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Pitney Bowes

Pitney Bowes review: Rudeness, over charging! 13

L
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12:00 am EST
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They are the very worst, by far, company i have ever had the misfortune to deal with - they are rude, don't respond to anything, overcharge you, it would be easier to name anything they did right. When we moved office, they managed to set up two accounts for us (even though we had returned their machine and bought one of our own) and we almost got taken to court as they just would not believe that we did not have two accounts. It took 5 months to get them to send an updated rate card for the machine. The latest is that they have raised the cost of resetting the meter from £6.52 to £14.88 - no warning,so if you only put in £30-40 of postage, you are paying almost half of that in charges. Total and utter exploitation of their monopoly. I know of no other company that imposes such huge increases without even the courtesy of a letter to inform you in advance.

No one at the company ever takes responsibility for sorting anything out. In the last two years I have probably sent around 50 letters faxes and numerous calls - none have ever been answered. I even wrote to their MD and he didn't do anything either. They are the only company I deal with that seriously raises my blood pressure and leaves me fit to kill. I get so frustrated by them - they have a total monopoly on the ink and postage resetting and they are exploiting small companies who were misled hugely by PB and Royal Mail into thinking that franking machines would help their business. We are rural, miles from a post office, so we got it for convenience but the amount of admin time spent sorting out invoices and other service issues almost outweighs any benefit. I wish I could charge them £25 a letter like the banks for every letter I have had to write to them.

The staff at the call centers just don't care - I have never known worse call center staff - they just take notes but nothing ever happens, they never ever reply - or do anything. Even when you get a named person to send things to it makes not the slightest difference, might as well be talking to one of my donkeys (they at least reply).

The only company whose incompetence matches PB is BT Broadband, but at least they don't have a monopoly. Unless you are happy to throw away the equipment and start again with Neopost, you still have to deal with PB to get the meters reset. When the deal with Neopost/Royal Mail/Pitney Bowes was set up they were duty bound to act fairly, reasonably etc. They have certainly not done that.

Anyone who can avoid this company like the plague, they could endanger your health.

13 comments
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Jennifer Newell
, US
Jul 20, 2017 3:33 am EDT

having terrible problems with Pitney Bowes. never used them before and only been with them 1 month. can take ages to get through on the phone and when I finally do I get greeted with rude uncaring staff. they keep saying we haven't paid them when we have, we keep sending them proof of payment again and again. and they have messed up our invoices. I email the customer care and remittances but get no replies at all. it just pisses me off so much when companies get away with this sort of [censor]. it shouldn't be allowed. they're causing me and my busy colleagues massive headaches and grief over their sheer incompetence and we have more important things we need to do than sort out Pitney Bowes mess.

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billybhogal
, GB
Apr 25, 2016 5:19 am EDT

Pitney Bowes has been probably the worst company l have ever dealt with. On going issue about trying to top the machine as they say payments have not been received, which they have as they were paid by bacs. Last five times l have phoned them to lift restrictions so i could top up. each called lasted 30 mins at 5p per minutes. Call centres abroad, they have no idea can hardly speak English.
i would sack them all. You can not speak to any one in U.K.
.Wonder when this will get ressolved..

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MigRebel
Newmarket, CA
Jun 02, 2015 1:53 pm EDT

LIARS & FRAUDS & CHEATS, unfortunately they will only stop when they destroy and bankrupt enough people and nations they there is nothing left for them to STEAL ! How can any government (USA) believe that by allowing such blatantly dishonest corporations to be good for their economy?! We are in Canada and dealing with the same Pitney Bowes problems here as well...see my story below.
NO CONTRACT, and NOBODY is capable of resolving anything, and it's just a huge waste of time...even despite the fact Pitney has no legal claim to pursue...luckily, they made a huge blunder and sent me a refund for $252 by mistake. So, now they are willing to talk because they want it back.

