HOC Digital - Free MFD for Schools Scheme

[Zoom7000]

Has anyone had any experience with HOC Digital and their Free MFD for schools scheme? It seems a little too good to be true at first, but after initial investigation, it does seem like the real deal. They are offering free MFDs to schools and only ask you to pay a one-off charge of £250+VAT and then the cost of your printing at 0.005p/Page (Mono) and 3.5p/Page (Colour). The units they supply are the following:

 

Ricoh MPC6003 A3 full colour systems with staple or booklet maker

Ricoh MPC401 A4 only desktop system

 

Both printers seem to be EOL on the Ricoh site, hence why they might be giving them away as a free loan. You need to sign up for a 36 month period, but they claim that you don't pay for any printing you don't do. There isn't any print management included but can source PaperCut implementation via a reseller at an additional cost.

 

So, does anyone have any experiences?

[PotNoodleTech]

My old motto, if it seems to good to be true it probably is.

 

The lowest I pay is 0.02p per colour and 0.0019p per mono on my fleet - so the above deal is designed to sting you on the running click costs. Given the sheer amount of printing schools do I think that deal sets them up to make a mint when you start banging out a million pages per year.

 

The fact that you also get to use outdated end of line equipment which I guess is refurbished stuff from Ricoh means your kinda on a lose lose?

[PrimaryNetMan]

the cost of your printing at 0.005p/Page (Mono) and 3.5p/Page (Colour).

 

and that there is where they make their money. Those costs pp are more than twice the cost of what can be achieved via a framework.

 

Obviously costs will depend on your usage but if you were to print 50,000 colour pages over a year the "free" copier would cost you £200 more than a brand new leased machine. Increase that to 100,000 and that cost becomes an extra £1000.00

[localzuk]

Yeah, those print costs are pretty high. We pay half that per sheet. It all hinges on the amount of printing you do - stick it into a spreadsheet and compare the TCO over the 3 years when compared with a normal contract under one of the framework agreements.

 

Remember also, the machines being used are EOL, so they are likely pre-used. The company is just grabbing some extra value out of machines they've had back in I'd guess.

Edited July 2, 2019 by localzuk