Pitney Bowes - Free Trial of franking machine

[DuaneJackson]

I've just had a call from Piteny Bowes offering a 30 day free, no-obligation of a franking machine, along with £20 credit.

I turned this down a few months ago, but I can't see why. There doesn't seem to be any catches along as you rememebr to cancel.

Has anyone had any experience of this?

[bwglaw]

We cancelled ours and still have the machine!....2 years gone by now. We realised with the small number of mailing it was not worth the cost of hire in addition to postage.

[Claire B]

Do you have to pay the return postage, or for any consumables ? (guess it would just be ink anyway), sometimes things sound too good to be true.... :)

[DuaneJackson]

Nope, they cover all shipping costs, etc.

Jon - they never came at you with any hidden charges?

[MarkPearson]

Would someone inform me what this machine looks like or actually does.

I have to do all my orders manually as they are sent by Guaranteed next day delivery.

[bwglaw]

No hidden charges whatsoever other than the monthly hire which was around £25/month + VAT. You have to buy postage credits by telephone. Worth checking out what their charges are for postage since they may now add a surcharge.

You can have your logo displayed but not sure if that is at cost.


Jonathan

[DuaneJackson]

Yep, they explained the monthly rental and postal charges. I'm not too worried about that. I doubt I'll use it after the free month unless we find the convenience is worth the increased cost. We just don't post enough mail to make it worthwhile.

Mark - it's a machine for weighing and putting a 'stamp' on letters and/or parcels. You might be able to save a few quid (+time) using it if you are posting quite a bit. If you are interested in it then give Steve Peers a call on 02392 942 174, let him know what you post andthat it's guaranteed next day and he'll let you know if he can help.

[bwglaw]

At most, we send out about 5 invoices a month so the increased cost did not really justify for us. It also took up a bit of room and using up our mains and telephone socket, at the time. We were a new business then, and still would not have one now.

Good luck with it

Jonathan

Mark: If you are thinking of getting one, shop around because Pitney Bowes are the leaders and therefore more expensive. I went to a business exhibition and many other companies offer the same service at less the cost

[uksbc]

it is a good offer from what i have seen particularly if they have the offer for adding your logo to the franking for free

as long as the amount of mail exceeds the amount of rental. from the limited use i had in the past it is worth the £25.00 to have the professional look of franked mail

all down to preference is suppose though

:D

[coxadmin]

Another option is to consider is SmartStamp (http://www.royalmail.com/portal/rm/jump2?catId=400043&mediaId=600023) which is just £4.99 per month or £49.99 per anum plus postage costs, which can be done online.

With this you have the software on the computer, print the postage with or without your logo or even a message for your customers. Printing postage is password controlled and you print either direct on to envelopes or on to labels (Avery). I have also successfully tried the refund procedure on one occasion.

[annethedonn]

Have you tried Royal Mail's Smartstamp Duane? £4.99/month (discount for annual fee) and you can print all your own envelopes labels. Just need to top up credit. Can even incorporate your logo.

http://www.royalmail.com/portal/rm/jump2?catId=400043&mediaId=600023

Anne

[puravida]

Actually - we took trials from two different companies - Pitney Bowes and then NeoPost.

After the trial Pitney Bowes (with a bit of convincing) lowered their price and matched the deal we had been offered by others. PLUS Pitney Bowes have a better and sturdier machine.

We have it set up in the shop for all our web and phone orders - the scales and the printer. Basically just pack the order, put it on the scales, choose 1st, 2nd, Recorded, Special, Airmail etc and hit print and it prints the postage label out for you.

Ours is customised so it has our shop name and logo on it too. Looks great.

Postman comes every day about 4pm and collects all the post from us.

Highly recommend it if you are sending out quite a few web orders each day.

[DuaneJackson]

Look at you two and your great minds : )

I just had a look at it, looks v. good. I'm not sure about the demo - it prints to a weird size (too small) and the location of the logo doesn't seem to customisable. But I assume this is more flexible on the real thing?

[aromaqueen]

We went with this Pitney Bowes offer.

There were no catches. We do post a fair bit of mail, probably spend between £150 and £200 a month and for stamping parcels (which is what we do) it saved hours and hours at the post office and you do get discounted (slightly) postal rates.

The logo was free also.

consumables are a bit pricey (£30 or so for a new ink cartridge) but they do last quite a while.

