Beware The Source, AKA Circuit City in receivership; & toner/ inkjet cartridges

[postretro]

The Source, City Centre Mall, New Westminster BC, last week, tried to
refuse to refund $37.00 for an Original Brother Inkjet Cartridge, MFC 465CN,
which produced various error messages on insertion like 'ink empty' & 'No
Black Cartridge'. It never printed despite following the printer cleaning
instructions.

The clerk in charge was haughty and obnoxious, after saying 'no refund on
toner products'. When I suggested that Consumer & Corporate Retailing Law
took precedence over his 'company policy', he advised me to get in touch
with them.

Where he made his next mistake was in phoning, the store manager, who could
clearly hear me asking 'where's your no refunds sign'. He finally did give
me a sullen refund, and really grilled me for all sorts of personal info -
like he had lost a contest of some sort.

I too have worked selling computer printer supplies previously, and Brother
was one of the worst for customer claims. We delisted many of their laser
printer supplies as a result. It looks like they have carried on the same
tradition with their flawed inkjet products. Actually any cartridge with
just ink - no print head, is an invitation to clogging any of the 4, fixed,
'permanent', printheads in the printer. They are hard to unclog, and cost
over $100 each.

I'll never know what the cost of getting the flakey 465CN working would have
been, as I resurrected an HP Officejet G85 from 2002, which Windows XP had
rejected too many times. Windows XP now has a dandy work around using
Paintjet and some other patches.

The Source (Canada) is the end product of several insolvencies, such as
Radio Shack, InterTan and Circuit City. Bell Canada is the benificial owner.
I guess it was game over for the U S and other regions.

 

[Max]

The Source, City Centre Mall, New Westminster BC, last week, tried to
refuse to refund $37.00 for an Original Brother Inkjet Cartridge, MFC 465CN,
which produced various error messages on insertion like 'ink empty' & 'No
Black Cartridge'. It never printed despite following the printer cleaning
instructions.

The clerk in charge was haughty and obnoxious, after saying 'no refund on
toner products'. When I suggested that Consumer & Corporate Retailing Law
took precedence over his 'company policy', he advised me to get in touch
with them.

Where he made his next mistake was in phoning, the store manager, who could
clearly hear me asking 'where's your no refunds sign'. He finally did give
me a sullen refund, and really grilled me for all sorts of personal info -
like he had lost a contest of some sort.

I too have worked selling computer printer supplies previously, and Brother
was one of the worst for customer claims. We delisted many of their laser
printer supplies as a result. It looks like they have carried on the same
tradition with their flawed inkjet products. Actually any cartridge with
just ink - no print head, is an invitation to clogging any of the 4, fixed,
'permanent', printheads in the printer. They are hard to unclog, and cost
over $100 each.

I'll never know what the cost of getting the flakey 465CN working would have
been, as I resurrected an HP Officejet G85 from 2002, which Windows XP had
rejected too many times. Windows XP now has a dandy work around using
Paintjet and some other patches.

The Source (Canada) is the end product of several insolvencies, such as
Radio Shack, InterTan and Circuit City. Bell Canada is the benificial owner.
I guess it was game over for the U S and other regions.

I don't disagree for a second with any of what you posted. I'm putting
myself in the seat of the clerk now and I bet they get jerks who bring
in used carts and ask for refunds while they have the unused cart at
home. It can be a sticky situation. The only policy that makes sense
is to offer the refunds freely and check the returned carts if the
number of refunds gets out of hand. I suppose they would weigh carts
to tell if the ink has been used. My solutions are just too costly for
every day policy. Just make the refunds and bake the cost into the
price.
That G85 uses #45 and #78 ink that is so easy to refill and has plenty
of volume. You're in a better place now.

 

[Tony Toews [MVP]]

The Source, City Centre Mall, New Westminster BC, last week, tried to
refuse to refund $37.00 for an Original Brother Inkjet Cartridge, MFC 465CN,
which produced various error messages on insertion like 'ink empty' & 'No
Black Cartridge'. It never printed despite following the printer cleaning
instructions.

A friend runs a retail store so he gets lots of these kinds of problems.

1) He can't return new, never been opened toner or ink cartridges to his supplier.
He can return everything else but not those. And they don't really give him a good
answer.

2) Some inkjet cartridges now have a six month in the future expiry date. Some
newer printers now obey that expiry date. So even if it's been sitting on the shelf
for six months you're screwed. Note that if you put them in a slightly older inkjet
printer, whicht takes the same cartridge and doens't do date expiry checking, they
work just fine.