PBowes phone offer for postage machine, got machine, discovered upon set up it did not do what was promised. Called to return machine same day.
Found out after the fact that Pitney Bowes used 3rd party for initial sales call. Asked for recorded conversation, but never got it. Told them same day postage machine was set up that it did not do what was promised. Complained many times in writing, but never got a written reply. They finally came to get machine much later which was still in box from day 1. Called customer service, and they agreed to cancel account and waive all charges. Never got any sort of contract anyway. They later reneged about cancelling the service, and continue to say we owe 1 year...never seen any agreement or contract to date. Never get any reply to my e-mails. No physical address, only PO BOX 280, Orangeville. No longer have the postage machine and they keep threaten with collections for a product that was falsely promoted.

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Wilco Jansen
, NL
Apr 22, 2015 7:55 am EDT
Verified customer This comment was posted by a verified customer. Learn more

Pitney Bowes overcharge heavely on Ebay sales, the do not only charge for customs and tax but also a lot for handling. Second problem with them is, they do not specify tax and customs, so, if you have a business and can get the tax back, forget it, nothing to get back. For me, this is the and of doing business on Ebay. If Ebayers send normally, I pay tax and customs to the postman or any other delivery sevice and get a specifyed invoice, so can get the tax back. I do not no why Ebay is killing deals fro m business to business this way. To me Pitney Bowes is theft.

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Charlie Ward
Earls Barton, GB
Apr 21, 2015 11:32 am EDT

I have been in business for 30 years and I have never encountered such a terrible company as Pitney Bowes. Every time my Franking machine performed a check on available funds, this would normally be followed by a PB sales assistant telephoning me to inform me that the ink needed replacing and I was due to order more labels. Rubbish - their labels and ink are vastly overpriced and you can buy the same quality for a third of the price. I don't use my franking machine much these days and prefer to email my invoices. With this in mind, I decided to cancel my franking machine contract, at least I tried to cancel my contract. After numerous attempts to call PB 'customer service' (that's a joke) and being kept waiting on the phone for up to 40 minutes, I was eventually told that I could only cancel my contract by letter or email. On the 23rd of March, I sent an email to this effect and received an automated response: 'Thank you for contacting Pitney Bowes, we are receipt of your correspondence, this is being dealt with by our Customer Relations Team and you will hear from them within the next 48 hrs'
I heard nothing back from them until yesterday (20th April), when one of their incredibly rude staff called me to ask me why I wanted to terminate my contract. After spending the next 10 minutes telling the young lady exactly why I would never deal with her company again, she told me in a very aggressive manner that I now owed £9.30 'maintenance' fees. As I own the franking machine and my account with Pitney Bowes is actually in credit, I asked how she could possible now make another charge, especially as I had cancelled the contract over a month ago. I also pointed out that nobody had bothered to contact me within 48 hours. I did not receive an apology, just total rudeness and a demand to collect MY franking machine so that it could be returned to Pitney Bowes.
I would like to personally deliver my franking machine to the boss of Pitney Bowes and tell him exactly why people like myself will never use his company again. Pitney Bowes is an outdated company with poor service and very very rude staff. I look forward to the day when I read that they are no longer in business.

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Quiller
Ascot, GB
Jun 20, 2014 1:59 am EDT

I agree that Pitney Bowes is a terrible company. They charged double what we agreed the rental fee would be then charged interest. The phone to the customer services Department resulted in a 23 minute call, all on a premium rate line. Subsequent series of emails, letters and recorded delivery letters resulted in no response whatsoever. Eventually I just sent the machine back to the managing director Mr Jelly with an invoice for the amount that I have overpaid. I'll let you know how I get on but I'm not holding my breath. Easily the worst experience I've had from any company in the UK.

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PitneyBowesSucks
Vernon, CA
May 23, 2012 2:07 pm EDT
Verified customer This comment was posted by a verified customer. Learn more

Pitney Bowes is a disgusting corporation to deal with. Every month they make the same 'error' on our invoice and over charge us by $20. Every month we call to adjust and they do the adjustment. Their machine is slower than hand applying stamps, and any 'savings' the machine claims to give you are lost 10 fold on paying for ink, monthly fees, and any other insane fee they try to sneak through hoping that you won't call them on it. I've convinced my entire office to switch to Postal Champs (http://www.paperdirect.com/Postal-Champ-Stamp-Applicator/-141655) pay $25 once and never pay again. You might lose a few cents to over stamping by a penny or two, but today at work the stupid Pitney Bowes machine wasted $4 on postage because it failed to alert me when it ran out of ink.
And no, I don't work for Postal Champ, I just hate Pitney Bowes. fair andbalanced on the other hand clearly works for Pitney Bowes, all he does it troll this web site for them, just check out some of the other swill he has posted defending the evil corporation. I will actively tell anyone who listens to never deal with them.

