Alexandra R

SEARTEC Crooks

"It is too good to be true" this saying speaks a thousand words. We are a small start-up business in the education sector, we had a salesman come through and asked if he could set up an appointment to do a presentation. During the presentation, the salesman was very friendly and open, even used his own child and newborn baby to tug on our emotions just before the presentation, great use of pathos appeal but shady and crook like of a salesman. He proceeded to tell us about the benefits of the printing machine and how "cost-effective" it would be. As usual, my team and I had many questions, as a small start-up business and especially in today's crazy world, we wanted to be 100% sure about how it works and what the costs would be as we cannot afford any unexpected costs. The salesman went through all the different types of machines and what each machine can do, we eventually settled on a machine that could fit our business. He gave us a price of R699 per month and said it was excluding VAT, we requested a FINAL fee including VAT and mentioned AGAIN that we need a final total amount as we didn't want any unexpected costs. we finally agreed on a total amount of just under R900 per month. During the meeting/presentation, my colleague and I asked numerous times " So we can print as many times as we want for this set amount per month?" he answered every time with "yes, you would just need to supply the paper and let us know when your toner is finished and we will come and deliver a new one". your debit orders will also only go off at the END of the monthly use. sounds great right? nope, this is where the trouble started. 1) Firstly, the printer was delivered 3 days late. (another unexpected cost as we had to go do printing elsewhere for an upcoming deadline) 2) The original machine we signed up for wasn't delivered. we were told they were out of stock "but don't worry this does the same thing" 3) we had to wait another 2 days for a "technician to come install" 4) eventually we thought all was sorted, we were happy to get moving forward with our work. we start printing and the machine totally messed up just about a whole ream of paper, the ink was not sticking to the paper it was flaking and peeling off and just caused a mess when you touched it. (please keep in mind the paper we lost was all at our cost) 5) we waited another 2 days for a different technician to come and sort it out. 6) first debit order goes off as planned 7) after being told we would be debited at the end of each month, to our surprise a double debit order goes off at the start of the month. I phoned and emailed to query about it and got told numerous excuses, first got told "it is a norm in the industry". please note, none of this was mentioned 8) I received a rude phone call from a lady asking me for meter readings on the machine, i have no idea what she is asking me for as none of this was mentioned in the presentation. nevertheless, i ask her to guide me through the steps on the machine so i can give her what shes asking for. 9) another month later and a debit order of just over R2500 goes off. I query this and get told its chargers per copy for the machine. firstly we were not told we would be charged per copy. we were told we could print as much as we like for the set amount per month. 10) I emidietly reverse and stop all debit orders from Seartec and i am now sitting with threats to pay this amount. Please think again before signing up with SEARTEC.