I run a small digital printing and copy shop and about four years ago I lease a color laser copier/printer from Automation One. It had one major problem it could not print anything straight on the page and they couldn't fix it. So after two years of struggle they offered an upgrade to the Ricoh Aficio 3260c. It was a great improvement and I was able to increase sale that first year. I had leased it for five and half years but at the end of that first year the quality took a nose dive and soon I was losing jobs, customers and money.
Automation One spent the next nine months trying to fix it without any success. At one point they brought in another machine, another 3260c about the same age as the one I had, and it was just as bad as the machine I had. I canceled the service contract because they keep charging me even though they couldn't fix the machine. Finally I had to buy another machine to do the work the 3260c was suppose to be doing.
Now the 3260c just sits there doing nothing costing me 1255.00 a month. I stopped using the 3260c as soon as the new machine arrived and as been working fine for over a year now. Automation claims I didn't know how run the 3260c even though I was able to make it work fine for the first year and the four others machines i had before the 3260c all ran successfully and now the new equipment running fine. Also their own people when working on the 3260c were never able to make it work either.
So over the last year the 3260c has cost me $15060.00 and nothing in plus I still have two and half years left on the lease. I still try now and then to see if some job can be done on it but the customers always reject it.
The Lease is held by a Roynat Lease Finance who say if there are problems with equipment I need to go back to dealer and manufacture. Ricoh Canada, the manufacture, says its Automation Ones problem even though they built it and Automation says that they've done all they have to because it belongs to the lease company now.
The lessons here are that Ricoh Canada does not back up its own equipment, Automation One is not a company that can be trusted, and never lease anything through Roynat Leae Finance.
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