Complaint Review: Brother International DTG Division - Nationwide

I recently lease a digital to garment printer from the brother corporation for $40,000.   We'll their sales rep who sold me indicated that they would be there to service and assist me with my new business venture.  How excited I was to be a garment printer who would have special attention as I had invested everything into this equipment.  As soon as the equipment arrived, my authorized representative was no where to be found.  I called for set up which is customary and it took almost a month to get a technician out to set up my dtg for use.  I let this slide as I'm still trying to be a positive new business owner with a piece of expensive equipment.  We'll of course my new machine started acting wacky and I called my authorized rep for help.  "The tech is in Nevada for the next two weeks, sorry"  I had customer who I had given deadlines to waiting two weeks for jobs that should have been completed in two days.  I asked the rep how large was his terrritory and how many tech's did he have?  He says he has all of AZ and parts of NV and only one tech to service that entire area!  WTF!  I got on the phone with the Brother Area director to complain only to be told that they are in need of any additional reps in my area.  Next, I got a call for a quote for a job, I quoted, and they said they would call back.  I didn't hear from them in a couple of days so I called to see if I could lock up the job.  They said they had found it somewhere cheaper, thanks but no thanks.  I got beat now sweat, right?  I walked into my rep's store two days later and guess whose running the job I lost?  My freakin Rep!  I did not know I would be competing against my own rep.  Mind you authorized reps get ink and supplies from Brother at a discount.  This means he can underbid me all day and still turn a profit.  WTF!  I immediatly called every top brass at Brother I could find on the internet.  I finally got the two big wigs Vice Pres. Peter Holland and US Director Lawrence Davenport afte I wrote a letter to the president of the company.  They got on a phone conference with me to say that they were sorry and that they want to send me to training in Nashville to be a certified technician for my trouble.  At this point, I was requesting to be an authorized dealer so I could have a fair competitive advantage.  All I kept hearing is "You need to go to Nashville, get trained and then we can talk."  I played along went to Nashville, got install training that I should have received when I first bought the dang thing.  Found out that the little I was taught by my rep was wrong and damanging my $40K machine.  I asked if authorized reps and techs required to get continuing education and they said No.  This means that most reps and techs are relying on information that they recieved years ago.  The technology is imporving yearly but not their education to deal with today's issues.  When they found out what I'd been taught they were shocked.  After I was taught the right way, I hope, I was ready to get my Brother authorized technician certification.  Guess what, the field director called me into his office to say Mr. Davenport had said no at the last minute.  This means they wasted one week of my time and money giving install training that I should have got for free when I bought the thing.  I expressed my discontent to Mr. Davenport who half heartly apologized and basically said get over it. 

I returned back to my fledgling business hoping that Mr. Davenport's boss Mr. Holland would be sympathetic to my delima.  I would never be a authorized dealer, forced to compete in an unfair marketplace, and black listed by my in state rep.  Which means I am forced to get all my supplies and service from out of state.  I finally tracked Mr. Holland down after several phone calls and emails.  He told me that he had a discussion with the rep and that the rep would not operate as a t-shirt busniss anymore.  B.S.  I had sent my friend in two day before and the rep printed a small job for him and tried to sell him a machine.  I asked how are they going to police this rep in AZ when they are based in New Jersey?  His words "We can't disclose that but rest assure we are taking care of it."  That B.S. because the guy is still under cutting me to this day.  I am still getting service and supplies out of state which means I have no resouce for help when I need help.  I have to wait 5 to 7 days for anything because the instate rep blacklisted me for rating him out.   What is the upper management, Davenport and Holland, doing about it? Nothing.  Did I mention that Brother has the highest ink and supply cost on the market to boot!  How is it good business to chare $1,500.00 for a set of four printer cartridges?  The rep and uppermanagement pretty much set me up to fail.  Brother has a decent dtg machine but the sales, service, and concern of upper management is a rip off.  I hope this can save at least one person from spending $40,000 with a compnay who could care less is you sink or swim.