Only slight hitch is the scales only go up to 2 kgs, so it's a pain if you have heavier packages to send.

I wouldn't do it unless you're wasting hours of time weighing different size parcels or spending hours in the post office queue. it's a slow old way of doing it - it's not one of those machines that shoot the letter through, it actually prints the 'frank' while you hold the envelope there.

However, I wouldn't be without it, but I'm likely to upgrade when the year is up.

hope that helps.

[annethedonn]

well I use Smartstamp and have no problems. You just have to jiggle your printer settings a bit and can drag and drop where you print the postage & logo etc.....

I have the full version on CD if you want a copy Duane.

[MarkPearson]

If a machine can weigh the boxes or personalised roses we do and price them for next day delivery that would br great, I would save hours in the post office queue!

I think the problem comes for me because they are all special delivery (next day) and they all need tracking.

We send at least 10 parcels a day at quiet times and hundreds on peak!

[coxadmin]

Look at you two and your great minds : )

I just had a look at it, looks v. good. I'm not sure about the demo - it prints to a weird size (too small) and the location of the logo doesn't seem to customisable. But I assume this is more flexible on the real thing?

Not only great minds - Anne and I are both in the Virtual Assistant business! :wink:

[puravida]

If a machine can weigh the boxes or personalised roses we do and price them for next day delivery that would br great, I would save hours in the post office queue!

I think the problem comes for me because they are all special delivery (next day) and they all need tracking.

We send at least 10 parcels a day at quiet times and hundreds on peak!

Mark - the machine weighs them and then you select the method you want to ship and Special D is one of the options.

I woudl look at getting the postman to call at your premises in conjunction with using a franking machine. Saved us hours!!!

[VeryMark]

I'd suggest that unless you mail large quantities Smartstamp is cheaper and better quality.

[Ozzy]

If you spend more than I think its £5k per year in postage then Royal Mails PPI service may be better for you, and you can send Special Delivery and Registered post by it.....and they can collect from your door for about £400 a year.

Using PPI you print your own stamps on your own packaging, with your own logo, and Royal Mail just invoice you on a monthly basis for what you sent the month before.

Thats what I do, they collect from my office daily and we send 1st, 2nd, recorded and special delivery from our door. The added bonus is for doing it this way they give you about a 15% discount off their standard postage charges.

[DuaneJackson]

Thanks Richard, does the 15% discount only apply if you have the post collected from your office?

[gary]

I think the discount applies to the PPI service, not the collection service (which is only about £280 if you only collect Mon-Fri).

Pitney Bowes also charges £4 +VAT each time you add more postage to your franking machine so you need to plan for that or you could end paying a lot extra! Postage is a penny or so cheaper by franking, so if you spend less than £5k pa on postage but still send a lot of mail then it can make a difference, as does the collection service.

[DuaneJackson]

We don't send anywhere near enough mail to justify this. I think we'll just take advantage of the free trial and £20 free postage and then look at PPI or one of the other Royal Mail services.

Thanks for your feedback, this has been a really useful thread.

[weddingcrafter]

We trialled the Pitney Bowes offer and decided it wasn't for us.

It took them a year to take back the machine and refund our deposit and unused credits.

We moved to Smartstamp which worked better for us until we got big enough to move to PPI which is a godsend!

If you do take up the trial and don't continue, be prepared to nag to get your cash back and the machine out of your way.

[Bizgifts]

We've had a machine on trial but managed to get the rental down to £15.00 plus VAT before signing anything.

The reps must be on commission because they were hounding me for a signature, if you push them enough you can get the rental down. We spend around £200-£300 per month on postage

We also get refils from the local cartridge refiller at half the price of the Pitney Bowes originals.

Mark

[autolycus]

We use SmartStamp for our postage.

As others have said, this works out much cheaper for low volume users at just £50 per year.

The refund system works fine - I have used it several times without problems.

One key point to note - with franked mail you have to have it collected, or put it in a designated post box, or post inside a specially marked Jiffy bag.

Post stamped with SmartStamp just goes in any old postbox.

Dave.

[c4l]

We use Pitney Bowes at work too - very good gear and good support too!!

We get through £15k's worth of postage a week though too and it proves to be more than reasonably reliable!!

[DuaneJackson]

Just updating this for anyone that is interested:

I decided to go ahead with the free trial anyway - it was free after all.

