Brother, Oh Brother Did They Name Their Printer Company Right

Being a small businessman, every now and then, I like to improve my office efficiency. I was in need of a color laser printer that could also fax, scan and copy. After a diligent search, I settled on a Brother printer. I was excited to get it out of the box. I went through the whole process and walla! It did not work. I was getting this message of "Drum Error." This message generally means that your toner needs to be replaced. I just opened them. How can they possibly need to be replaced? They are brand stinking new!

I hate to take stuff back to the store. The printer should work right out of the box, but unfortunately for me it did not work. So, I did all the typical stuff it said to do in the User's Manual, yet nothing helped. I sent an email to their support department and they returned an email that basically told me to do everything that I already did.

Today I decided to call their Customer Service department. Keep in mind, I have had this printer all of two days. The first lady was real nice and helpful. I did everything that she said and it still did not work. Of course you know that I was not speaking to tech support yet. This lady was the pre-tech support person. I have to have had a problem that she could not fix, before I was sent to the real tech support person.

Finally, I was sent to the real tech support person. Now, what you will not find on their web site anywhere is what he asked me to do.

1. Remove all the toner cartridges.
2. Put the yellow toner cartridge in the black slot, then tell him what the LED screen says. It said No Toner. (Did he say put the yellow toner in the black slot? Why didn't I think of that?)
3. Then, he asked me to take out the yellow one and put in the cyan toner cartridge in the black slot. It also said No Toner.
4. Then, he asked me to take out the cyan one and put in the magenta toner cartridge in the black slot. Again, it said No Toner.
5. Finally, he asked me to take out the magenta one and put the black toner cartridge in the black slot. It said "Drum Error."

The result of all this was that this confirmed for him that my black toner cartridge was bad. He is sending me a new one.

Now, I ask you, would you have had any idea to do the five things that he asked me to do? Of course, not, unless you are a Brother tech support person.

I think they need to put these 5 things on their web site or in their User Manual. What do you think?

I will know later if replacing the black toner cartridge worked or not. I hope it does, I would hate to have to set the machine on fire while making a You Tube Video for the whole world to see.