Photocopier Leases

molehi

Hi All,

Not sure if this the correct board but need some advice on a photocopier lease we have just entered into.

We pay a fixed amount quarterly to the leasing company. Rather than paying the photocopier company an amount per copy which includes toner and maintenance, we have been given a large amount of 'free' copies.

Therefore, we are currently only paying the leasing company each quarter. If we were to go over our allocated number of copies in the next 12 months, then we are charged costs per copy.

What we wanted to know is how does the photocopy company make any money if they do not charge us per copy. The provide us with toner and maintenance and yet receive no money from us.

Just sounds very odd!

Any advice would be appreciated.

Thanks.

martindow

Are you sure that there is not a minimum quarterly charge payable regardless of how many or few copies you have used?

Premier_2

molehi wrote: »

...We pay a fixed amount quarterly to the leasing company. ...

If we were to go over our allocated number of copies in the next 12 months, then we are charged costs per copy.

What we wanted to know is how does the photocopy company make any money if they do not charge us per copy. ...

It doesn't sound like you make many copies.

If you only made 1 a year, 4p income (or whatever the charge per copy is) would certainly lose them money.

Hence why you pay a quarterly charge at present. The company makes money because the quarterly charge exceeds the cost of supplying the machine that you rarely use anyway.

Pennywise

Have you checked carefully the terms of the lease. Photopier leases are notoriously for including clauses allowing them to increase the "rent" by 10% every year, and imposing a minimum term - usually 7 years. You may end up paying almost double the current rate and being stuck paying it for many years to come, even if the copier itself isn't needed or doesn't work. Did you do a proper comparison of how much the copier will cost you in rent over the full term of the lease compared with how much you could have bought it for outright? The worst I saw was some poor sod who had to pay nearly £40k over 7 years for a copier he could have bought outright for under £10k - ouch!

heretolearn_2

The 'free' copies - the cost is built into your 1/4ly lease fee.

Horace

You are probably paying more for your copier because you are paying a quarterly fee as this more than covers the toner, cost of repairs etc. The 'free' copies are not free at all and are included in your lease fee.

I used to work for a photocopier company and dealt with leases all the time. What we used to do was charge a cost per copy and have a set number of copies, if you went over that number then you would pay more - for instance you would get 3000 copies at x price and anything over that would be xx price. This is why, if you paid per copy you would have to submit meter readings every month.

People would get confused if they copied onto A3 size paper as this is not counted as one copy but two.

You need to look at your lease to see how long you are tied in for and what happens if your machine breaks down so that it is beyond repair - will be be replaced with a newer model or will you have to pay again?