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Kitchen Table Kibitzing 7/15/23: The printer ink scam [1]
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Date: 2023-07-15
As you read this I will be on a plane or at very least muddling my way through airport security. That’s right, I will be on vacation. I’m not here.
In preparation, I printed off a copy of my itinerary, the confirmation code for my rental car and the scanner code thingy for the parking facility where I will stow my vehicle for the duration. I know, I didn’t need to print any of these things, they’re on my phone already, but I feel better somehow with a hard copy. It’s a throwback to the pre-internet days when I travelled quite a bit for work and carried all these things in their own folder. At least that’s my excuse.
It also makes me a prime target for a scam that largely goes under the radar: the exorbitant cost of printer ink cartridges.
As Geoffrey Fowler, writing for the Washington Post, explains, most people whose inkjet printers use those cartridges you buy at Staples and other office supply stores are paying ridiculously out the nose, approximately $130 for four tiny cartridges whose ink actually takes about $2 to manufacture. Fowler cites a study performed by Public Interest Research Group that confirms just how badly American consumers are being screwed by these printer companies.
From that study:
Martin Shkreli became a public pariah when he marked up Daraprim by 5,000%. America’s most famous printer doesn’t want you to be ripped off by inkjet cartridges. Meanwhile, printer manufacturers regularly markup ink by some 10,000%. We shouldn’t tolerate price gouging on medication, nor should we turn a blind eye to the practice for other products. How can the ink in a name-brand cartridge cost 100-times as much as the same ink in a bottle? Manufacturers have designed an elaborate markup racket using anti-choice technology to cajole, push, and even force us into paying exorbitant prices for ink. For example, manufacturers design printers that reject cheaper third-party ink cartridges. These software locks push us to buy their name-brand expensive ink. As a result of these schemes, ink cartridges waste our money and become another unsustainable single-use plastic product.
As Fowler notes, printers sell you the printer itself at a loss, knowing they’ll handsomely recoup their profits when you buy those cartridges.
Fowler writes:
Once you’ve brought home their printer, it’s not in the companies’ interest to help you economize on ink. When they flash a “low ink” warning, it doesn’t mean the cartridge is actually out of ink — there could be a few pages left, or a few hundred. And as much as half of the ink in a cartridge can get wasted just by your printer running maintenance cycles, according to a Consumer Reports investigation. “The printer companies created a perverse business model,” says Aaron Leon, the CEO of LD Products, which has been selling printer supplies for two decades. So much of the industry’s R&D effort, he says, goes into stopping companies like his from making and selling aftermarket ink.
And here he notes a factoid that I had no idea of:
The Supreme Court ruled that it’s legal for companies to refill existing printer toner in used cartridges. And a law called the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act means you won’t void your printer’s warranty by using third-party ink.
Fowler then tested several “aftermarket” printing cartridges, such as those offered by GreenSky and LD products. In short, unless you require meticulously identical reproduction such that the printed product is practically microscopically indistinguishable from what you pay double for from the printer manufacturer, you’re never going to notice the difference (check out the comparison photos in the article).
Of course, the leading printer and ink manufacturers don’t want you to do this, so they install programs and embed microchips that try to warn you and scare you away from using others’ ink. These can include deliberate software which will require you to turn your printer on and off, and (as referenced in the PIRG study cited above) “software locks” which prevent you from using anyone else’s ink. The manufacturers also employ “low ink” warnings, sometimes when the ink level is as high as 40%, just to get you to go out and buy more. In that respect it’s similar to the warnings that flash on your car’s instrument panel telling you that your car needs a (usually unnecessary) oil change and prompts you to go to an authorized dealer to get one. Other sneaky tricks include designing the printer so that a substantial portion of the ink you purchase in a cartridge is used inefficiently for maintaining the printer’s heads, rather than actually printing documents.
As Fowler notes, “This is why it’s important to turn off your printer’s automatic updates — and buy only cartridges that offer a refund if they don’t work.” and he also advises that you “Make sure to search your exact model number’s compatibility with any ink you buy.” Fowler sensibly suggests the best way to gauge the quality of substitute cartridges is by checking out the online reviews.
And if you really want to save money, there is also the option of injecting ink back into your old cartridges with a syringe. Tutorials for doing this can be found online, and Fowler highly recommends viewing them before attempting this type of printer cartridge surgery. As for ink for refills, he recommends Jetsir which is apparently available on Amazon and elsewhere.
One more word from the PIRG study, which recommends legislative action to curb these types of unfair business practices:
Manufacturers often claim these restrictions are for “security.” I couldn’t find any example of criminals causing damage by using third-party ink cartridges, nor does that seem plausible. [***] These companies’ own actions call into question their security claims. During the pandemic when supply chain disruptions prevented easy access to the computer chips needed to restrict third-party ink cartridges, Canon sold their own ink without chips and told consumers it was fine to ignore warnings.
A good overview by Business Insider of this scam is below:
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