The Epson Printing Ink Cartridge Scam

I have an Epson C46 printer and need new ink cartridges.

A brand new printer, actually an Epson S20 will cost $44 - $57 according to where I buy it. An Epson SX100 costs about the same.

Epson cartridges cost more than a new printer for a 10 ml black and color cartridge set at $65. Equivalent pirate cartridges cost $46, still utterly ridiculous.

This is extortion unlimited, even the Mafia do not employ such horrendous mark-ups.

So, I am faced with dumping my printer with full military honors into the garbage bin and refusing to be robbed, or searching the Internet for people who will supply ink cartridges at a sensible price. This I will do and I may add am very optimistic in finding one.

Cartridges for this printer should cost no more than 30% of the printer price - say $15 - $20.

Do any of you succumb to this blatent extortion or is there a better deal for users than to be slaves to an Epsom policy of customer abuse ?
KAS

 

in the uk i use jettec replacement cartridges for my epson, just as good if not better quality photo prints, also contains 30% more ink thank standard cartridge, and 50% cheaper!

 

the more you pay for the printer the cheaper the ink.
btw i would never buy an epson again.
there is still quite alot of ink left when the printer reports the ink is empty. plus you have to clean the heads ahead 20times to get it to print correctly.

now ive got a hp printer and it always prints perfectly.

my advice is to pay more money and get a decent Hp printer. before you buy it work out how much ink costs. eventually you will find a printer that is a decent price and the ink is cheap. when you find that printer buy it.

 

My experience with HP hasn't been that good either, over time the rollers wear out and paper jams, this is a common issue even on their high end photo printers as per their service center, I would agree on the cartridge issue, HP is far cheaper than others but apart from regular prints, photo quality even on premium paper leaves a lot to be desired.

 

Hi kC,
Took your advice and scanned the net for Jettec. Found it and entered my post code to find the nearest supplier to me. WOW ! it was one only 2 miles down the road.

Went there immediately and found that a black cartridge was 14 ml - 4 ml more than the Epson at 10 ml and the color was 33 ml a hell of a lot more than Epson.
The pair cost me $29 or £20 in UK money. An absolute bargain apart from scrounging round the net for a better deal and it was on my doorstep.

A brand new Epson S20 was only $37 or £25 !

SO, kC - thank you very much for the tip, I am very grateful to you and thanks to this Forum, without which I would not have got this information.

EPSON - eat ya heart out and have a nice day.
KAS

 

I wouldn't buy a cheap Epson printer again.
The one that I had lasted three months and I found out co-workers were't faring any better with that same cheap model.

And I also think that the price for these ink cartridges is a scam most of the time.
They either get you on the price of the printer or they get you on the price of ink.

 

Where do you get the 30% price target? I agree ink can get expensive. But this strikes me as a business model similar to razors - Gillette gives me a cheap razor because they want me to buy razor blades from them forever.

 

HP - upside is you get a new printhead when you buy new ink. Downside, as mentioned, they do wear out quicker that epson IMO.

Epson - reasons already stated, can be good and bad. Most important, always print SOMETHING every couple weeks. Print heads on most epsons are in the printer, and are usually better heads, but if you don't print for extended periods, clogging can occur, and not easy to remedy.

The solution for epsons? What I do it buy photo quality refill kits. I bought my epson because it had ink tanks, and they are really easy to refill. Downside is, they have a little chip on them that watches the droplets output, and counts. this tells you when empty. Once you are empty, usually the printer will not operate even if you have refilled the tank.

Thankfully for my older c80 printer there is a tool I downloaded that resets that counter. Now I refill, reset the counter and keep going. I think I paid $20 for a refill kit, that refills about 8 times. Now that is getting your money's worth!

HTH.

Sul.

 

About HP: mine is a couple of years old, and the cartridges last a long time.
I don't think a need to buy a new printhead when I replace a cartridge ( I have seperate black and color cartridges).

I know, I once had a printer that was cheap to buy, but the cartridges (with printhead ? It has been a long time) cost nearly the same as what I paid for the printer. I'm not sure if it was an Epson.

