I just got back from Staples where I was faced with one of the worst examples of bogus fees I’ve ever seen. The ruse: If you have them print ANY file that is not in PDF form, they add on a $2 “Conversion Fee”, even if no file conversion takes place. It would be bad enough if they charged a fee for something that takes a single mouse click and costs them absolutely nothing, but this is ridiculous
Full details and story after the jump…
A few days ago, I went to the Staples at 184th St and Broadway in Upper Manhattan in order to to print a simple JPEG file. The copy/print area employee gave me a price that seemed a bit high with absolutely no explanation. I asked for details on the price, and she said that they were adding a $2 “Conversion Fee” because the file was not a PDF. I told her that you don’t need to convert it to a PDF, as JPEGS are perfectly capable of being printed on their own. Even worse–She didn’t actually DO any conversion. She merely printed the JPEG from some photo program. She said there was nothing she could do, and that it was company policy. I ask to speak to the manager. He acknowledged my complaint and waives the fee.
Fast forward to today. I go to the same Staples for a routine print-and-fax. This time, the files I needed to print were Word (.doc) files. Unfortunately, I failed to pay proper attention, and didn’t realize that they had once again slapped on a “Conversion Fee” until I had left the store and looked at the receipt (see photo above.)
The problems with this are obvious:
1) No conversion is needed to print any of these files
2) No conversion actually took place to print any these files.
3) They do not tell you about this fee, rather tell you what the cost is and ask you to pay. If you don’t look at your receipt, you don’t know you are getting charged for it.
4) Even if my first two points were not true, converting files costs nothing.
In short, always look at your receipt, and never trust Staples.
Um, dude, you do realize that they need to actually pay MS for WORD especially for an application they are going to profit from I’m sure!
They are providing a service, not a discount printer for you..
If you want a cheaper more “custom fee” find a printer that is smaller and will do it for cheaper.. if not, don’t be such a Bi@tch
That this even ranked as a article is sad..
Bones makes a good point. But this isn’t exactly blog-worthy – these fees are old news! I was a Kinko’s graphic designer through college (two years ago now), and we were supposed to charge a $1 conversion fee for anything not in PDF format. We never DID, mind you, but we were supposed to.
Well…. no actually they didn’t have to buy MS word. There are lots of open source and rich text readers that handle .doc just fine even the 07 xml crap. MS also offers a free doc reader and I’m pretty sure you can print from it…
That being said setting up and getting all this stuff into production dose cost… while saying it’s a conversion fee is misleading but still they can charge anything they want, you just have to decide to pay it or not.
Tech crunch dose to see to becoming more a gripe log then a tech blog though…. kinda sad.
Printing? See a local printer. I use Postal Instant Press (PIP). A job that costs over $20 at Staples? Under $13 at PIP.
________________________________________
KrazyKyngeKorny(Krazy, not stupid)
¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯
You have got to be kidding me. People actually defending Staples and even insulting the author? Talk about a low, that is as low as it goes.
Staples creates a bogus conversion fee – even when a conversion is not actually done. In case you clue-impaired critics don’t get it, that is an open and shut case of fraud. There should be a complaint filed with the FTC. That’ll wake them up.
Pfft.
That’s nothing. My water and my electric company each charge me a $1.00 convenience fee to pay my bills electronically.
‘dem bums.
Charging me so that they don’t have to process a paper check ? ? ?
Gaylords.
Hello there!
I’m sorry to hear what you’ve experienced as I myself am a Copy Center Associate at Staples. I understand from your point of view why it’s a rip off but let me break this down to you. Number 1, the associate must go into much detail as possible as she/he places an order for you. It is true if the file you’re providing us is not in PDF format, we have to charge a file conversion fee once. For ex if you have multiple files, you only get charged once. The reason why we’re supposed to do this and I’m speaking out of experience, if we keep printing different formats on our MPS system, it’s going to cause technical problems. And due to the high volume of jobs we get, we’re intructed that is neccessary…However, as a service being provided, the associate must give you a FREE CD which contains a program that’ll let you convert your files to PDF for future ordering, that way you don’t have to keep paying over the same fee.
Following from your experience, the associate didn’t do the right thing. Last but not least, if they do indeed charge you for it, they’re supposed to convert it, if they don’t, don’t pay. Very wrong on their part.
