Poor service from supplier?

[Colin]

I’d like some feedback on this:

For the first five years of ownership of my Roland SP-540i printer, I used nothing but OEM inks. A few months ago, a local rep I was speaking with was going on & on about these “other” third-party inks which were half the price. He said that they never would want to recommend a product that’s faulty or would cause problems, so they did a lot of testing over considerable time, and these inks were no problem; plug & play, and that many many others had made the switch.

Given that I am way out of warranty with the printer, and the price difference is considerable, I bought a set of 440s bases on his recommendation. Now, the magenta cartridge is sending an erroneous message to the printer (telling it that it’s empty) and causing the printer to stop printing. If I’m not right there right then to hit the “retry” button in VersaWorks, I’ll get a line in the print, and I have wasted a good amount of vinyl and banner material (and ink) because of this.

When I brought this to his attention a while ago via email, all I got a terse reply saying “The build quality isn’t as good as the Rolands.” I felt like...Wha!? You just told me and sold me on these. No offer of assistance or compensation was made. Yesterday I got so fed up with the printer stopping on just about every print, that I called and asked for another cartridge, without charge. He said that there’s nothing he can do, and that a remedy would be to go back to the Roland ink! When I pressed further, all I got was a $20.00 credit – but not applicable to the Cyan & Yellow ink cartridges that I’m now ordering, no, it must be used on a media order (which I don’t use them for).

I just find that to be poor service, no?

 

[reQ]

If you are not going thru a set of inks every week, its pointless to use 3rd party inks. Its been 4 years with my machine & i am only using Roland inks, never had any issues. Yes, they are $145 a pop on average here in Canada, compare ot $89 3rd party, but i go thru a set of inks every 2 weeks, and im not even interested to jeopardize my workflow/time etc by using 3rd party at this stage.

 

[T_K]

I'd call that high on the sleazy scale. Maybe he talked you up because he gets a bigger cut on the sale of 3rd party ink?
But if that's really all the help he offered, I'd look at taking my business elsewhere - even if it was to another rep at the same company.

When I was brought on to my current company, I took over the inventory purchases. I've refused to work with the company we got the printer from. I wasn't very inclined to in the first place, since they basically offer vinyl brands I've never heard of and don't save more than a few dollars/roll on. But when the rep came out one day and started talking to me like I was 4 years old, I made sure we didn't buy from them anymore.

Customer service counts a lot, especially when there's plenty of competition.

 

[Solventinkjet]

If a cartridge fails and the printer can be ruled out (a lot of these cases end up being bad maintenance stations), replacing the cartridge is the only acceptable action. We have had it happen a couple times with 3rd party and OEM inks where the actual cartridge failed. We always replace the cartridge in this case and end up using it in our test machine or sending it back to the manufacturer for credit.

 

[Gino]

it's the old saying, ya get what ya pay for. I'm sorry it caused you such stress, but it's been gone over and over here time and time again, not to go to third party. Regardless if the unit is in warrenty or not. In fact, after it's outta warranty, you're really f*cked as you have witnessed.

My reasoning is simple...... if a 4' x 8' vinyl print or banner costs about 24¢ a square foot, you're probably charging out at a much greater rate. Even so, you have invested maybe $7.68 in ink. I don't see why people wanna take a chance of ruining prints, time, machines and jobs for pennies ?? With the third party system, it might cost you about $3.00. Wow-wee......... Over the course of 4 44os, I pay $432 and the 3rd party stuff is about $340. That's less than $100, but yet, you or anyone else made at least a few thousand dollars with the ink, but 3rd partiers saved an extra $92. Big Whoop. Are the downsides worth it ??

I hope everyone sees this thread and uses your experience as their own 'do or don't' ink thread.

​

Good luck..... here's hoping it goes back to how it worked before. ​

 

[Colin]

Gino:

While it is good to discuss the economics of OEM vs 3rd party inks (and BTW, my cost for four OEM inks is $600.00 CDN vs $300.00 for 3rd party, and after I spend some time to do the math, that's about half - LOL), I'd prefer to keep the focus on my main question or point, which is: after being recommended to and assured of a particular product, then ignored when that product fails.

