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I'm all for capitalism but this is just evil...

My Mom has one of those Epson all-in-one printers that they sell at Staples or Office Depot for roughly the price of an ink cartridge or two. It scans, faxes, copies and of course prints color and B&W. It’s not anything amazing, but it certainly does what she needs it to.

Now, the pricing of ink cartridges has pretty much been a racket since day one, but I think it’s common knowledge what you’re getting into these days; it’s the old “give away the razor, sell the blades” business model. Nothing too insidious I suppose. But then I get a call from my lovely mother:

Mom: “I can’t sent a fax because I’m out of black ink”

Me: “(laugh)No, no… you don’t need to have ink to send a fax. It’s just probably is warning you incase you want to RECEIVE a fax. Try canceling out of the warning, going back to the main menu, making empty promises that the UPS man is delivering ink first thing in the morning, etc”

Mom: “Nope, I can’t do anything.”

Me: “Well, that’s not right. There has to be some way around this…”

TURNS OUT THERE’S NOT! After some heavy Internet digging, I’ve learned that you cannot send a fax or use the scanner if any of the ink cartridges are out. It gets worse: Epson cartridges have an “expiration date” on them, so that means if the cartridges are older than x days or have been in the printer too long, the printer will consider them bad//empty even if they’re full of good ink!

People who rarely use their all-in-ones commonly complain about having to pay the ink tax (buying new cartridges to replace their underused ones), even when they only print a few pages a year.

I read one story of a guy who bought one for his parents. He printed out seven pages while he was setting it up and his parents only used it to scan photos. After a few months their scanner wouldn’t work. Culprit? The ink tax after just seven pages of printing.

This is ridiculous…