A Dream Come True, Turned into My Personal Nightmare: My Review of Cartridge World
Last Friday I stumbled on a site advertising the refilling of ink cartridges at a huge discount. The name of the store was Cartridge World, and a branch was to be opening soon in my area. It was like a dream come true, like when AOL went from five cents a minuet to unlimited usage. Imagine, I could gather all my empty cartridges, and bring them to Cartridge World for refilling, and have them back the very same day.
I first spoke to the clerk on the phone to get some information. How much would it cost? How long would it take to refill? And are you open yet? Black cartridges would be $15.75, and color slightly higher. although prices vary for different makes. But anyhow you look at it, it's just ink, and most of us use gallons of it, so the cheaper the better. Not to mention the good we are doing for the environment when we recycle. The clerk was polite, and enthused, it would only take about twenty minuets to refill, and yes! they had just opened on the Monday.
I had to work on Saturday so I sent a friend to Cartridge World to refill my cartridges. I gave him 3 empties, one black and two color. I meant to give him two blacks and a color, my mistake. But that was OK, because when my current black was getting low, I could just run to Cartridge World and have my empty refilled again, and I would have color ink nearly forever, since I hardly ever used it. He had to wait longer than we thought, so he left them there, and picked them up a couple hours later. The clerk did give a $2.00 coupon for the wasted gas and time, however.
Today was my day off from work, and I had plans of printing out stacks of material that was long overdue, not to mention my Prison Uprise newsletter to send out. I got up early in the morning and finished the newsletter. Placed the refilled cartridges in my printer, and printed out an alignment page. Well, the printer kept calling for another alignment page, until finally 4 or 5 had been printed. "What a waste of ink" I thought to myself.
As the newsletter began printing out, I could see it was of poor quality. Some spots you could hardly read. There were spaces in-between the words, and I knew something was wrong with the cartridge. I immediately called the store and told the clerk what my problem was. She told me to bring the cartridge in and they would check it for me. After all they guarantee there products 100%. But I was all of a sudden not so happy anymore. I had the feeling of gloom that my balloon was about to pop.
I quickly removed the cartridge, and along with a test print and pages of wasted alignment readouts, I headed for the store which is about 15 minuets from my house. An inconvenience to say the least, but I needed this cartridge if I was going to get anything done today that I had planned.
When I arrived at the store, I was greeted by a friendly clerk, who was more than happy to take my cartridge to check. But it was more than just getting another one. I had come to this store to save money and time. And now I was losing money and time. What about all this wasted ink on these test papers? What about all the time wasted driving back and forth? I didn't want to be there. I didn't want to interrupt what I was doing to get this problem fixed. My solution to Dell's purchasing policy wasn't looking too good. "I want some kind of reimbursement for all of this," I was thinking.
I looked around the store as I was waiting for the clerk to return with my cartridge. It was clean and orderly, Everything new. Another clerk, or perhaps the owner came from the back and began answering my questions. "So, It's not a guarantee that when someone brings a cartridge in, it will be able to be refilled"? I snapped. "We test print them before we allow them to leave the store" she said,"and if they don't print correctly, they can't leave." That should have been fair enough, but I wasn't happy about all this. She told me about all the Dell cartridges they refilled all week and how mine was the first they had a problem with. But of coarse it would be mine!
This is where it gets worse. After about five minuets or so the original clerk returned to tell me that my cartridge was broke. It couldn't be refilled because the "tracks" or something were broke. "They can go at anytime" she said. Pop, goes the balloon. I am now without a black cartridge at all. I have to go home, call Dell and order one on line, since they had no empties, or refilled Dell's in stock. Not a happy camper anymore. It will be maybe 3 days before I can print anything out.
My experience at Cartridge World was poor. I feel I wasted more time and money than if I had just called Dell in the first place and ordered my ink cartridge. I think I was maybe too hard on the girls working there, and the circumstances were a bit out of their control. Although they guarantee their work, there are no guarantees you'll go home with a filled cartridge, however.
I can blame this experience on Murphy's Law, "where anything that can go wrong, will go wrong," or even on Mercury Retrograde, when the planet Mercury causes havoc on any means of communication, or simply on bad luck. Will I go back to Cartridge World? Will I take my chances, and hope this was just a one time thing? I swore I wouldn't. But only time will tell if I change my mind. Next time you need an ink cartridge refilled, you can always try your luck with Cartridge World.
Published by Dee
I am a prison activist/advocate writing about prison issues, hoping to make awareness, and bring reform. One out of every thirty-two people in the USA are currently on parole, probation or in prison. I am ow... View profile
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10 Comments
Post a CommentI've been a tech at Cartridge World for about 7 years now. Failing cartridges are the nature of the business plane and simple. All cartridges will eventually fail and end up in a landfill. I bet you never think about just how many empty cartridges accumulate in homes, offices, corporations, schools, hospitals I could go on. Our customers love the fact that we reuse just about everything that enters the store other than cartridges like bags and boxes. It's all about being green.