If they do this again, prompt this to a manager’s attention.
Just cuz the associate has to work harder(copy center) doesn’t mean that associate is even profiting, he/she is getting an hourly salary weather the customers buy 1 copy the whole day or 1 million. so it is a b/s fee.
To do may conversions for free and online, go to free file conversions online.
Would like to point out that the conversion to PDF is only needed for the Wide format printer in our store. I also do not agree with the squeeze every dime out of the customer policy. There is usually a cheaper place to get prints and if you piss them off enough they will drive an extra 30 minutes to get the cheaper prints.
A lot of the times these fees are added to help them make budget. We will do it at our store if we convert say 5 or more files. It does take time on the 7 year old PC we use in the copy center.
As for free programs, I’ve yet to see Open Office open a formatted Word doc correctly yet. I usually have to tweak a few things here and there so it would actually cost more for us to use that. As for Word viewer, it is illegal to use it for commercial purposes. It would be just plain stupid for Staples to use. Same with most “freeware”.
I still think that some of the policies are crap. I refuse to charge the conversion fee for every file converted. Just be glad most of the stores don’t charge the fee for email submissions, scanning, and even opening a file on the computer can be charged for. At our store it is $7.00 per scanned item. You have 10 pages you need scanned and emailed. This would cost you almost $100 after taxes (going by company policy) and it would be more feasible for you to just buy the Canon LIDE 90 scanner for $99.98 and call it a day.
As for that free CD. It is a simple converter that even watermarks the pages and can only be printed at Staples (watermark removal tool is on the PC at Staples). Not a big fan of this.
And no do not bring this to the managers attention. This is usually a policy set forth by the District Manager. You need to get the store number (a 4 digit number like 0064) and call the corporate office and make a complaint there. If you go to the manager it will die before it gets out the store, unless the employee is acting alone.
There are several reasons a file should be converted to PDF before printing.
#1. It prevents any of your native fonts/formatting from changing due to incompatibility issues with the privately licensed versions of MS Office and other programs which Staples Copy & Print Centers use.
#2. It runs through the print spool faster. That last one benefits everyone.
You can easily avoid the conversion fee (which is only $2 per order…not per file..come on..) by converting the file to PDF yourself, submitting it on staples.com/copyandprint (where it is automatically converted to PDF), or by asking the Copy & Print Center for a free copy of staples “Easy print” software (Which can also be downloaded at staples.com/easyprint). It is a simple conversion program.
Sounds like the associate who ran your prints didn’t convert the file because she didn’t understand why she was supposed to do so in the first place. She should have.
Staples Copy & Print Center consultants are usually pretty good at giving you an upfront price quote if the price is going to be $50 or more….but no red flags go up over $2. If you want to know the total price, just ask. They don’t have some evil scam to rip you off. The fees are no secret.
It really is a service fee because it takes time. The price will remain $2 regardless of the number of files they have to convert…whether it’s 1 or 100(and converting 100 files will take a while).
If you don’t like the conversion fee, try one of the above suggestions for avoiding it. It’s not such a big deal.
I also work at staples although not in the copy center. I completely agree that these policies are idiotic. I think we should be converting to a service oriented company that charges more for services than product. What I mean is that an appropriate service fee should be charged rather than a conversion fee when a customer needs assistance. This fee should be based on the size and type of order (time required to fulfill order). It is not just the copy center that should be doing this. Has anybody used the easytech services or bought anything in the business machines section? It would be more profitable if the company focused on selling services to setup things like networking, computer repair (hourly charge regardless of what or how something is fixed), and additional services like that. We will never make money off the products we sell and we DO make ridicules profits off the services (however bad it is- sadly). I can’t blame us employees as we are basically treated like crap and are merely seen as tools of the company. Of course this is no wonder given my salary doesn’t pay what would be required to hire competent employees. For me to do anything other than act as a tool I would expect a hirer salary. Given we are only tools it is policy that we can’t provide good services as everything is spelled out as to what we should do in every circumstance. This makes it impossible to both comply with policies and provide good service.
