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How to avoid buying counterfeit printer cartridges

The sophistication of counterfeit cartridges make them very hard to identify at first glance, and as such they can go unnoticed by consumers. Here are some tips on how to avoid buying counterfeit cartridges.

Buy from the manufacturer or authorised distributors

The simplest and most effective way to avoid buying fake printer cartridges is to buy them directly from the source or from authorised dealers. By buying your printer cartridges from Brother or our retail partners, you can be 100% certain that you are buying authentic, high-quality cartridges that won’t let you down. 

Avoid unauthorised online marketplaces and social media accounts

While it might be easy to get a deal when using online marketplaces or social media sales pages, it’s difficult to verify the authenticity of what you’re buying if you use unauthorised marketplaces and sellers. Plus, once you’ve bought the product it can be very difficult to return and obtain a refund if you discover an issue. Make sure any online marketplaces are authorised sellers before you purchase printing cartridges from them.

Authenticate your Supplies 

Counterfeit printer cartridges can look very similar to authentic cartridges, and without proper inspection it can be easy to confuse the two.

At Brother, we want to make it as simple as possible for you to tell whether your printer cartridges are the genuine product or not. We use a hologram on our printer cartridges to certify authenticity and we’ve recently updated this hologram to make it harder for counterfeit producers to mimic our cartridges. Counterfeit products can also often contain spelling errors and quality issues with packaging. 

If you are unsure if your product is Original, you can also officially verify it with Brother by using the seven-digit security number that is printed on the product’s hologram security label, and immediately verify your cartridge’s authenticity. To verify your product quickly and easily, you can head to our authentication page on our website: go.brother/id. 

 

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