Consumer Education

Below is an annotated version of the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Improvement Act which applies to your purchases of remanufactured, refilled or compatible inkjet cartridges and toners. This law upholds your printer warranty and clarifies that under no circumstances may any company, associate, sales person or service technician deny you service or warranty work that would otherwise be covered under the warranty program:

MAGNUSON-MOSS WARRANTY IMPROVEMENT ACT

United States Code Annotated

Title 15 Commerce and Trade

Chapter 50 Consumer Product Warranties

15 Section 2302

“(c) No warrantor of a consumer product may condition his written or implied

warranty of such product on the consumer’s using, in connection with such product,

any article or service (other than article or service provided without charge under the

terms of the warranty) which his identified by brand, trade or corporate name; except

that the prohibition of this subsection be waived by the commission if:

1) The warrantor satisfies the Commission that the warranted product will

function properly only if the article or service so identified is used in

connection with the warranted product, and

2) the Commission finds that such a waiver is in the public interest.”

IBM vs. The United States

The Sherman-Clayton Antitrust Act

You don’t have to be intimidated when the printer people tell you they will void your warranty on your equipment if you do not use the OEM ink or toner, nor should you be intimidated if they should try to charge extra because you are not using the OEM ink or toner. This is illegal for another reason and this is referred to as product linking, check it out:

The U.S. Supreme Court (in IBM vs. The United States) held that IBM could not threaten customers with termination of their data processing equipment leases just because they did not use supplies manufactured by IBM. Such a practice constituted a “tying agreement” and was found to be in violation of the “Sherman Clayton Antitrust Act”.

How this affects you: Stand up for your right of free choice of vendor because you are acting within the letter of the law. Your printer service people are aware of lower priced supplies, so threatening to void warranties and service call charges are their only defense. Save this information to refute their claims and their illegal actions.