Peripherals: Xerox NOT for small businesses

by smikecarl - 9/4/04 12:51 PM

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Post 1 of 5

Xerox NOT for small businesses

by smikecarl - 9/4/04 12:51 PM

If you are a small business considering purchasing a Xerox printer consider this...

We paid over $3000 for a Xerox color printer that is a piece of trash.

We made multiple complaints to Xerox that resulted in one (1) service call following receipt of the printer.

All other service requests resulted in "The printer is dirty, clean it and call us back." responses from Xerox.

We recently sent a letter to Xerox asking where to dispose of the printer. Toner is a pollutant and we can't ethically pass this garbage onto others.

Xerox has chosen to ignore us .... once again.

Don't waste your time on Xerox. Check out others (like HP) that understand the value of customer support.

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Post 2 of 5

Re: Xerox NOT for small businesses

by ChuckT - 9/7/04 11:20 AM In reply to: Xerox NOT for small businesses by smikecarl

Interesting that someone has deleted the response I made here regarding Xerox's VERY STRONG customer satisfaction policy.

They have a 3 year full customer satisfaction guarantee. I believe that is the best in the industry.

If you aren't being satisfied you can get your purchase back or, I believe, even have Xerox replace the printer or copier with an equivalent other-company product.

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Post 3 of 5

Re: Xerox follow through

by ChuckT - 9/7/04 10:32 PM In reply to: Xerox NOT for small businesses by smikecarl

(I have re-located my earlier response, here it is...)

I wonder just who you might have been contacting. Xerox has probably the best warranty in the business, the last I heard is that it is 3 years full customer satisfaction. That means, as it was described to me, that at any time in the first 3 years of ownership if you, the customer, becomes dissatisfied with your Xerox printer or copier, that you can demand full purchase price back, or a substitution of an equivalent other vendor device.

You ought to stick with your desire to see this problem through, and escalate the issue. I am sure there has got to be a person in the chain that will help you.

There is a lot of people in Xerox, and many have nothing to do with customer support. In cases like that, it is time to start asking for names and ask to speak to their boss.

Once in the right chain, and raising the issue level, you are bound to stumble upon the right person who can help you.

Best of luck, don't give up. I'm sure Xerox wants a happy customer.

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Post 4 of 5

Xerox follow-through = evasion

by Lednot - 6/5/09 9:06 AM In reply to: Re: Xerox follow through by ChuckT

Hello, ChuckT

You wouldn't just happen to be a Xerox man, would you? Your suggestion for following through is commendable but just how far do you have to go with Xerox? This is our experience.

We had the misfortune of buying a Xerox Phaser 7400 from a Xerox concessionaire in Limoges in France almost exactly 3 years ago, confident that our satisfaction with this marque in the past, would be repeated.

Not so by a long way and then some.

The printer arrived damaged and unworking; it was fixed but started going through consumables at twice the rate advertised; the suggested monthly cycle of 150,000 was absolute nonsense; it was impossible to order consumables via the French Xerox website at the time and everywhere we tried to get the necessary consumables to meet our typical output of 50,000 copies a month we received the response of 'out of stock' or the order could only be partially completed. The service delays were deplorable; the suggestion that a technician would come out in under a day was once again, total nonsense. Typical down-time in reality was 3 - 5 days, depending upon whether a weekend was looming. Technical competence varied from OK at best to downright useless, with ourselves having to diagnose and fix problems on more than one occasion.

However, much more serious was Xerox's attitude to replacing those consumables which were either defective or failing to give the necessary output either in terms of quality or quantity. According to Xerox (France), they will only replace defective consumables if they are less than 3 months old. This seems to be irrespective of the actual consumption realized, whether corroborated by the machine's own usage readings or not.

This in our view, is an out-and-out scam; at 3 months, a consumable can still be showing a considerable amount of life left and should be replaced if defective even after 12 months, let alone 3. Nor is this subject to interpretation; the machine will obligingly print out a usage sheet for you which states in black and white (or colour, if you are lucky!) what the position is.

This is particularly problematic where there are as many consumables as you will find in a modern printer in our case, with only just over 150,000 copies on the counter in 2 years - a fraction of our normal output - we have gone through more than 30 'hard' consumables, excluding toners.

The cost is significant, as Xerox well knows.