However refilling isn't a scam nor does it work for everybody. I can't tell you how many people come into my store who have bought a printer with absolutely no knowledge of the cartridge it takes or if it can be refilled with a high success rate. For Instance canon tri-color setups have more problems than anything. Not all lexmarks can be refilled. Newer epsons can't be refilled at all. I wouldn't recommend Dell either.
HP and Brother wins with little return. As goes for Laser printers IMO
I had a bad cartridge once. It was cruel and inhumane. I struggled for years with it. I know I should have given up on it but it was such a challenge. I was sure that I could change it. I couldn't. I could only change myself and that is what I did. I am happy now/
I, as many of the people who've commented, have also used cartridge world several times in the past. I had bought a refilled cartridge and used it to start printing around 800 sheets for a project I was working on. After around 200 sheets the ink began to run out. After another 10 it was pretty much gone. I rang the shop and they said to just bring it back in with a page of what I'd been printing.
When I got there, I said that I thought the cartridge might not have been filled correctly. They went out back to 'test' the cartridge. The guy came back with a beautifully printed page that anyone would be pleased with. However, I suspected that as he wouldn't let me go back and see him print it for "health and safety" reasons he could have just printed it off with any print cartridge. He said that the cartridge was full and there was no problem with it whatsoever.
I said that I'd like to take advantage of the Cartirdge World guarantee that th
I have been purchasing cartridges from Cartridge World for my Epson 880 Stylus printer and have found the cartridges to be of a high-calibre. I have found the customer service to be attentive and their prices sure beat out a lot of other ink and cartridge prices. I highly recommend Cartridge World to all of my friends!
I tried Cartridge World for my Epson CX4200 MFD. It uses Epson DURABrite Ultra pigment ink, Cartridge World inks don't work well as pigmented ink replacement, it would be clogged every time I use it and needed to clean the heads several times a day. The store kept replacing my cartridges and blamed it on air bubbles. Changing back to Epson inks again, the problem has gone away. They would not refund me because they said I used up the cartridges, I said yeah, used up by cleaning the heads!
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been sold at Cartridge World - she wouldn't even look at my receipt that showed the purchase. The saleslady refused to provide me with a refund or exchange. She explained that because one of the stickers had been removed, the warranty was invalid. I checked the receipt and Cartridge World website and no where does it list this warranty. I was beyond upset that this situation happened and would not recommend that anyone shop at Cartridge World, particularly the Paramus location. They will sell you empty cartridges and then refuse you a refund/exchange.
Hi Dee, I had a similar nightmarish experience at Cartridge World in Paramus, NJ. I recently went to refill my black and color ink cartridges, excited that I would receive a discount on ink and would be helping the environment in the process. The salesman I dealt was very friendly; he explained that he was the owner. He gave me "pre-filled" cartridges instead of filling the old ones I had brought in. However, when I went home, the black ink cartridge was empty. Can you believe it? I went back to the store a few days later (I live about 30 miles from the store, so it wasn't easy for me to get there often). When I returned, I explained what had happened to the saleslady, who also said she was the owner. She said it couldn't be possible; that in all her years at Cartridge World a cartridge had never been sold that was empty. Another sales lady checked and the cartridge was in fact empty. The "owner" then went on to call me a liar and scammer and that this cartridge couldn't have
Hi Dee,
Your description sounds a lot like it could be our store. I'm so sorry you had this experience. It's true that, as Ken mentioned, cartridges (particularly Dell, Sharp, and Lexmark) tend to refill with poor results if they have dried out. At our store in Seattle, we keep as many types of cartridges as possible "pre-filled". This saves you time because you can get your fresh cartridge without waiting for your empty to be refilled, and also gives us enough time to do a full deep-cleaning process that can rejuvenate dried out cartridges.
I hope you will give Cartridge World another try, whether you still have your Dell printer or a different printer now.
I work at cartridge world as a tech in Honolulu. In my experience, Dell and Lexmark cartridges should *not* be refilled "as you wait". Lexmark (which manufactures Dell cartridges) has black inks that dry to a consistency of shoe polish. This turns the refill process into something a bit more involved than a quick in-and-out drill and fill. Thus, you should not wait until the cartridge is dry before refilling. The consensus around here is that Lexmark Inks are deliberately concocted to make refilling more difficult.
Furthermore, the nature of Dell's supply restriction makes it difficult for Cartridge World to maintain a good stock of refills as most people return their empties to Dell when they order off the website. This too is undoubtedly to protect their profit margin from refillers.
Dell and Lexmark cartridges *can* be refilled with good results, but this requires that the cartridge go through a four day production process involving proprietary chemical solutions, centrifugin
Look on the bright side of things. If this is your idea of a nightmare, you've got it pretty good.