Lawsuit Says HP Printer Cartridges Die Before Use

22 Feb, 2005 at 10:43pm ET Article published in Tech

A Georgia (US) woman has sued Hewlett-Packard, claiming the ink cartridges for their printers are secretly programed to expire on a certain date, in some cases rendering them useless before they are even installed in a printer.

HP ink cartridges use a chip technology to sense when they are low on ink and advise the user to make a change. But the suit claims those chips also shut down the cartridges at a predetermined date regardless of whether they are empty.

I wouldn’t put it past HP, or any other printer manufactuer for that matter.

Source: Reuters

Comments

22 Feb 2005 ~ 10:45pm Camman I suppose I wouldnt put it past them, but...... "a chip secretely tells the cartridge to expire" ???? Sounds a little far fetched to me, sounds like a n00b who is pissed because her $35 ink cartridges (that's the REAL problem) don't last very long
22 Feb 2005 ~ 11:19pm Spinner

Camman wrote:

I suppose I wouldnt put it past them, but...... "a chip secretely tells the cartridge to expire" ???? Sounds a little far fetched to me, sounds like a n00b who is pissed because her $35 ink cartridges (that's the REAL problem) don't last very long

I say fair play, any excuse to have a go at HP for their ridiculously priced toner, is fine in my book.
22 Feb 2005 ~ 11:26pm pseudonym Yeah, make those bastards eat it. I still love the study I read once showing it would be CHEAPER to buy a new printer than to buy new ink cartridges.
23 Feb 2005 ~ 7:08pm RWB heh, I pay $60+ to refill my damned epson, any printer cartridge I see seems to cost a huge amount of money. I cannot fathom why it would cost that much.
23 Feb 2005 ~ 9:49pm Spinner

RWB wrote:

heh, I pay $60+ to refill my damned epson, any printer cartridge I see seems to cost a huge amount of money. I cannot fathom why it would cost that much.

I imagine toner doesn't cost anything to produce. The way they do it is by making their printers quite reasonable to buy, but then make the majority (not all!) of their money through the toner for it.

They could either charge $350 for a standard bubble jet and sell toner for only a few dollars, or they could charge $100 (as they do) for a standard bubble jet and get toner that costs $60 for a new round.

The latter way ensures that more consumers get sucked into giving them more money. That's the way it works. Either way, we're still getting ripped off, because the prices for modern printers have a perfectly reasonable profit margin on them anyway, the printer manufacturers are just greedy fat cats relying on the fact that people need the ink cartridges.

I don't remember ever seeing any small print on a printer advertisment stating "please be aware that the cost of new toner for this printer is so overly priced you'll wish for a feather and an ink pot."

We're all suckers, simply because we can't do anything about it!
23 Feb 2005 ~ 11:11pm drasnor Spinner: nitpicky detail, toner is the bake-on stuff used in laser printers, ink is used in bubblejets and inkjets

In any case, I believe the part about the deceitful ink levels but not the part about the cartridge shutting down. My HP printer has been nagging me for a year that my black cartridge is depleted though I've printed about 100 pages since then and still counting with no loss (that I can detect) in quality.

I'm pretty sure it's not printing color as black since the color levels aren't going down and I'd like to think I can spot CMY dithered black at 600dpi under a magnifying glass.

-drasnor
24 Feb 2005 ~ 11:58am Spinner

drasnor wrote:

Spinner: nitpicky detail, toner is the bake-on stuff used in laser printers, ink is used in bubblejets and inkjets

Yeah sorry, I did know that, I just couldn't be arsed to keep typing ink 'cartridge', I can never spell it!