There are several things they advertise that they don't actually do. Their so-called free- forever plan it's supposed to be a free membership that you can have forever that you can send one postcard a month to an inmate forever and never have to pay. What is it in actuality? In actuality it would be a great idea except that they're postcards have not worked on their website for over 6 months, going on a year... I've emailed and asked about this and said how are you advertising a free forever plan with free postcards when your postcards section doesn't work and hasn't worked in a long time so really there's no such thing as a free forever plan because when you sign up it doesn't work so why are you still advertising it this has been going on a long time. They basically told me to pay the money to get the full membership which I did but the postcards still do not work even when you pay it says sorry our postcard is down get back to us later. Also they advertise if they have your letter shipped out within 24 hours and that they are unlimited this couldn't be further than the truth. In actuality it will take 4 to 5 days sometimes a week for your letter just to be printed out and another four to five to seven days for it to be delivered. Now when they say unlimited letters that's great unlimited sounds awesome right? In actuality they do not let you send a second letter until the first one has been delivered to the inmate. So do the math. If your letters are taking two weeks to get to the inmate and you can't send one until the other is delivered you're actually only getting to send your loved one two letters a month and that's exactly what's been happening for months. The same goes with the photos you can't send more photos until the first ones are delivered and the photos take even more time than the letters... So what are they really offering when they say unlimited postcards photos articles oh about the articles, article section does not work either has not worked in a very long time when you try to send your inmate and article which is supposed to be included in the plan it says please contact us articles is not working and then they don't answer the phone. So all there advertising is false. They say free photos,articles, letters, and postcards and greeting cards unlimited for $5 a month. What you actually will get is zero postcards zero articles that section will not work and you will get two letters a month if you're lucky as well as being able to send out photos two times and two greeting cards and those take forever so probably only one greeting card. I've complained about all this I've complained about the false advertising I've written reviews everywhere I could find so hopefully if enough people complain maybe they'll fix things. It was a great idea and website when I first tried it and they did what they said they were going to do. Now I know they got a bunch of big government contracts and it seems like they don't seem to care about the little guy anymore their system has gone down 100%

SO lets see, does anyone know the definition of Unlimited? I will tell you the definition right now: not limited or restricted in terms of number, quantity, or extent. I read the word unlimited at least four times in one email I received from pigeonly, not to mention the numerous times I read it on their website. So, why is it that when I try to send a second of any item….I get the error in the picture below. I want a refund. Your company is falsely advertising this information. I cant believe you get away with this. I only signed up for this because I thought it would make life a little easier. With my husband being away, I now have to care for and provide for our three kids while keeping uo the house. Your company takes advantage of people when they are going through an incredibly difficult and stressful time in their life, in turn making their life even more difficult. I only paid for one month of your services because I assumed my children would be able to send a letter or card or postcard or pictures to their father, whenever they wanted too and I wouldn't need to worry about having stamps on hand and addressing a bunch of envelopes to the jail. Guess I'm the stupid one for assuming your company would actually abide by the words and promises that you use over snd over and over and over again on your website and in your emails. Jokes on me I suppose.

Response to customer service person who commented on my review:

You said in some cases it takes 4 days, so what happens when it takes a week/a week and a half? Why does the inmate have to receive the mail before I send more? That doesn't sound like unlimited to me?!?!? Oh and you suggest to take advantage of the other items I'm able to send…i had already sent one of each of the available items to send and then just continued to receive error messages bc between the jail and your horrible business it took 3-4 weeks to have the letters/pictures/postcards delivered to me…not even to my husband.
You advertised as being able to send as much mail as I wanted, yet I wasn't able too. One would not receive this error message when trying to send another letter if you allowed the customer to send unlimited mail. One would not recive any error, they would be able to send 5 letters in the same day if they wanted too.

