Need Help HELP: Roland sold me a defective printer and I lost $750,000

[Brian ONeil]

Looking for any help out there in case someone has had this same problem!

The situation is I made the decision to jump into UV printing my product in May of 2018. I did a lot of research and came across the Roland VersaUV LEJ-640FT site. From the research I did and after speaking to their local rep Central Paper this by all accounts and the print times they were quoting to print my product this was the perfect machine for me to do the high volume product that I needed it to do.

Roland was so accommodating their sales rep Mark Czerniakowski came to our location to see firsthand the product that we would be printing. He along with several other printer sales people all agreed that the Roland LEJ-640FT was going to be perfect for our product!

We went ahead and leased the unit through Geneva Capital and were told it would arrive in several weeks. Having just landed a huge order we asked if there was any way that we could use the floor model printer at the local Roland facility. Roland said yes and we were very appreciative.

The next week we got trained on the machine by a very helpful Roland Tech and we began to print. Like anything we know it takes time to learn on how to set it up and run but very early on I got the sense that something was not right. At one point I panicked and called my sales person and told him there is no way this printer is printing at the speeds we had been quoted. He explained we needed to build jigs to hold the product as well as some tweaks with the software and we would be doubling our speed in no time.

We finally get our Roland printer delivered and begin to print and to no surprise we have the same exact problems. We built jigs, we changed processes, print speeds and resolutions but no matter what we did it was always either super slows printing or the print quality was terrible. I don't know all the printing terminology but is basically looked like we were printing through a screen door?

We reached out to Roland and Central Paper and after 2 months of use they said one of the heads was no good because of dust? This was replaced and we enclosed the printer from any dust but this did not make any difference? At this point I am struggling to fill orders to the point I am canceling orders and I realized I just leased this printer for $89K only to find out it is a lemon.

When I push Mark at Roland his story is that I had weeks of time using the floor model and should have know what I was getting and that I had a case of buyer’s remorse. This is completely untrue. Had the printer worked the way it was sold to me and printed at the speeds I was quoted I would have been very happy! The remorse is only because as I dug deeper into this I spoke to people in the industry who sold Roland and love Roland, but would not sell this specific printer due to all the problems. I also was told this printer was actually a machine Roland constructed from an older machine? One of the other a common problem was to have a flashing pinch roll error button? But there was no pinch roller on the unit?

After 5 months of constant issues and Roland not willing to help at all I realized that if I did not do something else I would go out of business... So I did my homework and purchased another brand UV printer that I will not reveal so people know I did not post this to drive business to another brand but this printer for almost the same price was much faster and a true work horse unlike the Roland.

So now for almost 2 years I have continued to pay the lease ($2,200 a month) on the Roland even though I stopped using the printer 18 months ago. In this time I have reached out to Roland, Central Paper, and Geneva and no one has done anything to help or even admit this printer has problems? Most likely none of them would help because the word got out about how terrible these printers are and the resale values plummeted. We have been trying to sell this unit for 6 months on eBay for $35K with no takers. Probably because there is so many others also listed but hey we did get a couple of offers at $10-15K so they are worth something!

My only option now it to surrender the printer to Geneva capital where they hope to get $30K for it which will stick me with the remainder of the lease of another $30-40K. If this happens I will have paid over $75K for a printer that did not generate even $10K of profits. Instead of the money generating machine I was promised between all the lost times dealing with issues, the down time on the printer, huge canceled purchase orders, and having to pay $75K for a broken printer that I never used, I will have lost over $750K in 2 years!

I am a small company and having to go through this has nearly bankrupted my business. It is absolutely disgusting that Roland was so eager to sell me this printer but the moment we had a problem they ran away and did nothing to help. They would not even consider taking it in as a trade in for us to buy smaller UV printer? At one point I even tried calling a Roland dealer outside of my area that was confident he could fix the printer and getting run so we could use it to make one item. They were located 5 hours away but I was willing to pay them for his time to come and look at it as I had no other options. On the day he was to driving here to visit he got a call directly from Roland advising he was not to help us? How is this even possible?

Even though we are in a global pandemic most likely I will have to surrender the Roland printer next week as Geneva Capital is pressuring me to do so as I have lost my appetite to keep paying $2,200 for nothing! I had hoped that at some point over the last 2 years someone from Roland or Central Paper would reach out with some type of solution to help us but that has not been the case.


If you have any advice on what I should do or who to talk to please let me know. If you or someone you know has the same Roland UV Printer issues please reach out to me with ideas and solutions. I have seen other posts on here with similar problems but maybe if we can get enough owners together with the same problems there is a bigger collective way to fight Roland. And if you want to buy this printer contact me as well.

Thank you,

Brian
508-431-8906

 

[Andy D]

Full disclosure, I probably don't know what I'm talking about..
I think I would stop payment and arrange another lease before my credit tanked, flush the roland as well as I could and put in storage. Your back's against the wall due to their fraud... Maybe contact other screwed over people and form a class action?

