Markem-Imaje.us We purchased a digital printer to be used in identifying manufactured parts. It consistently failed after repeated attempts by Markem techs to fix it. They refuse to replace it under warranty unless we pay a "restocking" fee of 20% to replace this obvious lemon of a machine. Kennesaw, GA Georgia

As a longtime manufacturer of quality aerospace components for over 65 years, we find it hard to understand customer service that is just lip service, and we are perplexed by a manufacturer that does not stand behind its products. We purchased a digital printer to be used in identifying manufactured parts. It proved to consistently fail after repeated attempts by Markem's techs to fix the problem. The macine appears to be a lemon. We were amazed that Markem's regional manager had the gall to tell us that the defective product was our fault and the product has been misused.  

Markem gave everyone in our shipping department instructions when demonstrating of our new machine. The fact that the machine failed during the class was a bad sign. Another machine may be good; however, ours is not and the customer-oriented response would have been “we will replace it with a new one.” That isn’t the response that we got.

Trying to find a sectional general manager to address the issue was nearly impossible.  Even calling the corporate office it was extremely difficult. After eight (8) calls to headquarters, a California manager by the name of John called. That did not go well. He had no concept of the nature of our problem, did not seem to care (thinking he was swing a big bat) or have a real clue about what is really going on with our Markem 9040CiJ, but he had a response.

The machine in question is Markem.imaje 9040CiJ Printer (we even purchased the upgraded machine as advised by Markem sales person) for which we paid approximately $24,000.00. So far that has been a true waste of money. The printer was purchased in 1/4/2017 #2438715. Fifteen months later it remains a non-functioning piece of junk.  The manager, John, who called had no apparent clue as to the continuing issues, the number of repair visits, or that 40% of the parts in our new machine had been replaced. And he seemed not to care.

We supposedly purchased a brand new unit, but knowing much about components manufacturing and operational assemblies dealing with aircraft, it appears to us that we may have received a refurbished machine. Whatever it was, it is now a refurbished non-functional machine. We had 14 tech response calls to Markem.imaje as the machine continued to malfunction. Each time the tech that came out inspected the machine and told us another part had to be order.>>>again… and again… and again; our security cameras were filming the repair attempts.

The machine is a lemon; a seemingly inferior product.  The problem would be easy to fix …. Replace it... but for John, this particularly arrogant manager answer was simply NO … dreadful customer service. We have been successfully in business for over 60 years and have purchased over five million dollars in production related machinery. The lack of customer service in this instance is by far the worst we have encountered.

Here is the kicker; we manufacture many large components for the C130, F16 and P3 military aircraft. If any component or assembly is ever bad we will replace any or all of the parts with completely new ones. The customer is the priority. John, the so called manager told us “my techs tell me it was your guys misused the machine, causing the problems? Dillon, a tech from Markem, felt so bad on one of his visits brought us a case of ink to attempt to salve our irritation. A week later the machine was down again and another tech used all the gifted ink, saying to our supervisor “you have real lemon here”

Markem.imaje’s manager’s last response was, “we will pick up the machine but will charge you a 20% restocking charge.” That’s simply shocking. It just about left our senior management speechless. Every company rises or falls with its product quality and customer service reputation. With that said, we couldn’t possibly recommend Markem for either product quality or most definitely not for customer service after sale. We understand that Markem is a global company and growing. I believe the company management may have momentarily taken its corporate eye off the quality of this particular line of products, but seemingly needs a better manager at the customer level who is willing to understand customer service and frustrations when a product does not function.