Printer Cartridge Price Fixing
By Stephen Bucaro
Printers are one of the biggest rip-offs in computing today. Companies like Hewlett
Packard (HP) and Cannon throw together a bucket of cheap plastic parts and charge
you $150.00 for it. Then, they price gouge you for the ink cartridges.
CNET.com analyzed the cost for inkjet printing and reported that the costs ranged from
14 cents to $1.32 per page. If it costs 21 cents per page and you print only an average
of two pages per day, the annual cost of ink would be more than the cost of the printer.
The ink cartridge for a low end HP printer, containing only one tiny ounce of ink,
costs a mind boggling $30.00! That’s price gouging, and all printer manufacturers are
doing it. That’s called PRICE FIXING and it’s illegal. To add to the rip-off, some of
them put all the colors into one cartridge. Then you have to buy a new cartridge when
only one color runs out, wasting the remaining ink.
This price gouging makes it impossible for businesses like direct marketing or mail
order to survive. The only way you can protect yourself is to refill your own
cartridges. Most people feel that it is too difficult or too messy to refill cartridges.
But for the cost of a new cartridge, you can refill your old one 12 times (per color).
If your business on average prints 200 pages per day, refilling cartridges could
bring your costs down from $15,330.00 to $1,277.50 per year. This is based on 21
cents per page, your actual cost per page could me much higher. With this kind of
savings, you can afford to screw up a few cartridges while learning. If you spill
some ink, you can afford to re-carpet the entire house.
A good place to get inkjet refill kits is MIS Associates.
They provide detailed online well-illustrated step-by-step instructions. The same idea
applies to laser printer toner cartridges. Can you afford to pay $400.00 every time
your HP 1200se toner cartridge runs dry? A good place to get toner refill kits is
TonerRefillKits.
They also provide detailed online well-illustrated step-by-step instructions. You can
refill the 1200se cartridge for only $12.95! (after one time $12.95 purchase of tool kit.)
Printers are one of the biggest rip-offs in computing today. I don’t know why the FTC
is not investigating illegal ink cartridge price fixing by printer manufacturers. For
now, the way to protect yourself is to learn how to refill your own cartridges.
More Maintain and Upgrade Your PC Articles:
• Do We Really Need Windows Vista?
• Be the Master of Your Printer
• Removing and Installing the Hard Drive
• Digital Photography Printing - Simplifying the Pixels and DPI's
• FREE Ebook - How to Configure and Maintain Your PC
• How to Update Your Computer's BIOS
• Upgrading Your Memory to Improve Performance
• Wireless Router Setup
• Installing A Power Supply
• Printing Troubleshooting Guide
| 
About BTH
User Agreement
Privacy
Site Map
Contact
News Feeds
RSS Feed
Follow @Stephen Bucaro
Windows Troubleshooting
