The Recycler has been approached by remanufacturing industry members, alerting us to a new ink cartridge empties scam.
According to our sources, businesses are being approached by apparently fraudulent businesses, offering their empty ink cartridges for sale.
These businesses seem to have several traits in common:
- They are from non-EU countries, such as Madagascar and Nigeria
- They offer a range of cartridge models, temptingly priced
- They state that they take their customer service and quality control seriously
- They seem to have more than a layman’s knowledge of cartridges
- Their website is ‘under construction’
The Recycler would like to know if anyone else has heard of, or experienced this kind of scam; if so, please let us know at news@therecycler.com
This is not the first time that ink cartridges and other printing consumables have been the source of a scam. In previous years, we have reported on a number of fraudulent activities, including the well-documented Australian cartridge scam of 2011/2, the $1 million ($743,776/€627,424) cartridge printer scam perpetrated by a former employee of the Philadelphia Water Department, and the Xerox swindles of 2015, 2017 and 2018.
