postage meter review: Neopost Refuses to Process Promised Refund 3

I have a consumer complaint against Neopost S.A. (30955 Huntwood Ave., Hayward, CA 94544), a company that rents out postage meter service. Neopost told me I could feed envelopes through the postage meter we are renting from them just as I did the Pitney Bowes. Twice, doing this has cost us money. In July, .70 in postage didn't get applied but deducted money from our balance. Then, a few days later, it was $5.94. On July 14, 2008, I e-mailed Neopost saying we need to be reimbursed for the .70 and 5.94. We were never reimbursed. Then, on September 9th, I fed a label through the machine--the same labels Neopost sent with the machine--and it only printed a fourth of the label. The machine deducted $5.05 from our meter for nothing that time! I put another label in. Again, it didn't print all of it!

This is Neopost's machine so Neopost needs to refund us $5.05 plus $5.05 plus 0.70 plus 5.94 ($16.74 total) on our rent bill. I e-mailed and faxed Neopost requesting that they either send us a working meter at no additional cost or a refund on the remainder of our service.

Neopost called me back on 9-9-08 after I repeatedly contacted them. They said there is a form by USPS to fill out. However, there is a $35.00 filing fee. If Neopost wants us to file this with the USPS, they need to issue us a check for $35.00. We are not paying the $35.00, because it is not our error. After being ignored again by Neopost, I filed a Better Business Bureau (BBB) complaint against Neopost to get them to respond. The BBB send me a notice that Neopost did not even respond to them either!

Due to not getting what we paid for (a working postage meter and customer service), we requested a refund on the remaining months on the meter. In one September 24th e-mail to Neopost I wrote, “I need to return everything and get a refund on the remaining time on our account—from now until next June I believe.” In another September 24th e-mail to Neopost, I wrote, “Please cancel our account. The account # I believe is [protected]. Please send a refund for the remaining months that we have pre-paid.” After some e-mail back and forth about how to return the equipment, I stated, “The refund on the meter will be around $169.75-190.00 from my calculations. The refund on the remaining postage is $420.96.” The reply from Neopost was, “Ok great Fed Ex will be there tomorrow for one box. Your return number is 1456610.” On September 25th another e-mail from Neopost asked, “Do you want to cancel the postage account only or cancel the whole contract on the meter and get a refund once it is returned?”. I replied, “Whole contract on the meter, we need to return everything.” I returned the equipment via FedEx tracking # [protected]. Clearly, Neopost agreed to provide a refund on the remaining months of meter service we would not be receiving. Now, Neopost is refusing to process the return and will not be sending a check.

When I signed up for Neopost, we only agreed to sign up because the local Neopost office told me 1): we could be let out of the contract at any time by written notice and 2): at the end of the contract we could buy the equipment for $1.00. Even if they did not say this, we are still not going to let Neopost get away with taking our money when we did not get what we paid for—a working meter and customer service!

I cannot believe Neopost is going back on its clear and repeated promise for a refund. They are lucky I am not requested a refund on the few short months we did have their crappy meter. They really should, though, also provide a $16.74 refund on the wasted postage that was caused by their meter. I wasn’t going to push for that, but now that Neopost is refusing to live up to its promises I am demanding a refund on the remaining 10 months of service and the $16.74 in postage we did not get to use.

So far, Neopost has not responded to the complaint filed with the Minnesota Attorney General's office.

Thank you.