Hey, I actually work at staples… in the copy center. And I’m going to agree with that prices are ridiculous… to an extent. If you want something cut, we charge $2 for every cut we do. Ya we have to make sure our blade stays sharp, but I don’t think it costs that much to keep it sharp. And if you want things scanned and saved to a pdf it’s $5 a picture! But for the most part prices are pretty reasonable. I mean you have to consider 1. the price of ink and paper 2.Machine “wear and tear” and repairs for the machines (which is like everyday, hate those machines) And for The quality you get it’s a pretty decent price. And for some of the things, we charge for more labor. So yes some things can be ridiculously priced, but that’s everywhere not just at staples. Most (not all) corporations/ businesses/ etc. are trying to squeeze every penny out of you they can get. So don’t get pissed at staples itself, blame the employee for not telling you the “small print” (ps they would probably get in trouble for not saying that)
Laura
Ok, so I work for Staples in the Copycenter and let me tell you we absolutely charge the conversion fee every time if the its not in pdf format. It may seem like a rip off if you are only printing one page but thats what corporate says so thats what we do. We even keep a copy of the MAP communication by the register to show the customer we’re not making it up its company policy. I understand the Manager was trying to please the customer but at my store the managers know better and back us up. The charge used to be .99 per file, so its actually been changed for the better. Every store should be charging correctly, its stores like the ones previously stated that has the angry customers coming to my store thinking we made it up cuz they’ve never been charged correctly before. I won’t waive a fee for other ppls incompetence.
I just read your complaint. I have been working for Staples for over 8 years this July. I have worked electronics, furniture, office supply, and more recently Copy Center. In the defense of Staples although I completely agree with you is it is up to the store that you go to what you are going to be charged. Due to higher management and trying to make numbers… Our company has a goal for the Copy Center per order they call it an AOV (Average order value). There is alot of pressure with in the company to make your AOV goal which in my store is 35.00… They are a rediculous company to work for as far as goals. They want you to upsale everything from Protection plans to rediculous charges at the copy center and want you to engage, ask, show, yes (easy) but never give enough hours to make this a reality. I am about to quit the company because I have had enough of their changes in the last year. You will never see me buy any thing their because I know how high priced everything is.
I just read your complaint. I have been working for Staples for over 8 years this July. I have worked electronics, furniture, office supply, and more recently Copy Center. In the defense of Staples although I completely agree with you is it is up to the store that you go to what you are going to be charged. Due to higher management and trying to make numbers… Our company has a goal for the Copy Center per order they call it an AOV (Average order value). There is alot of pressure with in the company to make your AOV goal which in my store is 35.00… They are a rediculous company to work for as far as goals. They want you to upsale everything from Protection plans to rediculous charges at the copy center and want you to engage, ask, show, yes (easy) but never give enough hours to make this a reality. I am about to quit the company because I have had enough of their changes in the last year. You will never see me buy any thing their because I know how high priced everything is.
its two dollars get over it
$2 for a conversion fee???? Crazy!
Yeah, it would be crazy for Staples to charge $2 to convert a file to print for you… This seems like MONEY GRUBBING corporate fraud!!!
The SOLE REASON THEY CHARGE these excessive prices is to pay for CORPORATE WASTE & EXCESS such as: associate’s pay, insurance & benefits, uniforms, lighting, power to run the computer, the computer & software, copier lease, air conditioning, restrooms, cleaning, advertising… and $30,000 moth rent.
Since the charges are so excessive, ask your mom for $200,000 to open a store & make the same MAD CASH they are. When it takes 10 years to break even and 18 year old snots are complaining about $2 conversion fee’s… suck it up. Until you learn a bit more about business, the costs & risks… use your ears & not your mouth when you want to learn.
I agree with Eric – I can’t believe people are ripping into the author here – maybe YOU ARE rich enough to deal with BS fees – but most Americans aren’t – and it doesn’t matter that this is about staples – EVERYWHERE does this to people now-a-days. It’s ridiculous – I commend the author for bringing it up – I think more people need to bitch about these fees and shows distaste with retailers – how else is it gonna get fixed if we all keep LETTING it happen?
Also, I work at a print shop – it IS a pain to convert a non-pdf file format – but it’s only ever a pain if it’s an adobe illustrator or an in design file format, otherwise it’s pretty easy.
Also, it’s not like that “conversion” fee is going to the workers actually having to convert the files – it’s going to the corporation!
