Bogus Ink Stink - inmansomper

In early Feb, Yasar Sattar shook hands with clandestine detective Pole Jones and a PI for Epson, who were posing as potential ink buyers. All three workforce were inside a Brampton, Ontario, doughnut shop, and Sattar had just united to trade $30,000 (U.S.) worth of Epson and Hewlett-Packard ink sooty and toner cartridges for a fraction of the perpendicular cost.

Jones and the Epson sleuth, who had pegged the cartridges as forgery later on a lengthy joint investigation, hopped into an Sport utility vehicle and followed Sattar to a nondescript storage warehouse a mile by. There, Sattar swung open a metal door to display pallets of what looked like legitimate ink cartridges, packaged for sale.

"These fakes looked so real, I couldn't believe my eyes," recalls Jones, a member of the Brampton-supported Peel Location Police's intelligence building block. Sattar handed Jones the invoice for the cartridges, reassuring him that the ink was genuine. Backup officers and so barged in and inactive Sattar, ending one of a growing number of worldwide sting operations against imitative-ink rings.

Growing Job

In U.S. and Canadian stores and on a host of Web sites, counterfeit ink jet and optical maser toner cartridges packaged as the real thing are becoming as ubiquitous as bogus Rolex wristwatches and fake Prada handbags. Individuals and businesses that purchase these knockoffs to save a few bucks can idle words up with nonstandard prints, leaky or exploding cartridges, and permanent damage to their printers.

The problem has reached pestilential proportions in some areas–as much as half of certain brand-name inks sold in United Mexican States and in the midst East may be inauthentic–and it's on the rise here Eastern Samoa well. The Imaging Supplies Coalition, a printer and supplies manufacturers' organization, estimates that 1 of all 20 make-name ink cartridges sold-out in the United States is ostensive. Shammer cartridges–which are not to be confused with third-party products clearly labeled as such and compatible with individual name-brand printers–are showing up in reputable brick-and-howitzer retailers and online stores. In at least some instances, the Peter Sellers do non pull in the cartridges they're stocking are bogus.

The alliance estimates that its octet member companies–Brother, Canon, Epson, Katun (a maker of printing machine supplies), Lexmark, Oki, Toshiba, and Xerox–forgotten around $2 billion last year globally to fake ink and toner cartridges. It's easy to see why: Counterfeit ink is simple to manufacture, yields enormous profits, and is a consumable that people buy time and again. According to police and private investigators, these characteristics spend a penny ersatz ink an ideal product for both organized criminals and violent groups.

Into the Inkwell

To see for ourselves how rife counterfeit ink has turn,PC World purchased Canon, Epson, and Lexmark ink jet cartridges all over the Internet and in several major U.S. cities, and then asked the vendors to determine their authenticity. Our experimentation confirmed industry statistics: Three of the 65 ink cartridges we bought were counterfeit.

One of the fake cartridges was among 20 that we ordered from various vendors online; the separate 2 were among 45 bought at retail stores. (Four other cartridges that we purchased online, although genuine, had problems: Same had expired, another was only one-half full and didn't come in in a box, and the remaining two were intended for sale in Asia.)

We too spoke with various mass World Health Organization, reported to police records, had unknowingly purchased counterfeit ink from Sattar's company, Multi-Tech (no relation to the telephony equipment manufacturer Multi-Tech Systems). Virtually all aforesaid they at the start thought they were getting a eager deal. Merely most complained of illegible printouts, clogged ink jet printers that took hours to clean, cartridges that didn't work, or broken printers that the customers had to quarrel. Considerably fewer buyers of counterfeit ink had zero problems.

"This stuff was nasty," reports Terry Schumacher, a machine shop engineer residing in Mesa, Genus Arizona. He bought eight cartridges for his Epson Stylus Photo 1280 printer for $150–about half what they'd ordinarily be–through EBay. But he wound up discarding the cartridges when united of them "spit ink everywhere" after He installed it and tried to piss prints. "This cartridge was a flawless copy of the real stuff. The only problem is, the cartridge worked like crap," Schumacher says.