3) And of course toner and ink cartridges now stop working even though there's some
toner left in them. The computer thinks they're close to empty so stop working.
Even in your might get hundreds of more pages out fo them. Grrrrrrrr

Yes, yes, I'm sure the manufacturer are using the bull**** excuse that if the
customer printed 500 pages and the toner was exhaused after the first ten page then
the customer would be upset. Ok, so give me a button that can print another 100
pages.

Tony
--
Tony Toews, Microsoft Access MVP
Tony's Main MS Access pages - http://www.granite.ab.ca/accsmstr.htm
Tony's Microsoft Access Blog - http://msmvps.com/blogs/access/
For a free, convenient utility to keep your users FEs and other files
updated see http://www.autofeupdater.com/
Granite Fleet Manager http://www.granitefleet.com/

 

[Arthur Entlich]

Comments within posting:

The Source, City Centre Mall, New Westminster BC, last week, tried to
refuse to refund $37.00 for an Original Brother Inkjet Cartridge, MFC 465CN,
which produced various error messages on insertion like 'ink empty' & 'No
Black Cartridge'. It never printed despite following the printer cleaning
instructions.

While the problem may indeed have been with the cartridge, it might have
also been with your printer. The contact points which read these
cartridges must be kept clean. Contamination from splattered inks, or
other thing, or a bent contact can make the printer misread the
cartridge. I have seen many "chipped' printer cartridges for numerous
brands read bad, either due to printer problems or manufacturer's
defects with the cartridge/chip programming. There have also been cases
of counterfeit cartridges, and while sometimes the retailer knows
something, often it occurs further down the channel.

The clerk in charge was haughty and obnoxious, after saying 'no refund on
toner products'. When I suggested that Consumer & Corporate Retailing Law
took precedence over his 'company policy', he advised me to get in touch
with them.

As I am sure you are aware, the clerks at the Source are often low paid
employees who have a high turnover rate. Further, The Source has over
30% of their stores run as a franchise, so the clerks are often at the
mercy of the owners/managers policies, if the store involved was an
independent franchise.

Where he made his next mistake was in phoning, the store manager, who could
clearly hear me asking 'where's your no refunds sign'. He finally did give
me a sullen refund, and really grilled me for all sorts of personal info -
like he had lost a contest of some sort.

Sounds like it wasn't a "mistake" since you ultimately got what you
wanted. In BC there is no consumer law requiring refund for good unless
they are defective, under the "Sale of Goods" act. While you are
correct that the retailer is legally responsible for proven defect or
misrepresented functionality and warranty, usually you do have to speak
to management about such things. In general I have found the Source has
a pretty good return policy, but you also need to realize that issues
with consumables gets a bit difficult to ascertain who may be doing what.

I too have worked selling computer printer supplies previously, and Brother
was one of the worst for customer claims. We delisted many of their laser
printer supplies as a result. It looks like they have carried on the same
tradition with their flawed inkjet products. Actually any cartridge with
just ink - no print head, is an invitation to clogging any of the 4, fixed,
'permanent', printheads in the printer. They are hard to unclog, and cost
over $100 each.

In recent years Brother has received the highest overall rating for
customer service at the company level in surveys carried out by PC
Magazine, however, that isn't saying their products are necessarily more
reliable, just that the people surveyed felt they were well served when
issues came up which involved the company itself.

I'll never know what the cost of getting the flakey 465CN working would have
been, as I resurrected an HP Officejet G85 from 2002, which Windows XP had
rejected too many times. Windows XP now has a dandy work around using
Paintjet and some other patches.

If I recall correctly, Brother inkjet printer are using piezo permanent
heads in some of their models. These do require some service
maintenance every year or so, as do Epson printers which also use piezo
heads. All permanent and even semipermanent heads as used in some Canon
and HP printers will require some maintenance cleaning beyond the
automated cleaning every year or so.

The Source (Canada) is the end product of several insolvencies, such as
Radio Shack, InterTan and Circuit City. Bell Canada is the benificial owner.
I guess it was game over for the U S and other regions.

While what you stated is true, I do not believe your subject heading is
accurate. I do not believe The Source in Canada is now in receivership.
When I place the terms "The Source" and Receivership into Google the
ONLY reference I see is your postings. The source is currently owned by
Bell. It faced possible liquidation at the same time as did the US
Circuit City, but was ultimately found to be solvent and was therefore
purchased by Bell foe something like $260 Million dollars.

I have no connection whatsoever with Brother, Epson, Circuit City, Bell,
The Source, or Intertan.

Art

 

[steve1986]

you sir, are whats wrong in todays society.

first of all you purchase ink which is very well
common knowledge everywhere is final sale.

secondly, on the back of retailers receipts is the refund
policy. you should learn to flip the receipt over and look.

third, how is it the retailers fault you purchased the wrong ink,
used up god knows how much ink and expected money back for
your incompetence.

wake up and have more common sence friend