You can definately tell that Mailboxes, Etc is the popular print shop amongst the students. Based in the heart of the west end, within a stone's throw of the Uni, it was a favourite of mine, not too long ago!
But I don't know what's happened to it since then, I'm not an economist, but I would guess that the Uni library is making things much cheaper and easier on students. At any rate, Mailboxes' prices are high high high!
To get a document printed from a USB stick (which, let's face it, everyone has one nowadays), I was not only charged for the printing at 10p a page (not bad), but....
they also charged me to run a virus scan on my USB stick! I can understand the virus scan, but not the cost. A sign posted on the wall said 'A minimum of £1 will be charged for the 15 minutes it takes to run a virus scan'
Now, first of all, my usb did not have a virus (I could more easily understand the charge if it did), and it did NOT take 15 mins. And also, I know it sounds catty, but it isn't as though I was wasting their time. When I entered, I was the only customer and there were 4 members of staff standing around having a chat. And then I was reluctantly approached.
So, in the end, I hade to pay £1.90 to print 9 pages (and I'd only wanted the one page printed, but now it's printed 9, so there goes 80p on nothing).
Scanning...oy, scanning a document is £4 for up to 10 pages. It doesn't matter whether you have one page or 10, it's always £4.
I don't know what sort of student can afford that, but, unimpressed, I took my one page of printing, my 8 extra pages I didn't want, and left in a hurry.
Minus a star for needless charging. Minus a star for service and minus a star for overpriced scanning. Sorry Mailboxes, you'll have to try harder to impress me next time. read more