Stamps.com, it didn’t save me any gas money that I would have used in driving to the Post Office. And all I have to show for it is a $20.00 postage scale and a lesson well learned.
