Inaccurate meter reads/charges

[gnubler]

Wondering if anyone else has dealt with this and what the result was. We just purchased a new copier about 6 weeks ago and just got our first bill. According to the bill we ran 31,000 color clicks in one month which is absurd because on average we never run more than 5,000/mo of black + color combined. I methodically convert all "black" copy jobs to grayscale PDFs and even set up a print queue to automatically run grayscale jobs in grayscale, so I'm kind of stumped and disgusted at the same time. Last week we had an unusually large book job that was all grayscale and that does reflect in our black meter count, but the 31K color clicks is just logistically impossible for the level of work we do.

[frailer]

Do these things show clicks on a counter that you can read? If so, I'd be noting the mileage at start of day, then see at end of day if it tallies with the work you've put through. Or job by job through the day....
Easy money, if it's not accurate.  (Hummin' Rickie Lee Jones here now...)

[Joe]

Are you sure it isn't counting color clicks for the grayscale jobs. I have heard of that before. Is Xerox involved?

[gnubler]

Are you sure it isn't counting color clicks for the grayscale jobs. I have heard of that before. Is Xerox involved?

I'm sure that's what "they'll say". That's why I mentioned my diligence in converting GS jobs to GS and sending to a GS queue. More of a concern is the sheer number of clicks - we laughed when we saw 31,000 clicks in one month. There's no way we run that sort of volume.

Not Xerox. Not sure if I want to name names at this point.

[gtrev]

Got some cleaners that like to do a little copying after hours?

[Joe]

Got some cleaners that like to do a little copying after hours?

We actually caught the vending machine guy making color copies on ours one Saturday afternoon.

[gnubler]

No, unlikely. But being a paranoid nutjob I had a vision that my boss might accuse me of making personal color copies, like a side business or something. Not sure how I could sneak 30,000 sheets of paper out of the shop, but anything's possible.

I'm kind of bummed out because my boss was so excited about doing business with this company after our ordeal with Xerox, and now this...

We've pretty much had nothing but problems since Day 1. Shocking.

[Joe]

You really have to be careful with the fine print on the contracts for these machines. Hopefully this is a correctable error for you but I have my suspicions about the snakes that sell you these things. I mentioned Xerox because I have heard of Xerox charging 4 clicks even for a grayscale page.

One other thought, do these pages have registration, crops, and bleed marks? These come out of the page layout program colored registration (100% of all colors) and I've heard of people getting hit with color charges because of those marks even when the page content was grayscale.

[gnubler]

Joe, that's been mentioned so let me get some clarification. We do a lot of grayscale forms for a medical office and I routinely convert Word doc PDFs into grayscale using Acrobat's preflight action. There are no crops or marks, these are 8.5 x 11 pages from Word, and by habit I just run the action and save the form as a grayscale PDF.

Are you saying that if a PDF file happens to have marks off in the (hidden) pasteboard they won't be converted to grayscale within Acrobat? Even if that's the case, there's still no way we've even run 31,000 clicks in one month. Just not physically possible. I'm the only operator.

[Joe]

I'm not sure if Acrobat would convert hidden content or not. But coming from word I would doubt if they had register marks. Can you even put marks on something coming from Word?

One other thought, when you print from Acrobat are there any profiles/color management that might be doing some kind of CMYK or RGB profile embedding either from Acrobat or in the RIP for the copier?

If the copier is that far off either you are being ripped off or there is something wrong with the machine. Somewhere there should be a job list that you can access on the printer though I'm not sure how far back it would go before it starts overwriting info. I would try to find it and have a look. I'm certainly not the right person to be answering these questions as I rarely deal with ours. I'm sure someone else will give you better info tomorrow. I'm just shooting it the dark right now.

[DigiCorn]

It's Xerox. I'm sure. Usually crop marks are 4-color, so you actually have to manually select a grayscale queue, even if you art is only K, even if you convert it. It always defaults to 4-color unless you make this from the pulldown in CWS, OR, if you make a setting, say in Acrobat, and double check after sent to CWS. I have to do this on every job because sometimes even when sent properly as grayscale, CWS will change it.

[gnubler]

I just exported our job list from the past month from the copier's RIP, which lists click count and color mode. There's some huge discrepancies between what was actually printed and what we're being billed for. Maybe it's a case of *human error* and plugging in some wrong numbers. It's funny because we were undercharged for black clicks and severely overcharged for color clicks.

Regarding marks showing up as 4/c, it didn't happen in my case. All the grayscale jobs I've run indeed show up as grayscale on the RIP (according to the job history). I think you're right Joe - you can't make marks/crops in Word and the majority of these forms I run come from Word (which I convert to grayscale PDFs).

[gnubler]

you actually have to manually select a grayscale queue, even if you art is only K, even if you convert it.

I do. I have two print queues set up, one for color, one for GS. Black jobs are sent to the GS queue and show up on the RIP as gray.

[DigiCorn]

you actually have to manually select a grayscale queue, even if you art is only K, even if you convert it.

I do. I have two print queues set up, one for color, one for GS. Black jobs are sent to the GS queue and show up on the RIP as gray.

My boss has me physically check the meters before and after the runs when we have your issue. I haven't caught it cheating... yet

[gnubler]

My boss has me physically check the meters before and after the runs when we have your issue. I haven't caught it cheating... yet

Yeah, I was just given a meter count form to manually enter the counts before & after jobs so we can compare it to what the RIP says. Based on the spreadsheet I just exported, it looks accurate.