Dealing with Hewlett Packard

[DManzaluni]

Can someone give me some information as to how to deal with HP.

Possibly I have been a bit gullible but that doesn't support what has
happened.

I had a Deskjet 6520 printer which had the wrong carts in it. HP told
me that the region was set wrongly so I needed a new printer. We
discussed options (I also have a Deskjet 932 and a Photosmart 7550
which only have Gutenprint drivers) and they tried to sell me a new
one. I figured that the price they were offering it to me for was only
marginally more than their (!) cost of carts. So I just went ahead
and instead of figuring out how to change regions without HP knowing,
I bought it, - a 5460.

It arrived and I plugged it in and almost immediately found that IT
doesn't have Snow Leopard drivers at all!

So I called H P and said 'you just sold me a printer to replace one
which wont work with my OS which doesnt seem to have drivers for my
OS. Do you have any drivers please?' They checked carefully and
agreed. They admitted that SL took them all by surprise and no one at
HP thought to do proper drivers. (their site says that SL had its
stripped down generic drivers which should do basic printing work but
which may or may not have any functionality)

But instead of replacing it with the only printer they now have which
does have drivers for 10.6.2, just want to SELL me another, - the
right, - printer!! And when I start to complain, they just ignore
me. So when I ask to speak to a supervisor, they pull the old 'do
another call or two and see if, by the time you get back, the customer
has got sick of hanging on yet'

Trouble is, I do all this on a speaker phone and while they have me
on their 20 minute holds, I get on with my work, letting THEM
interrupt ME as opposed to ME waiting plaintiflly for THEM. And I
have three lines here (and was careful to use the least worked, -
VoIP, - one for this call) so I can hang on forever if necessary. So
ultimately they got rid of me by pretending that the supervisor was
going to return my call, (which I did mention was fairly obviously a
lie). But I am pretty sure that with this attitude, they must have so
many operatives that no amount of my calling their tech support can
have much effect on them?

I did get a case reference number for that initial call and tried to
call back and cite that number but the operatives just play dumb: When
I quote it, they start asking me all sorts of stupid questions which
seem to indicate that their notes say something along the lines of
'start this one from the beginning all over again and see if you can
get rid of him when he realises that he is getting nowhere'

Does anyone know if it is possible to actually get though to anyone on
this sort of problem or have they discontinued their customer support?
I note with consternation that whereas they used to have a plethora of
printers, they do now seem to have discontinued most of them and now
only seem to have the 7560 to print photos [along with a slew of multi-
functions]. or does this mean that they are coming out with a whole
new line of them to replace these two (?) year old models soon?

 

[Martin Trautmann]

Does anyone know if it is possible to actually get though to anyone on
this sort of problem or have they discontinued their customer support?

No, stay away from HP. They do build some great products. But never ever
expect that they will fix anything which is broken for newer OS
versions.

I had the same experience already with the first inkjet printer they
built (HP Deskwriter) - the printer driver did consume every possible
bit of available memory for its queue after the OS was upgraded. I guess
this was about MacOS 7.5 or 7.6. The problem was well known but never
got fixed.

The only HP printers to recommend are network printers with postscript /
pcl - the risk of incompatibility is much lower then, even if the
support of grayscale or images may be less than perfect.

- Martin

 

[DManzaluni]

No, stay away from HP.

The only HP printers to recommend are network printers with postscript /
pcl - the risk of incompatibility is much lower then, even if the
support of grayscale or images may be less than perfect.

- Martin

Sounds reasonable but I am having a different problem: I had to pay
them to sell me a printer (because they have some stupid region
setting they wont change) and immediately I opened the brand new
printer to find that it doesn't work, they want me to pay them to
sell me one which does actually work!

 

[Martin Trautmann]

Sounds reasonable but I am having a different problem: I had to pay
them to sell me a printer (because they have some stupid region
setting they wont change) and immediately I opened the brand new
printer to find that it doesn't work, they want me to pay them to
sell me one which does actually work!

Sounds fair enough to me.

However, you should be allowed to return a nonfunctional, unused printer
to them. Here in Europe you have two years of legal warranty.

Sorry, no other help,
Martin

 

[mickey]

No, stay away from HP. They do build some great products. But never ever
expect that they will fix anything which is broken for newer OS
versions.

I had the same experience already with the first inkjet printer they
built (HP Deskwriter) - the printer driver did consume every possible
bit of available memory for its queue after the OS was upgraded. I guess
this was about MacOS 7.5 or 7.6. The problem was well known but never
got fixed.

