I have a number of issues with this company and the way in which the distributorship is sold and then what exactly was delivered after having purchased a distributorship.
I purchased a distributorship from the Cartridge Mart in January after having met with Herb Baker (local Sales Rep) in Atlanta and talking to Issack Funderburke (president). I was led to believe that for $10,000 dollars, I would receive $10,000 worth of inventory and displays to set up 4 retail stores. The picture of the displays on the marketing material as well as their website show a display with numerous cartridges and MANY more rungs to hang the cartridges from. I was also told that I would receive the most popular cartridges to stock on the displays.
After paying the $10,000 for the distributorship it took almost 2 months for me to actually receive the displays and another month after that to receive the ink cartridges. When I received these items, I was shocked to discover the displays were nothing like the ones on the marketing material and there were much fewer cartridges than I had anticipated (based on what the pictures in their marketing material indicated).
In addition, the cartridges were cheap, outdated and completely unsellable. At that time, I called Issak Funderburke and expressed my dissapointment to him and asked if I could send everything back to him for a refund or even a partial refund. His response to me was "We do not buy back ink cartridges".
In adding up the cost of the displays (I found the exact same displays from Palay Industries for about 100 dollars per display) and the cost of the ink cartridges they sent me (less than 1000 dollars worth of inventory) - I quickly realized that my $10,000 bought me less than $1500 dollars worth of inventory and inventory that was nothing like their marketing material and website still display to this day.
Feeling as though I had been ripped off, I tried to make the best of things by purchasing Toner Cartridges through them to sell to businesses rather than setting up the cheap displays and out of date ink cartridges they had sent me.
In August, I contacted Issack to begin ordering toner from them and came to find out they are no longer providing the Toner at the prices that were given to me when I bought the distributorship. They decided to subcontract this business out to another company whose terribly expensive prices make it absolutely impossible to try to sell their toner to local businesses who can get it for less from just about any competitor.
So here I am again, stuck with a $10,000 distriborship and absolutely nothing to show for it. On top of this, when I contacted the local sales rep, Herb Baker to discuss potentially selling the distributorship I was told that "They are getting out of the ink cartridge business and into the cartridge factories and that I should really consider that - It only costs 200,000 dollars".
So now I truly realize that I paid $10,000 for cheap displays, cheap out of date ink cartridges (worth less than 1000 dollars), some business cards and marketing material with their name and address, toner pricing that is much higher than when I purchased the distributorship, and a company who no longer has any interest in the business they sold me
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