NOT ONLY THAT BUT YOUR COMPANY DIDNT EVEN HAVE THE CORRECT MAILING ADDRESS FOR THE JAIL MY HUSBAND WAS IN! Three of the items that I sent via pigeonly ended up being sent to me, the return address because your company put the wrong address on the envelope! I mean come on….you are a business that predominantly sends mail to prisoners and you cant even address the envelope correctly? That is so wrong. I received the pictures and mail I sent through your site about 3-4 weeks AFTER i sent them, so I had already written my initial review. Those letters that were returned to me…had I taken it upon myself to mail them on my own, which is what I should have done…he would have had them in his hand in less than a week. Instead every day I asked him…did you get the pictures/letters? And every day he would say no…I think you were scammed. Then finally 3-4 weeks later…I RECEIVED them in the mail.

I will never place another order through your business and I advise anyone reading this not to place an order. This business is a scam and I cant believe I actually fell for their bull$#*!. Just mail your own letters/pictures if you want whoevers in jail to actually receive them.

If you are thinking about whether you should use this company service for communicating with someone who is incarcerated, – my advise would be DON'T. It's a waste of money unless you do not care for that person.
I am from Ukraine and my loved one is in California. So using snail mail in this case would be a waste of time; it takes for a letter about two weeks or even more to reach the US if it is sent by registered mail and it would be costly, too.
I had used Pigeon.ly last year and the service was pretty decent but then switched to Jpay as that was quicker and cheaper. Earlier this year Jpay contract with CDCR has ended and the facility still does not have tablets so I have decided to try Pigeon.ly again; well this has turned out into a great disappointment. Their service has turned into a joke.
First of all, they say that you can send the unlimited amount of mail for the monthly fee. Of course that's kind of a trick statement because in fact you have to wait until the previous piece of mail (letter, postcard, photos or greeting is delivered). I am OK with that, though, because normally it only takes a few days.
But after using them for a month again I have come to conclusion the service has turned into a mess. First, they did not send my photo order for almost a month. So it turned out to be one photo order in an "unlimited" pack. Of course I did argue with the customer support a lot about it and finally they told me "they are so overwhelmed with photo orders that there is a delay in processing". REALLY. You are telling that BS to people who are paying you money for orders being processed in time, so why should CUSTOMERS have to care about it? Get a couple of more freaking printers!
Then, my man got NONE of the five postcards I sent to him through Pigeon.ly and that is suspicious to say the least. I would believe that the facility would lose a couple of those but all five? Of course Pigeon.ly claims that the postcards were all delivered and it is the facility fault but for some reasons postcards that I send through Ameelio are all reaching them in time and without any problems? (I have seen the lady complaining about her man getting none of the mail she sent through Pigeon.ly at one of the sites with reviews; well I guess I should be lucky it was only postcards lost for me).
I will just place a passage from my last letter to the customer support here.
"Just reminding you that my order from the 9th of August which is a greeting is still marked as "printed" and was never sent which makes it 20 days; my order from the 18th of August which is photos is still marked as processing so it's already 11 days; my order from the 19th of August which is a letter is still only "printed" and it makes it 10 days"
Of course I will get a bunch of empty excuses again and assurances that my orders will all be delivered and sent; but I already know that's just lies and it will not happen any time soon.
So, if you are looking for the company that will allow you to send mail to your loved one in prison faster don't even think about Pigeon.ly. Jmail is expensive but they have been perfect when you need to send something quickly; and they are saying Ameelio service has become better since they have switched into more of a paid app but I have not checked into that yet.

Been receiving things sent to my loved one back. Undeliverable.