I don't like to buy 'fake' or third party cartridges, you usually don't save that much money, and I don't know what it would do to the printer ( are there chips in those cartridges ? I don't know).

If you want to print a lot, it's best to buy a good printer. It doesn't have to be very expensive.

Business model: 'cheap' printers, money has to be made through selling cartridges. Good and not so cheap printers, at least less of that money has to come from selling cartridges.

IMO, there is no 'scam'. Just a business model.

 

Here in the US I use a refill kit sold at the likes of Staples, Office Depot etc.

It's a 2 part kit for my Epson.
1st part a reset tool for the cartridge, caps and syringe.
2nd part is the ink.
About $35 $40 to refill about ten times each color.

Epson pretty much only sells photo inks now. They used to have 2 levels of ink, printer and photo. Now they only sell premium.

 

I've just been through exactly the same thing only with a Canon, so I don't think it's brand specific. Only difference I was bitten twice, the old printer had 3 colours + black, the new one has 3 colours + 2 different blacks [one called photo black] and if that's not enough the actual individual ink cartridges are smaller than were the ones in the old model. And the quality of the print, looks exactly the same to me. The new printer came with one of those redemption deals which included a ridiculous amount of high gloss photo paper of various sizes, 25 printable DVD's and a pack of T-shirt transfer paper, just enough stuff to make the unwary run up an ink bill the size of the national debt of a small country.
On the subject of the cheap replacement inks, a guy where I get mine from told me to keep a set of the old original Canon inks to replace the cheap ones if it ever has to go in for repairs, according to him the cheap inks can nullify the warranty, I don't know if that's Canon specific or goes across all models. I'm thinking of printing a target on a T-shirt so Canon can get a better shot at me next time

 

I bought a refurbed Brother MFC-240C for $29.95 a few months ago from NewEgg (I have seen new ones list for $229 on Amazon). It uses four separate tanks of each color--Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and Black--which are $4.97 each or $15.97 for a multipack.

 

What about Nikon ones?

 

We all now recognise that Western customers are being ripped-off disgracefully on ink cartridges for their printers, no matter what make. Let us stick to Epson as an example.

US jobs have been exported to China, Mexico and other overseas countries by the 100,000`s. Epson sacked 75% of their workforce at one plant in 2001 by transferring their production to China.

We will have to make a few guesses to get the message, as all these companies do not want us to know their vast profits and low labor costs. So, let us assume that almost all of Epson`s lower and middle model printers and cartridges are made in China.

China accounts for 37%+ of all electrical goods. Chinese labor rates can be 40+ times less than US rates.
A US worker gets $8 per hour at lower rates and around $20+ per hour at the higher rates.

A Chinese worker takes home $80 per month to $160 per month at the top rate. At 40 hours per week, that is $0.5 per hour to $1 per hour. One can guess how cheap a printer and inks will be at these rates. Labor accounts for a good 70% of the total cost.

If an Epson printer costs $60 to us, the true price should be say $20.

Allowing for all S&A and shipping expenses, Epson would still make a huge profit. Their profit margin at present must be astronomic given the grossly extortionate prices we are forced to pay compared with the abysmal Chinese labor rates.

Cartridges ? Well need we say more ; black at $25 and color at $40 ! Even half these prices is an embarrassing rip-off.
They should at the very most be black at $6 and color at $10 at an absolute maximum given the Chinese costs and even then should line the pockets of Epson quite handsomely.

It is not JUST Epson who are screwing the public, I use Epson as an example because I have one and know a little about them - they are ALL doing it.
KAS

 

It is a rip off no matter what brand you choose. I had an HP printer for years, and in the end, sick and tired of spending a huge amount of money just for black ink, I got rid of it and bought a Lexmark laser printer (black and white only) for just under 100 dollars. I've been using it only to print documents, and when the toner runs out, I might just buy another printer rather than buy new toner.

It has already worked for more than 2 years, which means with the HP printer the ink would have already amounted to 150 dollars. Photos? Believe me it is much better to use a lab whether you want straight prints or high quality ones.

 

Last printer I had though it cost less than a set of ink cartridges, I found out that the cartridges were only partially full.

 

+1 You hit the nail on the head!