 

[Notarealsignguy]

If you didnt personally guarantee the loan, Id walk away. You could call them and tell them that you will either sell it if they agree on a short sale or they can come pick it up.

 

[Brian ONeil]

Full disclosure, I probably don't know what I'm talking about..
I think I would stop payment and arrange another lease before my credit tanked, flush the roland as well as I could and put in storage. Your back's against the wall due to their fraud... Maybe contact other screwed over people and form a class action?

Thanks Andy. I have never dealt with anything like this either so your guess is as good as mine. The issue is I now have 2 printers and can not get approved for a 3rd printer. If I turn in the Roland technically it will be considered a repo and even though I have paid a ton of money it will still hurt my credit. Its a double whammy where I can not catch a break.

Hopefully with me coming forward if there is more people in the same situation we can work together to right this wrong.

 

[C5 Service&Repair]

Can you post a nozzle check and example of the print quality issue?

 

[Brian ONeil]

If you didnt personally guarantee the loan, Id walk away. You could call them and tell them that you will either sell it if they agree on a short sale or they can come pick it up.

Yes Unfortunately I had to guarantee it so walking away is not exactly an option. The issue is I can not find someone to buy it? I have posted it on several sites and realistically it will only sell for $20K. The leasing company thinks they can get $30k for it and will deduct it from what I owe but I will still be on the hook for the balance which is close to $40K? At this point it is taking up a ton of room and I would be better off without it but it hurts to have lost this much with no recourse.

 

[Brian ONeil]

Can you post a nozzle check and example of the print quality issue?

The ink for this printer comes in cartridges that have expiration dates on them and since we have not run it in so long all the ink is expired. Even though we have kept it plugged in and clean for 2 years the printer gets an error message from the old ink? I will see what I can do tomorrow and post photo as we may have found a way around this.

 

[Notarealsignguy]

You finance for 2 reasons. 1, you dont have the cash or 2 to protect your cash.
Id tell them sorry. You will still be able to get accounts, if you need a loan a local bank will consider your financials more, if you need a car in the next few years go buy a kia. 70k is a chunk of change just to keep your credit good.

 

[Brian ONeil]

Can you post a nozzle check and example of the print quality issue?

Just found this test which was done beginning of March.

 

[Texas_Signmaker]

Just found this test which was done beginning of March.

Clearly that yellow is bad.

I might have missed this in your story... but can you get a tech out there to look at it?

 

[Andy D]

Are you still using the printer at all?
If not, I would probably get the best nozzle check I could and then flush everything...
Leaving ink sitting in lines will make a bad situation much worse.

 

[Andy D]

Clearly that yellow is bad.

Agreed, also in my experience, with the columns being all over the place, not lining up left and right, the print head's voltage settings could be off, but I don't know your printer.
Why is there an "A" two columns - "B" two columns - a "C" and no columns.

 

[Brian ONeil]

You finance for 2 reasons. 1, you dont have the cash or 2 to protect your cash.
Id tell them sorry. You will still be able to get accounts, if you need a loan a local bank will consider your financials more, if you need a car in the next few years go buy a kia. 70k is a chunk of change just to keep your credit good.

Thankfully we have newer cars but this will still hurt. My argument was this printer was $89K and if I put it into terms of a vehicle it is close to the price of a Porsche 911. Can you imagination if I bough a Porsche and after 2 months I had this many problems and after 5 months I could not use it anymore? No way, because Porsche would not make a crappy product and sell at $89K!

 

[Brian ONeil]

Are you still using the printer at all?
If not, I would probably get the best nozzle check I could and then flush everything...
Leaving ink sitting in lines will make a bad situation much worse.

No we are not using it but we do keep it plugged in and maintain it. The idea is to keep it somewhat ready in case we find a buyer who wants to run it.

 

[greysquirrel]

I have never know the roll to roll version of the lej to be a speed demon. If you knew this machine was problematic and replaced it at 5 months how did you lose $750000 in business? It sounds like you put a stop loss in quick enough. Roland is a solid company. They have been for many years. I have never know them to ever walk away from an unhappy customer or to not resolve a problem with their equipment. The same goes for Mark. He has been in this industry a long time. There has to be something else here. Did you threaten to sue them? That would be the only reason why they would not have worked with you to resolve these issues. Any company, Roland, HP, Epson, Mutoh, or Mimaki would go dark once that request or threat was made and then all bets are off. Legally they have to protect themselves if that were the case.
As far as the printer, I am assuming that it is now out of warranty. Buy a set of cleaning cartridges and put it in storage mode. If someone want to buy it and are serious you will need fresh ink in it anyway.
Try global garage or jj bender for resale...they will take a cut but hopefully get you out of it.

 

[Brian ONeil]

Clearly that yellow is bad.

I might have missed this in your story... but can you get a tech out there to look at it?