The only HP printers to recommend are network printers with postscript /
pcl - the risk of incompatibility is much lower then, even if the
support of grayscale or images may be less than perfect.

- Martin

No disagreement with HP's customer service, it has always been their
Achilles heel but the Deskwriter was not the first inkjet printer. The
first was the ThinkJet in 84.
http://www.hp.com/hpinfo/abouthp/histnfacts/museum/imagingprinting/0011/index.html
The DeskWriter series was their third generation inkjet if I recall.

Mickey

 

[Martin Trautmann]

No disagreement with HP's customer service, it has always been their
Achilles heel but the Deskwriter was not the first inkjet printer. The
first was the ThinkJet in 84.
http://www.hp.com/hpinfo/abouthp/histnfacts/museum/imagingprinting/0011/index.html
The DeskWriter series was their third generation inkjet if I recall.

Hi Mickey,

I guess you're right about earlier injet printers at all. But AFAIK the
DeskWriter was the first Apple compatible inkjet printer from HP - it
was the DeskJet with an AppleTalk interface (RS-422) and Mac drivers.
Since this thread was about MacOS incompatibility (Snow Leopard / MacOS
10.6), I did not consider the DOS world (Hm, I guess, Win 3.1 was around
by that time).

- Martin

 

[DManzaluni]

No disagreement with HP's customer service, it has always been their  
Achilles heel

This was my question: Do they actually have any customer service or is
it all handled by technical support refusing to assist when something
goes so obviously wrong? Is there some trick to calling them?

If they think they have saved money by doing away with their customer
service, do they have any office whatsoever in New York for a small
claims action? Any local sales office, training office, PR office,
medical device office etc etc etc please? I figure that issuing in
small claims is a faster way of getting a resolution than spending
endless hours on the phone with a company which acts like this.
Instead of going through this ridiculous charade with their tech
support people going off to get a coffee to see if the customer has
got sick of waiting yet, just tramp down to some local arbitrator to
see if he agrees that they should be able to charge me for a printer
and then charge me again for a printer which works. Then if I can
present it in an amusing enough way to some local newspaper, it should
be possible to get a newspaper to pay me for the article? I am a
freelance journalist and I can see some possibilities here. New York
media love punchy headlines and those possibilities are endless (I'm
sure we all remember what "headless body found in topless bar" was
really all about!). That way I come out of this episode with a profit
for having been made to 'wait' endlessly for 'hours' on the phone
while HP tries to get rid of me. And then be obviously lied to about
a call-back when they wouldn't pass me on to a supervisor


But not if they do have customer service.

 

[mickey]

Hi Mickey,

I guess you're right about earlier injet printers at all. But AFAIK the
DeskWriter was the first Apple compatible inkjet printer from HP - it
was the DeskJet with an AppleTalk interface (RS-422) and Mac drivers.
Since this thread was about MacOS incompatibility (Snow Leopard / MacOS
10.6), I did not consider the DOS world (Hm, I guess, Win 3.1 was around
by that time).

- Martin

No harm. It was a long time ago. It only caught my eye because I'm a
former HP employee with friends and family associated with the inkjet
divisions. Was friends and worked with the industrial Eng that designed
the first inkjet, the ThinkJet. Have owned several thinkjets, a
pagewriter and several Deskjet models. Son is an Eng at the Vancouver
printer Div. Have been a Canon owner for at least 5 yrs.

Mickey

 

[mickey]

This was my question: Do they actually have any customer service or is
it all handled by technical support refusing to assist when something
goes so obviously wrong? Is there some trick to calling them?
......


But not if they do have customer service.

Like so many other Co's today, they farmed out their "customer Service"
years ago. Also they have been out of the medical business for more than
a decade. IMO today's HP is in name only. Bill, Dave, the principles and
company they created are long dead.

Mickey

 

[DManzaluni]

Like so many other Co's today, they farmed out their "customer Service"  
years ago.  Also they have been out of the medical business for more than  
a decade.  IMO today's HP is in name only.  Bill, Dave, the principles and  
company they created are long dead.

Mickey

Instead of sending me a printer which does actually work they have
offered to give me my money back: They DO seem quite keen that I dont
buy another HP printer. Should I take them up on it and be done with
them? Is there a Canon which does photos as well as the HPs at the
moment please? I was looking into it a few years ago but found that
the Canons didnt have enough colours in their (admittedly separate and
less expensive) cartridges to do photos which were as good as the best
of the HPs with their plethora of colours. Now I find that printing
seems to have moved on a bit and the printer companies seem to make do
with fewer colours along possibly with a photo black.