Yet, after almost exactly two years of our badgering the company with requests to replace faulty consumables, the company arbitrarily reneged on the 3 year extended onsite warranty we had taken out with the purchase of the printer and to this day, the machine stands there, awaiting repairs and of no use to man nor beast. No refund of the money paid for the guarantee was offered or any other arrangement in lieu. Another scam, therefore, as the refusal to undertake further servicing was clearly premeditated and is known to both Xerox and their concessionaire.

We eventually took our complaints right to the top of the Xerox complaints hierarchy in France but to no avail. Although they sent out a so-called 'inspector' who confirmed to us that just about every necessary working part in the printer was defective and needed replacing, the matter ended there, despite us sending a reminder letter to Xerox by recorded delivery, 4 weeks later.

We were offered a second-hand replacement printer by the concessionaires but it had a long history of breakdowns (which they tried to conceal) and it was immediately apparent the machine couldn't handle our workload. It was sold with a maintenance agreement which once again was just a sheet of lies and so incompetent was the servicing, that it took almost two months for Xerox to get the thing fully up-and-running.

We then received an invoice for a fictitious set of counter-totals, which we had to engage a public notary to contest, followed by our solicitor, to persuade the company, after six months, to get their garbage off our premises.

In the latter stages of these events, we received a statement from the concessionaires which includes - hang on for this - a bill for an extended on-site mainenance warranty - which we paid for when we bought the machine - plus amounts for consumables also already paid for at the time of purchase, plus various sums for a handful of defective consumables awaiting collection.

Although we have over 100 pages of correspondence with Xerox and its concessionaire relating to this disgusting affair, let alone dozens of reams of wasted output, we do not see that Xerox has any intention of exercising any goodwill in this matter and so we are passing our file onto the French Public Prosecutor for a fraud investigation. Incompetence can only go so far before it becomes criminal.

If there are any other Xerox users who feel they may have suffered from similar circumstances, we will be more than happy to hear from them at info@homebusiness.org. uk to pass their statements onto the French authorities if they so wish.

Apart from the forums, we will also be circulating our file to the consumer bodies both in France and the UK, where Xerox maintenance contracts are administered and who are aware of their default in this matter.

I could conclude by saying good luck to all but that shouldn't have to play a part. We have subsequently found HP and Ricoh to be everything that Xerox isn't.

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Post 5 of 5

A Scam Called Xerox, confirmed - September 09 update

by Lednot - 9/30/09 11:18 PM In reply to: Xerox follow-through = evasion by Lednot

Following our previous posting, the text used for that particular history was reproduced and copied to Xerox in the USA (using the search phrase 'Xerox complaints' on Google and the address for unresolved customer complaints officially provided by the Xerox website at: http://www.xerox.com/go/xrx/portal/STServlet?projectID=ST_ContactXerox&pageID=ST_ContactXerox_Corporate&Xcntry=USA&Xlang=en_US).

We also approached Customer Services at Xerox UK who appear to administer the maintenance contracts for France. (Ours, you will remember, was simply abandoned by Xerox after just one year, with two years left to run.)

Both complaints were faxed and sent by post on the 5th of June 2009.

We did not consider it worthwhile re-sending the complaint to Xerox France, the originating cuplrits, who were sent a letter by recorded delivery on 15th October 2008 and to which we have not received any reply.

An interim statement of damages and losses incurred for the period 01/05/06 - 31/05/09 as a result of misrepresentation, technical failure and serial incompetence, dishonoured contract of maintenance, fraudulent invoicing, etc, etc was sent by recorded delivery and by fax on the 8th of June 2009 to Xerox concessionaires, Document Concept 87/23 of Limoges in France.

The outcome of these complaints was as follows.

Xerox USA. No reply.
Xerox France. No reply as before and ad nauseam.
Xerox Concessionaires, Limoges, France, Document Concept 87/23. Telephone call; to investigate further. Since, no reply.

Xerox UK. Letter dated 9th of July 2009, eventually received from Alan Charnley, Managing Director, Xerox UK and Ireland. Mr Charnley wrote, "I can assure you we take these issues very seriously. I will investigate the matter and respond to you as soon as possible." Since the 9th of July 2009, no further response.

As one complainant in a consumer complaints forum puts it: (Xerox) "Total Satisfaction: my butt!"

We have since replied to Alan Charnley at Xerox UK to indicate that we are not prepared to wait for him further and that we will move on with our file on Xerox.

As we suggested before, if any of you have any negative experiences of Xerox, then please do not hesitate to get in touch with us at: info@homebusiness.org.uk Clearly, we are looking at substantial issues of public interest and any help you may want to give us to pursue matters against Xerox collectively, will be of help.