The fact is, like the author stated, they didn’t even convert the file and yet still charged him – it’s ridiculous.
I don’t have the money to get screwed all the time with these BS fees.
some of you have issues if you think $2 is “excessive.” Shut up and convert the files to PDF yourself while you sip your $5 latte.
I was just at Staples, and this was the 1st time I was ever asked to pay, however I was not told it was a conversion fee since they didn’t even open up my files, I was just told it was $2 to open each file. I was aghast and of course did not print anything. I look forward to informing the supervisor of that area the correct policy once I get it from Staples.
And seriously, why are people defending a corporation so vehemently? Especially when they don’t train the employees properly in policy.
Your a fucking retarded. I don’t think you know that THEY ACTUALLY NEED TO CONVERT THE FILE SO THEY ARE NOT SCAMMING. BESIDES IF YOU COMPLAIN ENOUGH IM SURE THE ASSOCIATE WILL BE HAPPY TO WIPE YOUR ASS AND NOT CHARGE YOU. Buy your own printer
It depends on what Staples store you go to.
The one I work at, Store 1097, District 91, Grass Valley California, I will say has more competent employees as apposed to Store 0424, same district, Auburn California, who seems to hire anyone over 18 and isn’t a crack addict.
When I’m over in the Copy Center, I will admit there are some ridiculous fees, and I generally don’t charge some of them.
Alot of people don’t know, but there’s a 25 cent fee for reducing or enlarging items. EACH item, really.
So, if you go in with a couple photos and want them blown up, 25 cents a pop.
With alot of this stuff, I charge accordingly. If it takes me 10 seconds to set it up to enlarge the photos, I’ll throw one charge on for all of them. Seems fine.
Same with binding anything. It’s supposed to be a dollar a book “Assembly Fee.” Doesn’t matter if it’s 1 or 100. A buck a pop.
Alot of this stuff is just pure profit, and for numbers. Numbers, numbers, numbers… Pretty much what all the managers’ jobs rely on. It’s at the point where if the store doesn’t make enough money a year, they cut 2 managers’ jobs.
Don’t get pissed at the associates of the corp. for charging you, it’s the actual Corp. you need to be pissed at. $2 isn’t a huge deal at all, and there’s a ton of free programs to convert to PDF.
Someone before mentioned it, and it’s 100% true. Printing alot of files not in PDF format will eat up a ton of memory on our servers. It’s not like a normal printer connected straight to the computer, it’s the computer is hooked up to two servers, one for black and white machines and the other for color. And from each server is hooked a variety of machines. So, the computer has to send the file to the server, the server has to process it, and then send it to the machine to print. The servers are really only made for PDF files because they process a LOT faster than any of the other files. When the file is told to print, it goes from point A (the printer) to Point B (the server) and spends a little time in Point B decoding, then gets sent to Point C (the actual copier/printer) where it takes a few seconds for the printer to warm up and print out. A text document in .doc may take 20 seconds to print, but it’ll take about 3 in PDF format.
While you may think you have a valid argument for complaining about a conversion fee, the complaint needs to be about the associate who DIDN’T convert the file at all when they printed it.
Printing any file NOT in PDF format takes up a TON of the memory on the server. It stores the printed documents on the server as well. Keep that in mind.
So, you can print about a thousand PDF files and take up maybe 12% of the server. And in any other file type, you can get through about 20 before it practically fills the ENTIRE SERVER MEMORY! And, just letting you know, to even go through and delete the stored documents on the server, you need a Administrator password to log into the server to even clear it out. And, if it gets too full, we have to actually call Xerox to come out and pretty much manually remove everything.
And, just to let everyone know, the prices for some things, if you think it’s high, do realize that we get alot of our paper from Xerox and some other specialty companies and they charge us sometimes $50 a ream. For those of you that don’t know how many pages are in a ream, it’s only 500. A ream of average printing paper, you can pick up for under $4.
We quit using binding assembly fees over a year ago and the reducing and enlarging fee of $0.25 is per SIZE entered, not per original or per print. It’s for the time you take entering original size, auto center, % enlarge, etc.
Part of the time I don’t really even do the $0.25 red/enl fee if the job is large enough. Or, I should say, not as many times as I should. It’s a bit easier to do the $5 a half hour if it’s huge enough of a job and tedious enough.