It ended up costing one of my staff a LOT of time dealing with them just trying to get the damn thing delivered. So much so that I told her to refuse delivery of it when/if it ever arrived. Unfortunately someone else signed for it and seeing as we had the machine anyway, what was their to lose?

Only another few hours messing about with the machine and the people at PB to try to get it working. It never did work in the end so we sent it back.

The Royal Mail did reimburse the £20 credit that PB had paid for, so we got some free money.

PB then called a few days later and tried to get us to have another free trial. I politely explained I wasn't interested.

[Niteflyer]

We had one! we gave them a copy of our logo and they added it FREE, no charge at all, I think the machine cost about £5 a week hire, and we got 1st class for 1p less than if we went to the PO.

It was well worth the cost for the convenience.

It looks a bit like a foot square dark gray calculator :) lol

Matt

[nethosts]

We had a franking machine from PB for the thirty days free trial so that we could compare it against SmartStamp.

After three weeks, we decided it wasn't for us and phoned them to come and collect it, which they did within two days. Four months later and we still receive their monthly invoices for a machine we don't have. Telephone support is useless and keep referring you to send them an email, which never seems to get read.

The machine looks good and works well but the "hidden" charges are too much compared to SmartStamp.

You get the free logo with PB but you have to pay for others if you want to change it. With SmartStamp, you can change your logo as much and as often as you like.

Every time you top-up the credit with PB, it costs you £4. With SmarStamp, it costs nothing to top-up your credit.

The ink in the PB machine seems to dry up in a period of time - whether it's used or not and cartridges are expensive. With SmartStamp, you are using the cartridges of your printer.

With franking, you have to post it in a jiffy bag or get it collected. With SmartStamp you can post it in any postbox.

The only positive with PB (and franking in general) is that the cost of a "stamp" is cheaper.

The only negative thing I would say about SmartStamp is that it insists on printing the smartstamp url on the envelope, which does slightly reduce the professional look a little.

[Niteflyer]

Every time you top-up the credit with PB, it costs you £4. With SmarStamp, it costs nothing to top-up your credit.

The ink in the PB machine seems to dry up in a period of time - whether it's used or not and cartridges are expensive. With SmartStamp, you are using the cartridges of your printer.

With franking, you have to post it in a jiffy bag or get it collected. With SmartStamp you can post it in any postbox.




When we topped up, it didn't cost us a penny! And we used to post ALL of our franked mail in the postbox in normal envelopes!

Our INK NEVER dried out! but yes, I agree the Customer Service was pathetic :)

Matt

[caroline]

I've been popping all my franked mail in normal post boxes too, and its been getting there OK! (still can't get through on customer services though)

Caroline

[ecokidsstuff]

Hi,

I tried this out and missed the end of the free trial period because I moved offices. So still have machine, am paying fee and want to send it back and cancel. They are saying I am locked in to contract, and have offered me a lower fee. I'd rather just cancel. Has anyone else been in a similar situation?

Many thanks!

T

[The Movie Booth]

Aside from having to field weekly calls from their sales team for their latest offers, the franking machine is easy to use, update etc.

[Duke Fame]

Take car on all of this, the contracts can be 7 years and there are support costs too which are far too high. My predeecessor had commited to a long contract that is just due to end, it took a lot of faffing just to stop the renewal - finace co, FP mailing support, as well as the franking company.

If we were still mainling goods out by royal mail every day it may be worth it, for letters, I really couldn't care less if the office junior throws a used stamp in hte bin or a franked envelope.

[TestAPlug]

Had a pitney bowes machine, Never again! This box isnt long enough to list the problems! When the machine worked it was good but credit (Id topped up) disappeared, envelopes were overcharged etc KEV

[lewey]

Pitney Bowes are the worst organisation I've ever had to deal with. (Make BT and other Utilities look like saints).

They are so astonishingly incompetent at even the most basic processing. Previously after over a year trying to get things sorted out with UK office, in the end had to go above them and complain to international president in the USA. That got that problem finally resolved, but now once again are having another set of problems. It took them 7 months (and 7 notifications from me) for them to update address details. Amazingly, in the middle of that did get an email from them confirming that they had received my new address and had updated their system - but actually it hadn't been done (or not properly) and they continued to send to old address.

Have made two formal complaints in writing to them, still the saga is ongoing to this day.

Avoid avoid avoid.