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Jory
, CA
Mar 04, 2010 1:53 pm EST

Had the some problems with our photocopier through PB. They overcharged and even double charged us for our service contract on the machine. When they couldn't even keep it running properly we finally decided to just buy out the rest of the lease. Then they wanted us to pay thousands of dollars in penalties. They also tried to refuse to let us keep the machine even though there was a $1 buyout in the lease. Total crooks.

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Sally Connick
New Orleans, US
Nov 02, 2009 1:06 pm EST

I too had problems with Pitney Bowes. After years of not realizing that there was another supplier a Neopost rep called on me and convinced me to give them a try. We have been very happy with their equipment and service. And they were considerably cheaper because they don't have the BS charges! I won't go back to Pitney Bowes ever!

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ExonServices
London, GB
Aug 21, 2009 7:28 am EDT

We had a very rude obnoxious engineer to deal with, his name is Ray clarkson in the Harlow branch he never resolved our companies problems all he did was give us the brush off and tell us a load of lies, it seems Pitney bowes care diddly squat about there customers.

We quickly changed to Neo Post thanks to Ray clarkson

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K James
,
Sep 01, 2008 8:44 pm EDT

I cannot believe that there are other people having similar problems as me!

In march of this year we moved into larger offices, and were contacted by pb offering a trial for a franking machine. fair enough, 30 day no obligation trial - nothing to lose.

It took 2 months to get the machine out (I am after all a potential client...) and once it did, I thought it was just teething problems. nope.

I got monthly 'documents' which showed the monthly rental only, but watermarked on the paper was 'this is not a vat invoice. do not pay", instructions which duly I followed.

Now, maybe it is my fault for not asking for invoices, but when I get regular notices telling me not to pay I presume all is well.

Anyway, the machine got cut off, and so I called pb at 5.02pm to see what the problem was. apparently pb had not received a payment for 61 to 90 days, to which I responded that I had not received an invoice for 61-90 days. unfortunately the woman on the telephone was not helpful as my account had been passed onto collections, who finish at 5pm (no logic).

Called back the next day at 9.15am, spoke to the same woman, who tried to put me through to collections. after 5 minutes on hold I was told they were too busy to take my call and would call back. I left a message, and also asked the woman if she could tell me the invoice numbers of the outstanding invoices. apparently, as the account has been 'locked' she could not access it (blatant lie, read further on).

After 4 hours, still no call from pb, so I called them back and spoke to another woman (not in collections as they were still busy!), who this time did tell me the invoice numbers (account 'locked' eh...) and promised to fax them over so I could pay the outstanding amount. no fax ever received.

Another 3 hours later and I call pb again, and now do get put through to collections. apparently 3 invoices had been sent to my address, but addressed to the previous tenants (even though I still get brochures for previous tenants nothing arrived from pb).

Gave my company details and was promised copy invoices. again, I asked why I was receiving the 'do not pay' letters (addressed to my company) yet the actual invoices on the same account were addressed to the previous tenant. no logical answer from pb.

Still fighting to get this problem sorted out.

Stay away from pitney bowes. one of the world's worst companies!

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Spy man
, GB
Jul 30, 2008 10:57 am EDT

in my 25 years of business i have been a customer of neopost and pitney bowes and have had exactly the same problems with both companies. i'd have to say the account manager at pitney bowes at least took ownership of the account dealt with the problem

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danyell
,
Jul 10, 2008 9:50 pm EDT

Exactly the same problems with pitney bowes, they lie, they overcharge, they are downright rude... I am sitting out the end of my contract that I was assured that I didn’t have, then they can take back their piece of junk... take my advice, when they cold call you, save yourself a lot of grief and tell them to get lost.

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