Is this game not worth the candle? Is this a company which empahsises
all-in-ones now where the individual parts dont do the job as well as
(for example) having a separate scanner, and printer?

Back then, Canon was pretty successfully playing catch up on photo
quality with HP still ahead. Has time moved on and Canon surpassed HP
and is HP concentrating their supposed talents elsewhere?

 

[Martin Trautmann]

Instead of sending me a printer which does actually work they have
offered to give me my money back: They DO seem quite keen that I dont
buy another HP printer.

On the other hand they just seem to give printers away for free:

EUR
79.99 HP Photosmart C4680
128.90 HP Photosmart Wireless
149.90 HP Photosmart Plus
198.90 HP Photosmart Premium
249.90 HP Photosmart Premium Fax

Cashback actions are not that common in Germany - but you may get back
80 EUR for those models above and they claim to be "perfect for snow
leopard".

Should I take them up on it and be done with
them? Is there a Canon which does photos as well as the HPs at the
moment please?

For some time Epson and Canon had even better reputation for photo
quality than HP did.

I was looking into it a few years ago but found that
the Canons didnt have enough colours in their (admittedly separate and
less expensive) cartridges to do photos which were as good as the best
of the HPs with their plethora of colours.

How many colors do you need? My expectations are not perfect - I do use
professional service if I really do need good quality. But even my
iP4000 is sufficient for good photo quality. The iP4700 should be good
enough for common needs, better than e.g. Epson B40W or HP 6000.

YMCB is not enough for you?

- Martin

 

[mickey]

.....

Instead of sending me a printer which does actually work they have
offered to give me my money back: They DO seem quite keen that I dont
buy another HP printer. Should I take them up on it and be done with
them? Is there a Canon which does photos as well as the HPs at the
moment please? I was looking into it a few years ago but found that
the Canons didnt have enough colours in their (admittedly separate and
less expensive) cartridges to do photos which were as good as the best
of the HPs with their plethora of colours. Now I find that printing
seems to have moved on a bit and the printer companies seem to make do
with fewer colours along possibly with a photo black.

Is this game not worth the candle? Is this a company which empahsises
all-in-ones now where the individual parts dont do the job as well as
(for example) having a separate scanner, and printer?

Back then, Canon was pretty successfully playing catch up on photo
quality with HP still ahead. Has time moved on and Canon surpassed HP
and is HP concentrating their supposed talents elsewhere?

Since you are not happy now, I'd just go for the money returned.

I went with Canon 4-5 yrs ago and at that time HP didn't have any printer
I knew of that could offer the qlty of picture prints that my Canon can.

Mickey

 

[Arthur Entlich]

Like so many other Co's today, they farmed out their "customer Service"
years ago. Also they have been out of the medical business for more
than a decade. IMO today's HP is in name only. Bill, Dave, the
principles and company they created are long dead.

Mickey

Except for Walter Hewlett, who might not be an innovator engineer, but
always struck me as a decent guy trying to maintain the company culture.
Of course, Carly (now running for some Republican position or another)
Fiorina, decided Walter was her enemy, and she helped to tank the
company. Meanwhile Walter ended up at Agilent, a spin off from HP. While
HP has recovered financially since Carly was "asked to leave" (fired)
and given her golden parachute in 2005, the company culture, IMHO, has
been destroyed. Like yourself, I see HP today like so many others,
Memorex, Polaroid, to name a few, who are more a trademark and brand
than a company inventing new ideas and products.

I don't know that HP will ever be able to reclaim their place as a top
American company with quality and integrity as their principle methods.

In general, Carly has left a lot of bodies in her wake, Bell's Lucent
Technologies is a mere memory, HP is walking wounded, and John McCain,
much to my personal relief, fell on his sword with her help. She is now
running for Senate, and I suspect (and hope) her curse continues to
haunt her. She certainly has worsened the lives of enough workers and
investors over the years. She gives the good talk, but never seemed to
match it with her walk.

Art

 

[Arthur Entlich]

Instead of sending me a printer which does actually work they have
offered to give me my money back: They DO seem quite keen that I dont
buy another HP printer. Should I take them up on it and be done with
them?

Some years ago, I read an article, and if I am not mistaken HP was one
of the companies mentioned which had gone to a new and popular
philosophy regarding customer complains. Some "genius" consultants
determined that certain clients were more costly than the income they
generated for a company, in fact, they basically lost the company money.