We had techs out many times early on when we got the printer and they even replaced one of the heads. The issue is the printer problem is not so much that it is broken but it is just not the printer they are claiming it to be. Perfect example their sales flyer shows them printing these Cornhole boards right on the bed. There is no way this printer can print as this is shown. It is a completely faked photo for a printer that is just not very good.

 

[Brian ONeil]

I have never know the roll to roll version of the lej to be a speed demon. If you knew this machine was problematic and replaced it at 5 months how did you lose $750000 in business? It sounds like you put a stop loss in quick enough. Roland is a solid company. They have been for many years. I have never know them to ever walk away from an unhappy customer or to not resolve a problem with their equipment. The same goes for Mark. He has been in this industry a long time. There has to be something else here. Did you threaten to sue them? That would be the only reason why they would not have worked with you to resolve these issues. Any company, Roland, HP, Epson, Mutoh, or Mimaki would go dark once that request or threat was made and then all bets are off. Legally they have to protect themselves if that were the case.
As far as the printer, I am assuming that it is now out of warranty. Buy a set of cleaning cartridges and put it in storage mode. If someone want to buy it and are serious you will need fresh ink in it any or jj bender for resale...they will take a cut but hopefully get you out of it.

I was very new to the industry and still am but I did a lot of research and was impressed by what I saw with the Roland. When I spoke to CP they told me they sell other printers than Roland but when I told them the large size of the orders I needed to produce and their sales person as well as the Roland rep told me this unit would be perfect. I assumed if there was a better faster machine for a similar price while the rep from Roland would not have told me at least the rep from CP would have spoken up but he did not. So now I printing our products at the Roland showroom and we are having lots of issues. I called the CP sales guy (who was a great guy) and he is trying to give me pointers and ways to speed it up. He feels 100% that as we get more comfortable printing that the speed will come and to some degree he is right but in the end the print times no matter what we did never got close to what was quoted. As soon as there was a problem Mark gave me every reason that it was us and not the machine. He said it was the dust, it was the room where the UV was located, and then it was the graphics. Every time we made changes to fix this but it did nothing. Finally they replaced a head but that did very little and so he settled on blaming this all being buyers remorse?

I don't buy an item for $1k without doing a lot of research to make sure that what I am buying is perfect. But somehow Mark thinks I blindly bought a printer for $90K and now I have buyers remorse? Yes I do have remorse but it because the printer I thought I was buying was not what I got.

I can tell you 100% that neither Roland or Central Paper did anything to try to help me trade or sell this unit until CP called me many months later and said they had a potential customer that was a school interested in the printer but they wanted it as a donation? Not kidding.

Look Mark may be a great guy but he 100% did nothing to help me and if a lawsuit is what it will takes to get this resolved so be it. The facts are on my side and I am certain that there are many other owners of this same printer that have had the same problems.

I appreciate the options to sell and will look into it but I think I reached out to JJ and they will not touch these units and this is the same with several other outlets. The issue is even though I have paid $48K over the last 2 years the current pay off for the printer is still close to $70k and so even if I sell it for $30K I still owe $40K? It is just a terrible situation.

 

[iPrintStuff]

Sounds like you either need to just bite the bullet and sell the printer, take the loss and move on or you need to lawyer up and prove that the printer doesn’t work as advertised.

 

[White Haus]

Sorry to hear about your situation.

From the sounds of it, there might be a few factors at play.

A) That printer is not even close to being a production printer. They look cute, but if you want speed, just about ANY other brand will outperform that printer, although you would probably have to spend a bit more.

B) You mentioned dust and cornhole boards etc.... is there a possibility that the environment contributed to the poor print quality?

C) If the heads haven't been firing 100% from the start, then that is definitely on Roland/the dealer. But if their quality has deteriorated from improper care or excessive dust....... that's different.

D) You mention all the problems etc - it seems like it boils down to the fact that you can't get the speed at an acceptable quality. This again boils down to this being the wrong printer for the job. If we use too fast of a setting on our Oce Arizona flatbed - we'll lose quality too. I would suspect that your nozzle check looks the way it does because it's been sitting for so long.

I dunno, just playing devil's advocate here, but sounds like there's more to this than they just sold you a defective printer then walked away.

I'm no Roland fanboy, and I've been disappointed by their equipment before, but they did eventually replace the whole bottom half of one of our units after we pushed hard enough. That being said, I won't be buying another Roland.

Hope you get it all sorted out. I do feel your pain and have had to deal with Roland headaches (although on a smaller scale) in the past.

 

[Gino]

I don't understand why, if the demo model didn't meet your demands, why in the heck did you accept the leased unit ??

When you tested the machine for speed with your files when looking into this, was it what you wanted ?? You would've had to be seeing the machine you borrowed. Don't tell me you blindly bought a machine without seeing it. That Porsche you compared it to, would you have it delivered or would you go test drive it, first. AND then check it against other models ??

Had Rolands since about 1993 and when I had a problem, Roland and it's reps, stepped right up and fixed everyrhing, usually on their dime.

If you researched it, it seems to me, your research department is lacking in skills, whether newbie or not.