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HP Must Defend Half-Empty "Economy" Ink Cartridges

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the false-economy-that-is dept.

An Anonymous Coward excerpts this short Detroit News story, which begins "PALO ALTO, Calif. -- Hewlett-Packard Co. must defend the sale of half-full ink cartridges with its printers after a Minnesota appellate court reinstated a lawsuit against the world's largest maker of printers. Three Minnesota women claim that the company doesn't reveal that the 'economy cartridges' installed on new printers are only half full of ink." The cost of refills is why I've given up on inkjet printers entirely (for now) -- guess which division of HP made more money than the other four combined?

9 of 580 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Why do people bother with inkjets? by Deanasc · · Score: 3, Interesting

    When I bought my computer it came with a free inkjet printer. Now I feel locked in to the technology. Plus it's the only way for the home user to get color printing. I do appreciate the new Epson with individual color tanks. That at least is a step in the right direction.

    --
    I've hit Karma 50 and gotten a Score:5, Troll... I win!
  2. Inkjets have a hold on the consumer market by Limburgher · · Score: 4, Interesting

    One problem with laser is that it spikes the hell out of your power supply, will kill a UPS, and if not on aseperate circuit can wreak havoc with your other equipment. Inkjets are much tamer, and while a pain in the ass and slower, are safer for beginning/home lUsers for this reason. Since they're also cheaper to make than lasers and better than dot-matrix, inkjet will probably have a lock on consumers for some time.

    --

    You are not the customer.

    1. Re:Inkjets have a hold on the consumer market by drinkypoo · · Score: 4, Interesting
      Unless we're talking about a UPS the size of a dorm fridge, you're not going to want to plug it into a UPS anyway. UPSes are for saving your work when the power goes out, not for running from in the case of a power failure. That's what generators are for. A lot of people make this mistake, but a UPS is just not a cost-effective system for running when the power is out - It's just to hold you until a generator spins up.

      Before you start ranting about the cost of a generator system, consider that a good-sized UPS costs a great deal of money. It will cost you about $500-$600 to get a 5 kilowatt generator with automatic cutover (That's over 10 hours of runtime at 50% load, per five gallons of gasoline) which can run things like your lighting as well, not just a PC and a laser printer.

      Meanwhile, a 3kvA UPS is around $1500 and up. Sure you don'ty have to buy gas for it, but you do have to buy batteries eventually, and good ones aren't cheap.

      Anyway, you can always resubmit a print job. Just put your laser printer on a good surge suppressor. If you need to run when the power is out, invest in a generator system. It doesn't cost as much as you might think and it will run for hours, not just minutes.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  3. Perhaps I'm being naive, by Anne_Nonymous · · Score: 3, Interesting

    but I do not think of HP as a sleazeball company. They make high quality products for fair prices, treat their employees reasonably well, and you never hear about Chinese 6-year-olds assembling LJ4100's in a sweatshop someplace.

    So, why are they pulling this scam? Is it a change in corporate culture? Is HP actually evil, with a thin chocolaty covering? Is it actually a fair tactic? Is it a manufacturing or shipping issue?

    Insight please...

  4. Re:Cost Per page - Epson 1280 Photo by LetterJ · · Score: 3, Interesting
    If you're going through that much ink, you should consider a continuous inking system and just by the ink by the 4oz bottle.

    http://www.inksupply.com/index.cfm?source=html/cfs _1270.html

    --

    The Glass is Too Big: My Take on Things
  5. Re:Women & Ink Jets are a bad combo... by toupsie · · Score: 3, Interesting
    If your S.O. is wasting money, tell them. Put a price tag on each card, at various densiites of ink, and show some differnent ways to get the same effect. (Heck, get the price for custom-printed cards at Hallmark or Officemax.)

    Well, the problem is, my definition of waste and hers in this situation. She sees it as her fun activity which makes her friends happy. A Good Thing according to Martha Stewart. The last thing I am going to do is start a fight with a women that is a cock rancher.