*"Quote" function doesn't seem to be working.

 

[Colin]

That's just plain sleazy.

You can't convince someone to switch from OEM to 3rd party then look the other way when the carts don't work. I wonder how Roland would feel about this approach...

That being said - has it only happened with one cart? I've heard of chips being defective and not being read properly.

Perhaps you could order another Magenta cartridge and test to see if it's just an isolated incident.

Yes, I'm told the problem will be the chip. Only one cartridge so far. It just seems so cheezy and short-sighted to not just throw me a replacement magenta. I would imagine they could easily send it back to their supplier as defective.

 

[Gino]

Gino:

While it is good to discuss the economics of OEM vs 3rd party inks (and BTW, my cost for four OEM inks is $600.00 CDN vs $300.00 for 3rd party, and after I spend some time to do the math, that's about half - LOL), I'd prefer to keep the focus on my main question or point, which is: after being recommended to and assured of a particular product, then ignored when that product fails.

*"Quote" function doesn't seem to be working.

Yeah, I tired to go back and edit my post to address the part about the vendor and it wouldn't let me edit only a few minutes after posting. I realized I omitted that part. Sorry.

I too, think it's mighty sloppy business ethics to treat someone in that fashion, after THEY recommended you do this. Go past the dork that you've been dealing with and ask to talk to someone with authority..... like the owner or president of the company.



​

While it won't help you perseae, I still think it could serve as a very good lesson for many.

 

[CanuckSigns]

Very shady!

I've had a few sales reps in here in the past trying to get me to switch to 3rd party ink, they all make the same claims to be superior to OEM ink, and they all come with a warantee if anything happens. However I don't imagine it's worth the paper it's written on, if you have an issue, i'm sure the ink company will blame it on the printer and Roland will blame the ink and guess who gets stuck with the bill.

Scumbag sales reps are everywhere, throw the carts in the garbage, and chalk it up to a lesson learned.

 

[Colin]

I too, think it's mighty sloppy business ethics to treat someone in that fashion, after THEY recommended you do this. Go past the dork that you've been dealing with and ask to talk to someone with authority..... like the owner or president of the company.

Yes, I've been thinking of doing that very thing. The head office is back east, so will do tomorrow.

 

[GAC05]

Yes, I've been thinking of doing that very thing. The head office is back east, so will do tomorrow.

The least they could do would be to send you another card to swap out on the cart. It would cost them next to nothing and be much cheaper to ship.
I just had a full OEM Mutoh cart throw up an error and they are going to either reset or send me a new card.
The sketchy part is the tech said to wait until I had several and do the reset all in one shot. Huh? My old 1304 has had exactly 1 cart fail in the 7+ years I've owned it.
And that one was on me as using 440s in a 1304 was not recommended.

wayne k
guam usa

 

[toomeycustoms]

It may be a sensor on the machine. We had the same issue with our yellow. It would think the cartridge was empty and stop the print, but then recognize the cartridge again. Tech replaced the cartridge sensor or something and it's working fine. We've only run Genuine roland inks.

 

[Colin]

I just spoke with a lady at head office and she was very helpful. After I fully explained what had occurred, she was surprised and perplexed that the cartridge (or at least the chip) wasn't immediately replaced by my local manager. She has credited me for the cartridge.

It's interesting how some "managers" don't understand the concept or value in taking care of your customers, and the cost of not taking care of them.

Thanks for the comments all.

 

[Gino]

There are a lot more businesses today, than years ago, which pretend to be customer oriented, but frankly, they don't give a rat's a$$ about you any more than the man on the moon. It's hard to find decent people who will have to lock horns with customers and remain civil, let alone helpful. In addition, many businesses will give out bonuses based upon few returns and infractions with the company and reward them for not having problems. So, if these people just shrug ya off..... your only chance is to go around the p!ssant and go right for the head honcho.



Ya need good people around you and luckily for me, I do at our place. I have no fear of customers being taken care of. It's usually not a problem with things going wrong, but rather scheduling people and trying to fit them in without sounding overwhelmed.