Help me say goodbye to Pitney Bowes.

July 3, 2008 12:03 PM

Is there an alternative to Pitney Bowes? My office uses Pitney Bowes for mailings and I CAN'T STAND THEM. They have the worst customer service, a horribly rigid billing service and the most aggressive fees and finance charge racket of any vendor I've ever worked with in my life. Nobody I talk to knows of any resonable alternatives. Is there something out there that will save me from the misery of working with those SOBs?
posted by odragul to technology (9 comments total)

There's one other one that I can think of: Neopost. I think they are just as bad though. My last employer switched to Pitney Bowes from Neopost for doing the exact same things you are describing. Last I heard before I left, Neopost was continuously sending invoices for a crazy high cancellation fee. It was more than what it would be to finish the lease. The Lawyers had to be summoned.
posted by low affect at 12:12 PM on July 3

stamps.com?
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 12:12 PM on July 3 [1 favorite]

We use Hasler. No problems, but YMMV.
posted by jayder at 12:25 PM on July 3

I believe there are only a handful of companies licensed by the USPS for postage meters.

• Data-Pac Mailing Systems Corp.
  
• FP Mailing Solutions
  
• Hasler, Inc.
  
• Neopost
  
• Pitney Bowes Inc.
  

Take a look here:

http://www.usps.com/postagesolutions/post_mtr.htm

I used to work credit/collections for Hasler. They are all pretty bad in terms of customer relations from what I have heard.
posted by rathikd at 12:27 PM on July 3

You haven't really explained what kind of mailings you're doing.

We used Pitney Bowes several years ago, and while we didn't have any real problems, the consumables were getting to be a real issue. Fortunately there was no problem cancelling. I gladly went back to stamps as I didn't see them being a big deal.

Now I ship exclusively US Post Office priority mail and the online system seems to have really matured. No problems here.
posted by tinkertown at 12:28 PM on July 3

I probably wasn't clear on US Post Office online ordering... the link is here.
posted by tinkertown at 12:33 PM on July 3

NeoPost is a good choice, otherwise Endicia is also great but they're more geared to those shipping packages rather than letters (also, you buy postage in advance so I'm not sure how efficient that would be for your business).
posted by cgomez at 2:27 PM on July 3

Endicia with a Dymo label printer.
posted by arimathea at 9:03 AM on July 4

2nd Endicia / Dymo combo. I set that up for my former employer after comparison shopping a bunch of options (including Pitney Bowes) and we were very happy with it.
posted by Jacqueline at 12:57 AM on July 5