    As with all things in marriage, it gets solved by talking about it, not ignoring it. So if it's an issue, tell her. If it's not--well, then don't post on /. about it.

    It was an article about women and ink jets. I was relaying my experience with my woman and ink jets. Guess you miss the point, women love these things because of all the colorful, creative things can do with them. Its the needlepoint of the new century.

    --
    Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.
  6. more expensive than gold by Futurepower(R) · · Score: 4, Interesting


    Remove the cheap solvent, and, by weight, inkjet ink is more expensive than gold.

  7. Wanna know.... by _ph1ux_ · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I just want to know if any of you have come across this scam:

    (I have seen this happen 3 times in my career in IT)

    You get a call from some one, they find out that you are in charge of purchasing for you IT dept in your co. They tell you that they are going to send you your free gift! a small tv or some such thing. If you accept this gift - they send you a pallat (sp?) of laser printer toner cartridges and try to charge you like $200.00 each.

    They bill you and try to send you an invoice at some regular interval.

    When I first got into IT I mistakenly accepted the seemingly innocent free gift from a vendor and had this happen. They had told me that they were an authorized HP cartridge re-manufacturer, and that the toner cartridges containg high quality super fine toner which yeilded over a thousand more pages per cartridge (no - I did not fall for this BS as i will explain) - they continued on the superiority of their re-furbished crap... I was very wise/lucky to basically record the conversation in transcript form in notepad....

    I told them I did not want to buy any of their cartridges - but sure I would accept the free gift that they wanted to send me regardles... big mistake. They sent the free gift all right - right along with half a pallet of the toner cartridges i didnt want.

    So I accepted the gift, but refused delivery of the pallet. but the delivery guy was apparently giving instructions not to take no for an answer and would not accept the refusal of delivery. and left me with the pallet - and the invoice for a few thousand dollars.

    I was pissed off... luckily I had the entire ordeal meticulously documented... for some reason I felt the whole thing was fishy and kept very good notes.

    being that the company said that they were one of the few nationally certified and autorized HP cartridge manufacturers - and that the delivery of the toner carts was total BS - and that they were charging over 200 per toner I was pissed off.

    I called up HP and asked about their authorizing such shady companies - I was informed by HP that there was nbo such thing as an auth'd cartridge remanufacturer... and they forwarded me to their legal dept. I talked with them about the whole thing... emailed the transcripts of the whole ordeal - and they sent someone next day to pick up the pallet of illegal cartridges (but said I could keep two or three for my troubles)\

    Then since we never paid the invoice to the con company - they called up demanding their money. I told them that I would be happy to pay them - if they could prove that they were authorized HP remanufacturers (I dont remember exactly why - but HP said that I should not tell them that I had reported them until they gave me the go ahead... they said to give them the run around on the invoice for a few weeks - and they would contact me and tell me when they had completed their investigation)

    they called every single day trying to get payment out of us. Then they sent us another pallet of toner carts - that HP galdly picked up again the next day.

    Finally I had the pleasure of telling the guys on the other end of the line that I ahd documented every last detail - including them verifying their mailing address 3 times for payment of the invoice and had reported them to HP and the BBB and the state attorney general for fraud. You should have heard the guy on the other end - he went stark raving mad into a panic - especially after I was able to document exact conversations and every single time they called me.

    They claimed that what I did was illegal and that I should be prepared to be sued "big time" by them. They never called me again....

    But ! some others tried to get in on the game a few years later. I received calls where they said "Hi, sam - we would like to send you your free gift!" I would ask them what company they were from, get them to repeat and verify their company name a few times - then laugh and tell them I knew their scam and that I was calling the Ca state attorney general - they would promptly hang up.

    Anyone else seen this scam before?

  8. Draft mode by Midnight+Thunder · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I have an HP and tend to print most of my documents in draft mode. For most intents and purposes, especially for text documents, it is is perfectly sufficient. Since the print head seems to pass twice for high quality, I would guess that I am on average doubling the life of my ink cartridge. If I need something to dazzle then the high quality mode is there when I need it.

    --
    Jumpstart the tartan drive.