Universal Ink

[nche11]

I searched ebay today looking for ink for an Epson R280 for a friend. I was shocked to see that there is a seller selling generic ink that says "WORKS BEST WITH HP, EPSON, CANON, LEXMARK, BROTHER, OLIVETTI, XEROX, COMPAQ, IBM AND OTHERS".

Oh my god. It's dirt cheap too. Isn't it a criminal act by selling such a generic ink? If you use such generic ink please don't come to this forum to ask for help when you run into problems. It will be a waste f everybody's time trying to help you.

 

[mikling]

Yes, and also believe the UV resistant dye ink good for 200 years!

 

[nche11]

Consumers lose when cheap imitations and bogus advertisements are tolerated, LOL. I bought many LED flash lights from a flea market last year. They were cheap and looked nice. Well, I also picked up a box full of AAA batteries for $5 for the flash lights. I had never seen AAA batteries that cheap. Put the first 3 of them in one flash light. They produced light for sure but only to find that they leaked two weeks later. I could only describe them as total waste of money. The LED lights also had problems. One had a broken power button switch. A 2nd one often wouldn't turn on. And there is the one screwed up by the leaked batteries.

 

[leo8088]

I found some photos that I printed some years ago while I was doing some cleaning up of my book shelf just now. They are the photos of my cousin's family and mine meeting in the Golden Gate Park in San Francisco around 5 - 6 years ago. I believe the photos were printed by a Canon i950 and the ink was Hobbicolors. I am surprised that the photos do not appear to suffer any fading yet. I believe I paid nearly $300 for the i950 then found that it was quickly discontinued followed by the release of the cheaper i960. My cousin looks much older than in the photos and so do I too. Ha, I think the dye based ink has served me well despite everyone says it will fade.

 

[d1hamby]

You really have to be careful about buying that untested ink. There is no recourse if you get batch of bad stuff other than replacing the print head and a new set of cartridges. They don't guarantee most of the stuff on ebay a sufficient amount of time to tell if its bad.

 

[websnail]

You talk about cheap, I had a customer who bought a very basic waste kit with the tube just rammed in a hole in the top of this cheap box...

It got knocked over, ink everywhere... new carpet, house insurance claim + having to pay the excess and more importantly for his wifes spa treatment and a Biiiig bunch of flowers to say sorry...

But I digress... I love these "ink is ink" snake oil sales types... maybe when the Epson 740 was about, but not anymore...

 

[leo8088]

there is a seller selling generic ink that says "WORKS BEST WITH HP, EPSON, CANON, LEXMARK, BROTHER, OLIVETTI, XEROX, COMPAQ, IBM AND OTHERS".

You are probably seeing a low cost ink made in a small shop in China. You may be easily fooled as they all have packagings that are factory packed and labeled. Those inks are so cheap that do attract many buyers without much going through their mind first. We have seen enough of those in other products as well. Lead contaminated toys, poisoned food, are among a few examples.

I think these cheap crappy inks are sweeping the market of refill ink right now. I believe the real reason Alotofthings quit business was because of this. Of course this is just my opinion. There are not many players of good quality Canon refill inks in the field now. They are going to be defeated by the crappy competitions eventually.

 

[websnail]

I think these cheap crappy inks are sweeping the market of refill ink right now. I believe the real reason Alotofthings quit business was because of this. Of course this is just my opinion. There are not many players of good quality Canon refill inks in the field now. They are going to be defeated by the crappy competitions eventually.

I actually disagree... Far too many people now have been burned by cheap, crud inks that are next to useless, produce awful results or act like invisible ink after a week in half day light.

That sort of experience tends to educate people to look a bit harder (if they can be bothered) and as a result I've noticed people asking good questions about quality, longevity, and compatibility with other inks, etc... Even though the ink side of things is quite new to me in terms of selling it publicly, I've already noticed that price isn't usually the key issue... Reliability and it being "not that cheap chin*se cr*p"

You definitely have to state your sources (eg: Image Specialists, OCP, etc..) or have a very good reputation for your own inks if you want to be noticed by these sort of customers.

 

[qwertydude]

What I think that cheap crappy ink does most is drive people to buy OEM ink. The OEM's should welcome them with open arms because it drives more printer and OEM ink sales when you get those people get burned by generic refills and end up buying OEM. The web is filled with such experiences. Even reputable PC and Photo websites will say you should only stick with oem because "refills" ie generic carts, they always get those terms confused, mean clogs and flow problems. Only a small minority actually bother to go all out and refill their printers properly.

 

[leo8088]

I totally agree with your guys, Websnail and Qwertydude. However, I just looked at ebay to see what's out there and believe it or not there are tons of cheap inks for sale there. Yeb, there was one I have to really laugh at. It said it is a pigmented black ink that is smudge free and waterproof if the paper used is waterproof. It was priced around $12(?) for an 8 oz quantity with free shipping. Had I not been burnt before It would be really tempting, believe me. I have no doubt that average Joe and Tom will fall easily for the price.