Having operated a bank of solvent printers for a number of trouble free years, mainly printing onto self adhesive film, we were approached by a reseller representing a very large, worldwide manufacturer of inks and offered a compatible ink for our machines. The cost savings were potentially huge, the colour gamut as good and maybe even better than the OEM version, it was low odour and everything seemed to stack up.
With the reassurance of a well-known ink manufacturer behind the product, who even offered a warranty against early deterioration of our printheads, we decided to test the ink on one of our machines. After six months of success we switched all of our machines over to the ink. Annual ink cost savings were great and we were happy bunnies.
For the next year we had trouble free printing. But, suddenly, we started to get print quality issues, couldn’t match previous colours and had problems with blocked and failing printheads. Panic stations!
Soon after the ink manufacturer contacted us and what they had to say made sense of the situation. Their authorised reseller of the inks had started selling counterfeit ink and re-labelling it, now making it fourth party Ink. Only, they had forgotten to tell us!
The upshot is that the manufacturer won’t cover the replacement printheads as it isn’t their ink that has caused the damage. The reseller has now disappeared and can’t be contacted. I have a stock of ink that is damaging my printers and have to foot the bill to replace printheads and reintroduce the correct ink into my printers.
Although I had carried out due diligence of the ink initially, which I would still recommend, I had failed to ensure the reseller was as reputable and trustworthy. A lesson learnt!
Comments please to industrymole@imagereportsmag.co.uk