On Sat, 13 May 2006 15:37:13 -0400, Jeff Wisnia
wrote:

We rent a Neopost Model IJ25 postage meter for our office use, and they
are raping us when we need to replace the red inkjet cartridge which
prints the postage and our logo on everything we mail. I got a "low ink"
warning on the postage meter display yesterday and called to order
another cartridge. Last time, about 6 months ago, the price with
shipping was about $65, this time it was up to $85.

To add insult to injury, Neopost has arranged for their inkjet cartridge
to "run out" 6 months after the date it's installed, even if we only
printed postage on jsut a few envelopes during that time, and it also
"runs out" after a predetermined number of impressions, even though
there's plenty of ink left inside it.

I busted open the last dead cartridge and found what I expected inside,
a standard looking inkjet cartridge with HP's name and logo on it, along
with an IC chip which must be what's letting Neopost laugh all the way
to the bank at their customers' expense.

I've asked a few online sellers of inkjet cartridge refilling stuff
whether they can help, without any luck thus far.

An old dodge for HP printers was they are not "monitoring the ink
supply" as much as running a per-page countdown timer on the
cartridge. And in the case of the postage meter printers, they put a
6-month expiry on as well as a count to empty. This is allegedly so
they don't have "printing problems" with old dried out cartridges, but
in practice it's planned obsolescence and a great way to drive
consumables sales.

The old dodge for using refilled cartridges with the HP printers was
to have a bunch of old cartridges around, since the cartridge serial
number memory was kept in a simple First In First Out buffer. If you
tried swapping between two cartridges, it would remember that far back
and insist both were "empty".

But if you cycled a magic number of separate "full" (unknown serial
number) cartridges through (IIRC either 3 or 6) you would flush
cartridge #1's serial out of the buffer. Then you refill cartridge
#1, stick it back in, the printer thinks that serial number is a new
cartridge, and you're good to go.

If you kept the old cartridges for the meter you might try this...
Myself, I gave up inkjets for laser long ago. Slightly higher
up-front investment, outweighed by the far lower per-page cost.

But you do have to compare between lasers now also, some of the
lower-end units are way out of line on the cartridge prices (and are
shipped with half-empty "starter" toner cartridges) to try to get back
in the "make more money selling the consumables" pricing model.

Anyone here encountered this and figured out a way to get around it
without going back to licking postage stamps?

Licking? I thought Self Stick Stamps was the next big thing... ;-P
They make semi-automatic dispensers for self-stick coil postage
stamps, Google on "Stamp EZ".

Or buy the old-style mucilage coil stamps and find an old Postaffix
stamp dispenser - in one quick push it squirts two drops of water onto
the envelope from a little water tank, advances a stamp from the roll,
cuts it off, and stomps it down on the envelope. We used to fire off
weekly 1,000 piece postcard mailings with them all the time -
Kerchunk, Kerchunk, Kerchunk...

We looked into postage meters a few times - and using a Small
Business budget model we always went back to the Postaffix. Unless
you churn enough postage through the machine every month where you are
actually running the ink cartridges dry, and you or an employee are
spending half the day just handling the mailing duties, it simply
isn't worth the meter leasing and consumables costs.

I thought there's fair trade laws in the US which keep manufacturers
from forcing their customers to buy supplies only from them and also
keep them from putting "poison pills" in stuff. But maybe I'm wrong
about that, and because the USPS is involved Neopost can argue that the
gummint is making them do it that way to make sure the imprints come out
nice and clear.

You don't think the gummint folks that worked out the deal to bypass
those 'fair trade' rules were in cahoots with P-B and Neopost, getting
favors and kickbacks, now do you? ^_^

Hell, look at the California Insurance Commissioner, who is supposed
to act as a consumer watchdog - half the time, the guy worked as an
insurance industry executive before he gets elected, and goes back
into the insurance industry after he leaves office. Now whose side do
you think he's REALLY on?

-- Bruce --

--
Bruce L. Bergman, Woodland Hills (Los Angeles) CA - Desktop
Electrician for Westend Electric - CA726700
5737 Kanan Rd. #359, Agoura CA 91301 (818) 889-9545
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