My husband is at a facility that uses CTC Telecoin. They charge me $3.95 for a 15 min. Phone call. So I googled "How to make CTC Telecoin calls cheaper" Pigeonly was the first to pop up. I've used them before for the basic subscription of sending cards, photos etc. And had no issues. When I went to start my subscription again with the "Best Rate Phone Number" it made me do a 3 month subscription. I didn't want that but figured it would make everything cheaper in the long run. So I paid for it as well as the $25 provision for them to add to my phone number. Well after 3 days my account was still not funded on CTC. So I called Pigeonly as my order for phone provisions was still processing. I told the rep it had been 3 days and I was wondering if there was an issue or anything I could to do make the process quicker. She apologized and said that there system had been having issues or was down or something along those lines. She offered to refund me the $25 and told me to deposit it myself onto CTC and it would be quicker. She did not give me any other options and I was unfortunately happy to take that offer. The refund came same day, took only a hour or so. I added the $25 ($15 went on my account after all the fees)to my new CTC account and messaged my husband that he could now call. We were so excited that our calls would be so much cheaper we did two calls back to back. After the second call I checked my account. Instead of being charged either the $3.95 I had been paying or the $1.44 that pigeonly has advertised on their website. I was charged $5.25 for each call. In total I paid $10.50 for two 15 min phone calls when I should have only paid $2.88 for both calls. So I call customer service again and explain the issue. The woman apologized and issued me another "Best Rate" phone number. She said they didn't know why I was being charged more and that the new number should work with at the discounted rate. She said to go ahead and call again if it didn't and asked if there was anything else she could help me with. I told her yes. I want a refund of the $10.50. Or at the very least I wanted to be refunded for the extra amount I paid. I overpaid $7.62. She said that because I funded the account through CTC instead of them they could not do that because it wasn't their fault. I reminded her that I only did it that way because THEY advised me to do that. And that I only overpaid because they weren't doing what I paid them to do which was give me a cheaper rate. I asked to speak with a supervisor and she stated that her supervisor was in a meeting but that she had been advising her the entire time and that if I were to speak to the supervisor she would only tell me the same thing. She said all they could do was give me 50% my next months payment. I informed her that I already paid for 3 months and that my husband would be in jail for no more than a month so I wouldn't need to have a subscription by that time. She said when her supervisor was done with her meeting she would call me back and it's a few hours later and I'm still waiting to hear back. Customer service was horrible and I 10/10 would NOT RECOMMEND Pigeonly.

It's ok!¡!¡!¡!

I have had WAYYYY too many problems out of this website, and I've only been using it for two days.

Yayy Easy to use I like the navigation and they give you credits to go nbbnnnnnnnjjjjkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk

This company claims to help people make an already stressful situation and time in life less stressful when in my experience actually made it more stressful and is still causing unnecessary stress. They say they make the calls cheaper when it actually doubled the cost then it took me 4 days to get that corrected after being promised I would receive a call back to never get one. So the next day I had to call multiple times, each time being told I'd get a call back until on the 4th day I called and refused to get off the phone without speaking to a manager. Then after her help the money was refunded but I still had to wait another 24 hours to talk to my husband after it already taking 4 days (so a total of 5 days). Then weeks later I get my bank statement and there are 2 charges to my account from Pigeonly both for 19.99 after I had canceled service with them. So I called and was told it was do to new software and the money would be back in my account in 3 to 5 days. This was more than 3 weeks ago and I still don't have the money back in my account so I call yet again for this situation and the lady tells me it was refunded on the 17th of January and I tell her I am looking at my bank statement and no money has been refunded to my account. She then asks me to hold and I then hear shuffling of the phone people talking and that goes for like 2 minutes then she comes back telling me she will call me back in 10 to 15 minutes and we hang up. Then she does call back telling me my money has been refunded and will be in my account by Tuesday or Wednesday of next week. I ask telling her that I have been told this before and here we are so may I get her name and employee number and a confirmation number to make me feel alittle better and so if it isn't returned I can tell the next person who I spoke to last and have verification of my last interaction. She puts me on hold then comes back to tell me there is no employee number or confirmation number to just tell whoever I speak to her name because she's the only person there by that name so I ask to speak to the billing department because said they have my account now. She
Says they are unavailable so I ask for a manager who she tells me is also unavailable so I decide to just let it go for now and hang up. So now I feel like people need to be aware of the stress that Pigeonly has caused me before anyone else is subject to this. I have never done this (filed a complaint or even written a review) before because I have done customer service and telemarketing. So I understand its stressful and people are just trying to earn a living to survive in the world. However I also am a customer and would've appreciated a warning so I could of avoided this situation all together. So that is my motivation. Because when I asked for a complaint department she said they had none. So I hope this review causes Pigeonly to make some changes to improve their company. Because maybe their services work well for some people. But for those of us that it didn't, I hope Pigeonly takes the time to hear us out and grow as a company who wants to help people in an already time of stress. Thanks Zoe Putman

Very smooth transaction, items are all well packed and also shipped immidiately! C i a o!