Author Topic: Why I hate WalMartians  (Read 1113 times)

Kingcreek

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Why I hate WalMartians
« on: February 17, 2017, 04:21:35 PM »
New Brother all-in-one printer, copier, scanner, fax thingy came with a toner cartridge. Set it up and everything worked just great until "low toner" alert came on. Only local source was WalMart. They had 1 in stock. Only 1. I bought it for about the same as the online ie amazon price. The very limited "starter" toner cartridge runs out on a busy afternoon so the secretary opens the new one and pops it in.
It no work. Some friggin WalMartian has carefully repackaged a depleted cartridge (and probably returned it for a full refund) and it got restocked. So now I have 2 depleted toner cartridges and have to make a trip to WM and spend my time splainin why they should refund MY money or replace my toner cartridge.
F'n WalMartians...
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41magsnub

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Re: Why I hate WalMartians
« Reply #1 on: February 17, 2017, 04:28:11 PM »
New Brother all-in-one printer, copier, scanner, fax thingy came with a toner cartridge. Set it up and everything worked just great until "low toner" alert came on. Only local source was WalMart. They had 1 in stock. Only 1. I bought it for about the same as the online ie amazon price. The very limited "starter" toner cartridge runs out on a busy afternoon so the secretary opens the new one and pops it in.
It no work. Some friggin WalMartian has carefully repackaged a depleted cartridge (and probably returned it for a full refund) and it got restocked. So now I have 2 depleted toner cartridges and have to make a trip to WM and spend my time splainin why they should refund MY money or replace my toner cartridge.
F'n WalMartians...

Not limited to Walmart.

In about 1996 I bought a new 1.25GB hard drive (whoo!) from the PX at Fort Riley.  Got back to the barracks and somebody had replaced the drive with an old 10MB disk with a bunch of broken pins.   It was professionally reshrink wrapped, did not appear to be an open box item when I bought it.  Took me a couple of hours to berate them into giving me another when I took it back.

Ben

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Re: Why I hate WalMartians
« Reply #2 on: February 17, 2017, 04:36:02 PM »
I recently had a topic here about a cheap Chinese tablet I bought on Amazon (since returned and exchanged for a Lenovo). It came in brand new packaging and looked brand new, but when I turned it on, it had someone else's Google account on it.

I just recently purchased a Brother all-in-one laser myself. First thing I did was get an extra black toner cartridge for it when I checked out with it at Staples. The whole "starter cartridge" thing bugs the heck out of me. I can't believe it costs the manufacturer all that much more to supply normal capacity cartridges as in days of old. I'd happily pay 20 ducats more for a printer to get it with standard cartridges. Or at least standard black and then starter cartridges for the color.
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KD5NRH

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Re: Why I hate WalMartians
« Reply #3 on: February 17, 2017, 04:45:32 PM »
I just recently purchased a Brother all-in-one laser myself. First thing I did was get an extra black toner cartridge for it when I checked out with it at Staples. The whole "starter cartridge" thing bugs the heck out of me. I can't believe it costs the manufacturer all that much more to supply normal capacity cartridges as in days of old. I'd happily pay 20 ducats more for a printer to get it with standard cartridges. Or at least standard black and then starter cartridges for the color.

Personally, I'd rather they all just go to CIFS so I can buy gallons and never worry about it again.  You'd think the enviroweenies would be all over that.

RocketMan

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Re: Why I hate WalMartians
« Reply #4 on: February 17, 2017, 04:47:58 PM »
Make sure you don't have a damaged contact pin in the top of the cartridge slot in the printer.  There is a little PC board on the cartridge that has to make contact with the pins in the cartridge slot.  Brother printers are notorious for those little pins getting pushed up and stuck where they no longer make contact with the PCB on the cartridge.  This causes false low ink warnings.
Usually it's just one of the pins that gets stuck out of position.
Good luck grabbing the stuck pin with something to pull it back down, too.  Ain't happenin'.  BTDT with two Brother printers.
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MechAg94

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Re: Why I hate WalMartians
« Reply #5 on: February 17, 2017, 05:02:39 PM »
I thought all the printer companies do that with the start cartridges.  They make the printers very cheap, but sell $2 cartridges for $40 or more. 
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230RN

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Re: Why I hate WalMartians
« Reply #6 on: February 17, 2017, 05:42:24 PM »
Same thing here on a Brother printer starter cartridge.  Surprisingly quick low toner warning.  Took cartridge out, shook it like mad in XYZ directions, put it back in, finished the job and it even went on for a couple of more days.  Meantime, I bought two medium (not giant) cartridges, so I'm Boy Scouted for when the first new one craps out.  Yay, me !

That shaking up in XYZ dimensions works for liquid ink cartridges in jet printers too, by the way.

My biggest bitches about Brother is their drivers seem to be flaky.  Both on my Dell, with XP and my HP G-72 with Win 7, it is difficult to reboot with the printer connected, and they keep "refreshing" my desktop icons on the HP and sticking the new "updated" ones up in the upper left hand corner of my desktop.  (The Dell is not connected to the 'net in any way shape or form.)

I often say the measure of a man is the size of the things that annoy him, but I must be a small man because that ticks me off.

Otherwise, the printer works fine.  So far.  I have an A-B switch to connect printer, mouse, and keyboard from one machine to the other with the push of a button.

Oh, and I try to make it a rule to never take the first item on the shelf, but get the one behind it.  I sometimes forget, and I sometimes  get burned by doing that anyhow.  I hate that damned restocking of returned items --either repackaged by a customer or by store staff in the back rooms.  With that process, sooner or later everything on the shelf will have been restocked.  =D

Terry

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Re: Why I hate WalMartians
« Reply #7 on: February 17, 2017, 06:25:02 PM »
I thought all the printer companies do that with the start cartridges.  They make the printers very cheap, but sell $2 cartridges for $40 or more. 

They do now.

Back in the day, if I remember right, the ones that came with the printer often lasted longer than replacements. Kinda like the put their best batches with the printers.
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Perd Hapley

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Re: Why I hate WalMartians
« Reply #8 on: February 17, 2017, 10:41:01 PM »
At least the Walmartians aren't confused about which restroom to use.
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MechAg94

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Re: Why I hate WalMartians
« Reply #9 on: February 17, 2017, 11:32:39 PM »
They do now.

Back in the day, if I remember right, the ones that came with the printer often lasted longer than replacements. Kinda like the put their best batches with the printers.
I might remember that also, but that was a day quite a ways back.  And printers were often more expensive than now.
“It is much more important to kill bad bills than to pass good ones.”  ― Calvin Coolidge