I am a longtime customer of 101inks.com. This year my wife and I purchased a new Lexmark Z1300 printer. We started getting warning notices about our color ink cartridge getting low in October so I shopped for ink at 101inks.com for the first time for this particular printer. As usual, one gets a better deal when ordering a package of 1 color cartridge and 2 black and white cartridges, so that's what I ordered. On November 10 our checking account was debited $57.81 for that 3-cartridge order.
It was actually quite some time later before the color cartridge finally ran out of ink and I proceeded to put in the new color cartridge from 101inks.com, while throwing away the empty OEM color cartridge. However, when I swapped out the new color cartridge for the old cartridge, the new color cartridge would not work properly. The Lexmark Z1300 printer kept giving warnings about the cartridge not being a valid Lexmark product and there was no way to bypass the written and aural messages to get the printer to actually print.
Naturally, I called Tech Support at 101inks.com and they went through the entire troubleshooting process with me over the phone and concluded that I might have been sent a defective color cartridge. So, they sent me a second (replacement) color cartridge and a mailing pouch for returning the first color cartridge. When that replacement color cartridge arrived, I loaded it into the Lexmark Z1300 printer only to experience the same snafu with the replacement cartridge. Again I called Tech Support at 101inks.com and we went through the entire troubleshooting process again with this second color cartridge. Eventually, the tech support person concluded that, for some reason that she did not understand, the 101inks.com color cartridges for the Lexmark Z1300 were not compatible with my machine.
Since we had never tested the 101inks.com black and white cartridges in our new printer, the Tech Support person suggested that we test one of them as well. We did so with the same result. So, I was instructed to return all four 101inks.com cartridges (1 color cartridge from the original order the replacement color cartridge and 2 black and white cartridges from the original order). I was told that I would receive a full refund except for the shipping charges. So I packaged the four cartridges into two packages (the box from the original order and the return pouch provided by 101inks.com) and I enclosed notes in both packages detailing the return and my expectation regarding the refund.
When the refund did not show up in a timely manner as a credit to our checking account, I called 101inks.com and was told that the shipment had been received but that it could take 2 weeks to process the refund.
Eventually, on February 2, a credit for $33.59 appeared in our checking account. On February 6, I called to find out why we had not be credited the full amount for the cartridges (excluding shipping). The customer service clerk said that I had returned an old cartridge from an order in 2007. I told her that this was not possible since we had purchased the Lexmark Z1300 in 2008 and had placed only one order (3 cartridges) with 101inks.com for that machine. She refused to believe me so I asked to speak with her supervisor. An individual named Roland Dee came on the phone line and I went through the entire saga with him. He said that the Warehouse had reported that an OEM black and white cartridge had been returned to them instead of the one they had sent me. I explained to him that that scenario was impossible since the original OEM black and white cartridge was still in my Lexmark Z1300. Then he switched his story and said that perhaps it was the OEM color cartridge that had been returned mistakenly. I explained that this scenario was not possible either since that cartridge had been thrown away when I had loaded the 101inks. Deecom color cartridge into the Lexmark Z1300 printer.
At this point, Mr. Dee became very irritated and said that he was wasting his time talking with me and that the mistake had to be mine, not theirs, because "our warehouse people don't make mistakes." Can you imagine the arrogance? How nice for Mr Dee that he works for the only company in the world that "does not make mistakes"! Anyway, he eventually agreed to go out to the warehouse and recheck the situation. He promised to call me back before the end of the day and report his findings. That was five days ago and I am still to hear from Mr. Dee.
I will never do business with this company again and I would recommend that anyone else seriously consider their lack of integrity and business ethics before doing business with them. Caveat emptor!
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