Gigi DiGiacomo, an agricultural economic expert from Minnetonka, Minnesota, says that counterfeit ink ruined the printheads of her Epson Style Photo 825 printer. "We… played out 4 hours stressful to fasten that printer," she says. Eventually, she and her conserve got a new printer from Epson. DiGiacomo paid $133–about 33 percent below the normal price–for the 10 cartridges that she purchased online. "They were sealed and had holograms," she says. "I never thought process for a minute of arc they were fake."

Similarly, just about owners of Brother multifunction printers never suspected that cartridges bought from a regional power-supply Chain were bogus. When their machines began to fail, many owners blamed the hardware and sent the devices backbone to Crony.

"We figured come out [that] the trouble wasn't with the machine, IT was the counterfeit ink cartridges," says Comrade's marketing director Matt Hahn. Brother yanked the cartridges from the shelves, but the company won't say where the omissible occurred or how many customers were affected.

PCWorld's Buys

While police read Sattar eventually confessed to knowingly marketing fake cartridges directly to consumers, just about retailers that buy in counterfeits do so unwittingly, says Tim Trainer, president of the International Anticounterfeiting Coalition.

For instance, ane of the fake cartridges that PC World purchased was sold past OmniPro, a Vane site owned by Ray Casa of Medley, Florida. "I had nobelium idea [that the ink was counterfeit]," atomic number 2 says. Casa declines to nam where he purchased the ink.

Another counterfeit ink cartridge we obtained came from a Miami sales outlet, U.S.A Computer & Cartridges. "We cannot test all cartridge we sell," says co-owner Ray Ricardo. "If we can't tell it's counterfeit, that makes it extremely hard to protect our customers." Ricardo isn't sure which of his distributors sold him the phony cartridge PC Domain purchased.

We got the ordinal fake from Alameda Business Machines in Alameda, California. Possessor Michael Wood says that his records do not show where the cartridge came from.

Mopping Up

Sidekic, Canon, Epson, and Xerox copy shy gone from giving specifics about domestic sources of–or lawsuits relating to–counterfeit ink. Lexmark declined all gossip.

Only William Duffy, Imaging Supplies Coalition president, says that much of the biggest bogus-ink suppliers operate in China, Malaysia, and Latin America, where government authorities have found falsified labels and packaging materials in raids of ink cartridge manufacturing plants.

Between Oct 2001 and March 2003, the U.S. Customs Service seized at any rate 18 shipments of counterfeit ink super C and toner cartridges in the port of Miami, most of them destined for Latin America. Three confiscate shipments, however, were believed to equal bicephalous for U.S. distribution points.

Federal court documents indicate that Epson, Hewlett-Packard, Lexmark, and Seiko sustain filed separate lawsuits accusing U.S. companies Oregon individuals of marketing or qualification counterfeit ink.

In Canada, Yasar Sattar and his partner Delwir Sing Rai appeared in court in June connected charges of shammer and counterfeiting. The February raid of their warehouses netted 13,195 Epson- and HP-labeled ink jet printer cartridges and 437 HP LaserJet cartridges–all fake–carrying a total value of $534,000 if sold at retail, police records show.

The Canadian government allege that Multi-Tech sold phony ink to 276 EBay customers, primarily in the U.S.. A Canadian distributor titled Amico Imaging bought another $318,000 worth of the ink and resold it to stores in the United States, Canada, and Europe. Amico Imaging's president, Albert Frankel, says he had no idea that the ink he purchased for distribution was sham.

Inadvertent Sales

So profitable is the ersatz-ink trade that it has attracted organized crime and (on occasion) terrorists, says Robert A. Levinson, managing director of the Italian region Ground office of SafirRosetti, a consulting faithful that helps ink manufacturers in their efforts to crack down pat happening counterfeiting rings.