It really depends on the customer’s job and the customer.
If some guy comes in yelling at me the entire time, I’ll charge him what I’m supposed to charge him. If a customer comes in and is nice, understanding about time, and how busy we are, I might let a few pure profit fees slide a bit.
To the poster- go to a local mom and pops shop. Most still believe in customer service and low cost competitive rates. Ignore any poster who overgeneralizes with the juvenile mentality of “gee they are ALL doing it” so jump on the bus .
I can attest that our business DOES NOT nickel and dime a customer.
I also work in the Staples Copy and Print Center. I am the department lead at our CPC, also known as the CPC Expert. I would like to offer an explanation for these fees from an honest and non-biased point of view. Sometimes the intricacies of operating a copy center are eclipsed by the simplicity of its product. A file conversion fee is only necessary when printing a document that either; has formating that might be compromised while transferring your file to the print server, or the document has been saved in a color mode other than CMYK. CMYK (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, Black) are the toner colors most professional equipment utilizes. Many files brought to us are created using “at home” programs, which are intended to be used in conjunction with “at home” printers. Converting the file to PDF locks in crucial formatting and color choices in a file format that is both user friendly, and compact. PDFs print faster, look better, and offer a wider range of print options at the software level. And whats ever better is that you are only asked to pay the conversion fee once per order, NOT for every document we convert. If you bring us a flash drive containing 15 .docs to print we will convert all files for one File Conversion Fee. What it really boils down to is this… You pay 2 bucks to know your document its going look the way you want it to look, and by enforcing this policy as standard operating procedure we insure that we are providing the highest quality print available for our customers.
I used to stop at a local minimart that charged .50 for using my debit card. A 1.50 pepsi would cost 2.00. There were many complaints about it from thier customers. Actually, the service cost them .35 but they charged the .50. I don’t have a problem paying more for a service but I don’t like practice of making the cost of doing business visible. It is normal to provide debit service for a brick and mortar store. I don’t understand why a company would invite irritation on thier sutomers by making sure that they know what it takes to provide a service.
That fact that some of you consider this minimal charge fraud is outrageous in itself. As far as some of the employee remarks I read in numerous comments (or complaints) Staples’ employees are 100% trained to know the back bones of the copy center. It is up to the individual associates to use that information and apply it and learn from their own experience. We provide coaching and on the job training for any associate. The copy center’s system is complex and by converting the files to PDF enables our associates to detect and correct any errors before they are printed resulting in less waste and happier customers. PDF is the standard in all business printing; whether or not your file is personal or business, it goes through business and/or industrial printers.
I’m hoping someone can answer a question for me (I found this post via google) in reference to printing at Staples. I would like to take some files in for printing. Personal, not business, and nothing fancy. Just print files of portions of pdf documents I want a hard copy of. For example, I recently purchased a ScanSnap with Adobe 8 and both manuals are digital. I do not need an Adobe book, nor do I need the whole manual for each product, but I would like some portions of each in print format for reference.
My question then is can I burn the sections I want to a cd (in pdf format) and print the cd (files) at Staples.
It may be a simple question but I recall I was able to do this with Kinko’s years ago when I published a newsletter (for snail mail). I did all the work and simply used their computer with my files and printed what I needed.
While I do have a printer, it isn’t laser and the ink jet is too costly for this type of need. I have several applications/programs I would like to be able to utilize and all user documents are now digital.
Again, the needs are not fancy, no binding, color, etc., just cheaper printing of certain portions of the various manuals than I could do using ink jet printing.
As a side note, I’m on MAC OS 10.5 and I assume (?) a the pdf file is all I need … i.e. not disk formatting.
Thanks,
Nichol
For being a ‘price driven’ CPC employee, she sure didn’t charge you for a first page out of state fax.
Also a CPC employee here. I, personally, don’t charge the conversion fee unless I think you’re an ass. Then it’s my passive aggressive way of getting you back. But printing .jpgs is very little problem and you should not have been charged in this instance.
And Nichol, we would be more than happy to do that for you. Just write down the page numbers you need and it will be nice and simple! As long as the file is a .pdf, origin doesn’t matter. If you’re a rewards member (and if you’re not, sign up!) you are eligible for 50% back on your prints starting tomorrow (9/20).