 

Black - Epson Compatible Inkrite Ink (B) (IR-036)
Stock:
£1.94 inc. VAT QTY:
Tricolor - Epson Compatible Inkrite Ink (C) (IR-037)
Stock:
£2.44 inc. VAT QTY:
Or 3 black and 3 colour for £11.73 inc vat

When i had C46 i got these and they are as good as original
from dvdshoponline.co.uk.
The only reason i get Epson is the cheap cartridges

 

Yes, ink-carts are a rip-off (even the compatible ones)! I have Costco refill my carts for $10 (black) - $16 (color) each. Sometimes they don't work as well as they should, but Costco always makes good on those.

 

I am glad I found Jettec cartridges!

 

Even with Epson photo printers, I never paid as high as I am now with Canon. Canon is a rip off in every sense, inferior construction to Epson, first unit died in a month of use, the service center returned it to me with a empty color cartridge. Then I found out how costly Canon cartridges are, also they don't refill well, cartridge world here refuse Canon due to a issue where the chip can't be reset. Canon cartridges on average don't last long. Only plus point is unlike Epsons where one has to use them regularly due to head clogging issues, Canon has no such issues but then print quality is not up to the mark of Epson .


Some good tips for printer maintenance and rescue courtsey Lifehacker.

http://www.bloggingwv.com/yet-another-use-for-wd-40/

Cleaining printer heads.

http://www.lifehacker.com.au/2008/11/is_your_printer_wasting_your_ink_and_money/

Most cartridges give wrong info about empty ink, there is plenty of ink left over.

 

For high volume B&W printing, I've always felt I was better off with a Laser Printer, and I'm still using a HP LaserJet 1200. It's been a workhorse for more years than I can remember!

Printing B&W on an inkjet, at least on my HP 7960, mixes the colors to produce B&W unless you select "Grayscale" and "Black Cartridge Only." Otherwise it's a waste of ink and money to print B&W (documents) on an inkjet.

Isn't that the truth!

My HP Photosmart 7960 which I use for color photos only, monitors the cartridges and I start getting the warning messages when the ink level looks low in the picture that pops up, but I always have dozens of prints remaining!

Fortunately, there is no automatic shutoff, so I just watch, and when the color starts to fade, I cancel the print , eject the paper and cut up what didn't print to use for smaller prints.

I've not found 3rd party inks anywhere near the quality of HP, and using HP's Premium paper the prints are superb with their inks.

In comparing the Premium Matte (now called Soft Gloss) with the corresponding Everyday Matte, I noticed a difference, so have always used Premium. With Premium paper and their ink, HP's archival rating is 100 years. So I know when I make a special photo album for someone, the prints will remain superb for their lifetime.

I've not found that the "special Black ink for photos" is any better than the plain black ink, which is less expensive.

I've also had this 7960 printer for many years with no problems.

I replace the color cartridges for the 7960 maybe three times a year, but I print mostly small sizes:6 x8, 9x7. The B&W cartridge has been replaced twice since I've had the printer.

The Extended Size toner for the 1200 has a rated yield of 3500 pages. I kept track with the first toner cartridge I had years ago and it was closer to 4000, but that of course depends on how much of the page has type on it.

High quality printers are not inexpensive, but provide years of high quality service.


----
rich

 

I have an old Epson printer that I bought 3rd party cartridges for. They work fine for my needs as I don't print photographs. I think the cartridges were $3 to $4 each .

With that said, when my current printer dies I'll first look for the availability of 3rd party cartridges before buying any printer.

 

eBay for ink. $4.50 - $10 each shipped.

 

Gee man - ya gotta be jokin.
These prices are 10 times less than the scam prices extorted from us by the big companies - Epson included. What is the catch ?

I have just paid £20 for Jettec black + colour and felt great, although £20 is twice as much as it should be with Chinese made cut-cost goods.

Is this modern day Robin Hood source really THAT cheap with no catch or strings attached ?

What does your "The only reason I get Epson is the cheap cartridges" mean ?
Having established that Epson are guilty of screwing us all on the cross of total extortion by several mark-ups, it seems to be a contradiction.

Tell me more - by PM if you like.
KAS