Pitney Bowes Duped into long-term contract, horrible "customer service", ridiculous "insurance"; STAY FAR AWAY!! Toronto, Internet
The worst transaction I have had to endured [I'm 41, no spring chicken, with >25 years office experience], hands down. 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.
2 Updates & Rebuttals
Mulligan
Disneyland,Florida,
to the defender of Pitney Bowes
#3Consumer Comment
Tue, November 12, 2013
Chris -
Postage stamps are currency? Try using them at the grocery store, or even selling them back to the postoffice.
But assuming it is literally true, what's the difference if you're leasing or owning when it comes to the ability to counterfiet? It makes no sense.
Who doesn't charge late fees when paid late? Like every "net 30" trade account I've ever done business with. Even if they claim to, they rarely try to enforce it. But that's irrelevant too, because Pitney Bowes charges you for things that you didn't order, and then assesses late charges on the bogus charges, etc, etc.
Sign a lease without reading it? Well of course we shouldn't, but honest business people really don't expect to be lied too or otherwise deliberately mislead either. That's the point of this blog. Perhaps it isn't a strict "legal" test, but it should tell us whom we should avoid dealing with.
Your defense of Pitney Bowes totally misses the point. I sympathize entirely with the original complaint and have had a very similar experience. Their business model is obviously the same as a loan shark's and not a legitimate service provider.
Chris @ ZENO
United States of AmericaYou signed
#3UPDATE EX-employee responds
Tue, January 22, 2013
A couple of comments:
1. YOu signed the agreement without reading the details or calling a rep to come in and see you
2. IT was for the smallest piece of equipment PB makes. 99% of the time sold by an INSIDE sales rep
3. ValueMax insurance is optional, and just like every other piece of office equipment someone has to cover it in the event of fire, flood etc. Valuemax repalce the hardware where your insurance pays off the lease and you ahve to then start a new agreement. After 911 when those companies re-pen, PB delivered new equipment under valuemax and the lease, which was suspended, started up again from that date forward.
go out and lease any hardware and you will either have to list in on your insurance or the leasing company will bill you for insurance.
4. Can't own a meter, why? Because a postage stamps, meter indicia, etc. is CURRENCY. If you owned it what would stop you from printing your own stamps ie. money. Ask the guys at American Presort what happens if you think you OWN the Meter. 15 years in prision for fraud for those guys.
5. You looked at the cost from another vendor, did you realize your lease includes filling the meter with postage, rate changes, software updates, scale updates, at no addtional costs. Those other vendors charge addtional fess for all of those services.
6. The machine, agiant he samllest from PB, has a scale, an inkjet printer, and hundreads of postal rate options, message printing, Electronic mailing services, etc. Does a lot more than your desktop printer can.
7. Name an institution that does not charge you if you pay late?
I'll be the first one to tell, X-PB with 15 years at PB, you that equipment & customer service at PB is sub-par, but in this case you should ahve taken the time to do the right thing for your business and have read the agreement before signing it. WHO SIGNS AN AGREEMENT WITHOUT READING IT. "the print was to small and I coudl no make of the text" REALLY. All the more reason to request a live person visit your office. I HOPE THE BOSS DID NOT SEE your posting. I would let you go after realixing you entered into an agreement without doing your job first. As you said "I stupidly signed the document". Live and let learn dear.
p.s. Do you call DirectTV and demand they lower your price becuase they are running a special program for new customers?