Has anyone ever used Stamps.com? I have a free trial offer with free postage but not sure if I want to use it. I figured maybe someone on here had tried it before. How hard is it to cancel if I don't like it? Was it worth it? Thanks!

My impression of them was that it was for large numbers of items mailed frequently.  I could definitely be wrong, though.

Ruth

Once your "free trial" is up, you will pay, I think, $15.95 a month for the privilege of printing postage.  You would have to send a lot of books to make that worth your while.

You can print postage via PayPal for free.  All you need is a PayPal account and since they are free, it's a total "win" situation.  You can go to:

https://www.paypal.com/shipnow to print PayPal postage.

Besides being so convenient, I like PayPal postage because I can track the books from my PayPal account.  All I do is to click on the tracking number next to the postage charge on my main account page. 

I signed up for the Stamps.com trial, even got the "cool" electronic scale thinking I could use it to weigh books for shipping out PBS books. I use the PBS DC so I can get instant credit, but that wouldn't work with Stamps.com. You can print DC with stamps.com, but it wouldn't be the PBS assigned DC number the system would recognize for me to get the quick credit. So I decided it wasn't what I needed, plus the idea of a monthly fee annoyed me. I live in a small town so going to the PO isn't a big deal and didn't see paying the monthly fee is necessary, so I cancelled.

Cancelling was a little hard to do, but only because the person on the phone was doing what she was supposed to do, which was to keep me as a customer. She offered me an extra free month and didn't understand my explanations for cancelling. She did eventually ask if there was anything she could do to keep me as a customer and when I said No she took care of it for me.

Hope this helps

--Troy

Kate - How do you track your books from your Paypal account? I do it via the Multi-Order shipping tool (which is a bit of a pain in the neck) so if you know another way, it will be great to know!

BTW...you just reminded me to check a book I mailed on 1/9 that hasn't been marked received so I just checked it, and it was delivered 3 days ago. But it was delivered to a P.O. Box so most likely the person hasn't checked it yet.

Kate - How do you track your books from your Paypal account? I do it via the Multi-Order shipping tool (which is a bit of a pain in the neck) so if you know another way, it will be great to know!

On my Account History page, each item that was postage has a notation under Order status/Actions saying Shipped/Track.  The Track portion is a hyperlink.  When I click on the hyperlink, it brings up another window straight from the USPS site with the tracking information.

I don't know how the "Multi-Order" shipping tool works because I create postage from https://www.paypal.com/shipnow.

Try printing postage from that URL and see if the tracking information doesn't pop up on your history page.

I used it for a trial month but then cancelled.

During the month, I had to request refunds twice as the printer and the printing didn't line up.  Refunds are a pain as you have to complete a form, mail it and then it takes about 6 weeks before it's processed.  I had cancelled before the refund was issued and they were reluctant to refund me as my account had been cancelled.

The month trial is only actually 30 days - I cancelled exactly a month later only to be told that I had already started a new month and was charged for it. There was no way they would credit me for the 2nd month.  In the end I had to dispute the charge with my CC company and only then was it I able to get a refund.

For my experience, I could not recommend Stamps.com

I use Paypal for most of my postage and find it very convenient, you can also use USPS.com 

DH prints my postage for me at his office and he has an endicia account.  I think the endicia account is much easier, you keep a small balance and there are no fees.  You get a free account when you buy a DYMO label printer.  They also have a small scale but you can also just enter the package weight yourself.  When I'm sending from my work I just use my paypal account though.

Several years ago, when I joined a book swap club on the internet, (I'd say around 1999?), I signed up for Stamps.com via an ad on the swap club site. Since I have back problems, standing in long post office lines was just not getting it for me at all.  At that time, the cost was $4.99 a month which I thought was very reasonable taking in less gas used, my time, etc.  I then started doing work at home as a legal secretary and having the service was very handy for that as well.  Out of the blue, I get a notice that the price was jumping to $14.99 (or something like that) and that was just not worth it.  All of this happened before PBS came into my life, btw. .  I was mailing a CD to a friend in Australia and the weight was 1.5 oz. Stamps.com estimated the postage at $9.00!  I decided to pass on that and took it to the USPS here locally.  The cost was 70 cents........I'd say a big difference. 

 Refunds ARE a pain the neck and take far too long to get in my opinion.  I had those stamp sheets that I had bought and the printing messed up and it was for a large envelope so I lost almost $4 due to that.  I sent an inquiry and was told to call. I did and as someone said above, I had to fill out a form and send it back to them.  It took at least six weeks to get the credit on my account (I didn't get a check or anything from them but credit).  

They require that you call them to close your account (or they did at the time) and when the representative asked me why I was canceling, I told her that tripling the monthly fee charge was not reasonable. Granted I had my account for 5 years with NO increase but triple the cost?  I would have understood it had they increased the fee a bit here and there during the years I was a customer but it was sudden and I felt unwarranted. I don't begrudge a business making a profit but this was beyond my budget at the time (and now!).  She didn't try to talk me into staying at all.  Also, I have to add that I was doing very little secretarial work at home by then.   I was thrilled when PBS offered postage and DC via Endicia - it makes sending books so easy! I am also a Boxer and it makes mailing boxes easier too.  I DO check the weight of larger books and any boxes I send because I add plastic, air bags, styrofoam popcorn, bubble wrap, etc. in them. Still PBS postage was a Godsend for me.

Thanks so much!! I think I will wait on using it:)  The in-put really helped.