Is it possible to program the new postal rates in a Pitney Bowes machine without paying a $54 charge?

My small office has a Pitney Bowes mailstation that we use for office mail. We don't send out a great deal of mail, but the postage meter is worth the $20/month rental fee for the efficiency in processing the mail we do send out. A few weeks ago, we received notice from PB that the new postal rates were going to go into effect May 12, and that we need to download the updates for our meter to work. Oh, and that they are going to charge us $54 for the privilege of receiving this download.

In the grand scheme of things, $54 isn't a great deal of money, but I find this galling. No one went out of their way to mention this charge when we agreed to rent the machine, and we're talking about updating two or three numbers, max-- 99.9% of our mail is first class letters of one or two ounces. Is it possible to program the meter with the new rates manually?

You can always manually enter your desired postage (which is what I have done today), but that may not be what you mean. I can't find any way to update the rates manually so that it calculates the correct amount when using the scale. I too find this fee absurd and it was not mentioned to me either when I changed to this new scale. I guess (?) I don't have to download the new rates, but I think the monthly fee I pay should more cover PB keeping the rates updated. Have you tried calling and threaten to cancel? I used to pay refill fees too until I called to complain about that. On a side note... nothing beats when I used to have the old scale and they would send me a paper rate update with a note saying I either had to send it back or pay $10.... or when they decided they were going to charge a fee for support / newsletter... or-- oh, I could go on and on.