Last week, I was in a hurry. I wanted to get some Canon printer ink so I could print out photos to put on cards to write thank you cards to my daughters. I also was going to San Diego for a book signing event for Wildlife Madagascar, a group my niece founded to help save lemurs.
I was happy to see that Amazon had some much cheaper Canon ink that I could get delivered to my doorstep in a couple of days. I wouldn’t need to drive out to Office Depot to get it.
The customer ratings were about 4.5 for the ink. I thought that was good, so I didn’t take the time to read them.
However, when I received the ink, I was shocked. It wasn’t Canon ink. The ad for the ink on Facebook was deceptive. It was made to look like the Canon ink. See the photo below.
When I opened the package, I could see right away it wasn’t packaged like the ink in the photo.
The deceptive package in the photo had a hanger like the Canon ink you buy in the store. However, the Canon brand name wasn’t printed on the hanger nor was the name of the off-brand company – Kotang.
This is what the Kotang packages looked like. It was so disappointing.
I went back to Amazon and read the reviews for the off-brand ink. The reviews were sobering. Readers said:
- “Two of the ink cartridges already leaked when I opened the box. It fit O.K. but the printer didn’t recognize it.”
- “Never go by the picture. I thought it was Canon cartridges. The cartridge leaked on my hand. Served the purpose, but I would buy Canon next time.”
- “After using ink a few weeks, I have an inoperable printer with error code B203. I have to buy a new printer. I should have kept spending big bucks on Canon ink. I guess.”
I thought about using the ink, but the reviews that said consumers had their printers ruined stopped me.
I returned the ink, driving out to UPS to do the return. No time was saved. No money was saved. Amazon needs to do a better job of policing its website. This deceptive ad is outrageous.
So, another consumer lesson learned.
