For those of you concerned that by saving money with remanufactured toners or compatible toners you have voided the office’s photocopier and printer warranties, worry no more. While many are not aware of this, back in 1975 the U.S. Congress approved something called the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Improvement Act.

Warren G. Magnuson
Warren G. Magnuson co-sponsored the Act

Thanks to Magnuson-Moss, you need not limit yourself to OEM toner cartridges in order to have your printer or photocopier warranty honored – in spite of the myths that scare customers into sticking to OEMs for fear they will void their printer warranties.

However, if you need to have repairs or warranty work done by the place from which you purchased your equipment, you may want to remove the remanufactured or compatible toner cartridge before bringing it in. That way you eliminate possible hassles.

Some companies may make excuses to save themselves money, as they may possibly have their own parts or warranty service plan. An unethical or unaware business may try to say that the remanufactured or compatible toner cartridge that you are using has inferior toner composition that may have damaged the equipment.

Frank Moss
Frank Moss co-sponsored the Act

The Magnuson-Moss Warranty Improvement Act ensures that as long as you use the printer/copier in the manner for which it was intended, you are free to use whatever product or brand of toner or ink cartridge that you believe to be suitable for your intended purpose. You can check this out in our SuperMediaStore toner FAQs  where we clearly state, “using a compatible/remanufactured toner cartridge will not void the manufacturer’s warranty.”

A good analogy to having to use HP toner in HP machines for instance might be in buying a new Ford and being told that you can only use Chevron gasoline in it or your warranty will be voided. That should not happen, as once again, you have a freedom of choice in the products that you want to buy and use in whatever you purchase. Now if you bought a gas burning car but decided to use diesel fuel in it, that would void your warranty as it would be the wrong product for the application.

The purpose of the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Improvement Act was to stop the widespread practice of merchants misusing the express warranties and disclaimers on their products sold. The Act reads:

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 is 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.”

You can read an explanation in layman’s terms at Law Info.com 

For the protection of the consumers’ right to use compatible and remanufactured toners like this HP 80X toner without having their photocopier and printer warranties voided, we owe a thanks to the public-minded congressmen who sponsored the Warranty Improvement Act: John Moss (1911 – 2003), known as the “People’s Warrior”, Warren Magnuson (1905 – 1989), and Frank Moss.

+Scott Roy Smith

+LINKYO Corp

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