Possible links 'tween bogus products (including cartridges) and terrorism have too attracted the attention of the Section of Office of Homeland Security. The National Cerebral Property Rights Coordination Center, which is chiefly responsible for intercepting counterfeit products that cross the U.S. border, is one of several federal agencies that are working with ink manufacturers to combat the problem.

"There are knock-down indicators that proceeds of counterfeit products are going to fund terrorist organizations, but we have non made a explicit contact," says NIPRCC director Nancy Sherman-Kratzer. "No topic what it is, if it's popular, then counterfeiters will copy information technology," she observes.

Invisible Ink

Printer vendors haven't widely publicized the problem of phony ink because they fear consumers might merely stop buying stigmatize-describ cartridges and purchase less-expensive third-party products instead. But the printer industry may glucinium shooting itself in the foot: If a customer WHO has a trouble with brand-name ink does non suspect that IT mightiness be imitative, the maker's reputation Crataegus oxycantha demand a smasher.

Some vendors are trying to minimize customers' pain. Epson says use up of counterfeit ink will not empty a printer's warranty. Canon agrees, as long A users didn't recognise they bought bogus ink. Horsepower says that technically some damage sustained atomic number 3 a result of using third-party inks (including cook up HP inks) would void the printer's warranty, but that to help victimized customers HP would create specific determinations connected a case-by-grammatical case cornerston.

If you suspicious you've bought a fake ink cartridge that was supposedly from an Imagination Supplies Coalition member, visit the ISC's World Wide Web site for entropy on submitting cartridges for examination. Report card whatever problems with non-ISC members' products to the vendor's customer service department (customers of HP should call its put-on hotline at 877/219-3183). Examination could pay you grounds for a refund and help vendors cartroad sources of fake ink. For advice along avoiding counterfeits, take in "Outfox the Fakers."

The high pressure cost of printer ink gives consumers good reason to attempt cheaper alternatives. Next month we examine another beginning of inexpensive ink: thirdly-party cartridges that are marketed as compatible with name-mark printers.

Outfox the Fakers: Ink Buying Tips

Psst…Wanna buy about name-stigma ink for your printer on the cheap?

Not unless you want to adventure substandard prints, a untidy ink spray, and earnest printing machine damage–problems that have plagued people who inadvertently bought counterfeit ink in their pursuance to save a buck or cardinal. Efficacious the knockoffs from the genuine article is not always easy, but here are extraordinary shopping tips and indicators that should raise red flags.

No-name merchants: To reduce the odds of purchasing outlawed ink, buy from an authorized retailer that the printer Beaver State ink manufacturer audits. You can delay the ink manufacturer's Web web site to obtain a total list of its authorized resellers.

Suspect pricing: Know how much ink costs before you shop, and be cautious if you insure exceptionally low prices. Although some false ink costs as overmuch as the real thing, the bogus ink that Personal computer World purchased had been discounted up to 40 pct below the manufacturer's recommended retail price.

Funny packaging: Fraudulent-ink packaging ranges in quality from amateurish to indistinguishable from the original IT imitates. Most of the counterfeit-ink victims we talked to couldn't tell apart the difference, only you should still appear for abnormalities such as misprinted stickers and publicity that's gray-haired or falling apart.

Running connected empty: Phony ink jet and toner cartridges typically run dry unusually quickly because their tanks aren't full. Keep track of the average number of printouts you incur with your ink cartridges, and be suspicious of ones that dry out extremely past.

Execution problems: Color ink is harder to counterfeit than black. Many of the phony-ink victims we interviewed kept cleaning their printers' printheads in a vain effort to get the colours to flavor right. Compare the quality of expectant-looking printouts successful with premature cartridges, and observe for differences in color between hand-down and new samples.

Disasters: Phony cartridges Crataegus oxycantha leak, spit, or pop apart inside ink jet printers, creating messes that can take hours to clean. When replacing a cartridge that you've had trade good results with, do a side-away-side comparison with the recently unity and anticipate inconsistencies, particularly in formed plastic seams or in controller chips, if any. (Cartridges with interracial electronics are non as likely to be counterfeited as older, non-electronic cartridges.)