So, this consultant decided to train companies in how to recognize these
customers who would never be satisfied and would just become a lost
cause to them. The consultant suggested that rather than sinking money
into customer service, and assorted other costs in trying to fix the
problem, companies should do whatever they could to have the customer
not only no longer use that companies products, but actually to use this
to the company's advantage by leading the difficult client to the
company's competitors, so they could also lose money.

There is, however, one flaw in this logic. Often, the reason this
client became "difficult" and ultimately costly to the company, is
because the company made bad into worse, by not listening to the client,
not correcting the defects in the product or service, and by becoming
intransigent about not doing the right thing.

This client often became not a burden to their competitors, but, if
treated reasonably, a cheerleader for their competitor and a major
detractor to the original company.

Personally, HP (particularly their camera and scanner division) and
Nikon, to a lesser extent, both of which I used to comfortably support
and speak well of, left me annoyed and feeling disrespected. I moved to
Canon and Polaroid at the time (before they went into bankruptcy) and
found both companies a lot less arrogant.

Epson is yet another company which I have been left quite disappointed
in, which I used to be quite pleased with.

Very few companies are black or white, but they do show different
degrees of grey. I think when we speak with our wallets we tell these
companies what our values are and what our expectations are.

Since corporations are monolithic and non-human institutions, they often
only respond to the bottom line, so that is often the only way to make
your opinion known.

Art


Is there a Canon which does photos as well as the HPs at the

moment please? I was looking into it a few years ago but found that
the Canons didnt have enough colours in their (admittedly separate and
less expensive) cartridges to do photos which were as good as the best
of the HPs with their plethora of colours. Now I find that printing
seems to have moved on a bit and the printer companies seem to make do
with fewer colours along possibly with a photo black.

Canon had the right idea because in theory, if the dot size is small
enough, only 4 colors are really required. More colors lead to more ink
use and waste, and that is probably as much or more the driver than any
possible improvement to the image.

Is this game not worth the candle? Is this a company which empahsises
all-in-ones now where the individual parts dont do the job as well as
(for example) having a separate scanner, and printer?

Back then, Canon was pretty successfully playing catch up on photo
quality with HP still ahead. Has time moved on and Canon surpassed HP
and is HP concentrating their supposed talents elsewhere?

Canon spent a fortune on redesigning their heads and printer mechanics,
and did a good job of it. They aren't great for inks which aren't dye
colorant based, still. They do have a few pigment colorant inkset,
however. When the heads do fail, the cost is not cheap to replace them.

Art

 

[mickey]

Except for Walter Hewlett, who might not be an innovator engineer, but
always struck me as a decent guy trying to maintain the company culture.
Of course, Carly (now running for some Republican position or another)
Fiorina, decided Walter was her enemy, and she helped to tank the
company. Meanwhile Walter ended up at Agilent, a spin off from HP. While
HP has recovered financially since Carly was "asked to leave" (fired)
and given her golden parachute in 2005, the company culture, IMHO, has
been destroyed. Like yourself, I see HP today like so many others,
Memorex, Polaroid, to name a few, who are more a trademark and brand
than a company inventing new ideas and products.

I don't know that HP will ever be able to reclaim their place as a top
American company with quality and integrity as their principle methods.

In general, Carly has left a lot of bodies in her wake, Bell's Lucent
Technologies is a mere memory, HP is walking wounded, and John McCain,
much to my personal relief, fell on his sword with her help. She is now
running for Senate, and I suspect (and hope) her curse continues to
haunt her. She certainly has worsened the lives of enough workers and
investors over the years. She gives the good talk, but never seemed to
match it with her walk.

Art

You're being far too kind to Carly.

Bill & Dave would never except the company as being a me-too operation but
today, that is more than acceptable if it helps the bottom line. IMO it
would be hard to find an employee that would take much pride in working
for HP today. Many thousands of employees and former employees have lot
many millions of $$$ due to the management by Carly and now the current
CEO. A large portions of the fringe benefit package that had been in
place for many years has all been taken away.

It is a sad day that the company that once was one of the best manages
companies in the country and who recognized their employees as one of
their best assets to the poor position they find themselves today. I
doubt you could find HP's name listed in the top 100 best managed
companies and another survey of best company to work for. When I was
there they always were found in the top 2-3.

Mickey

 

[William R. Walsh]

Hi!

I had a Deskjet 6520 printer which had the wrong carts in it.
HP told me that the region was set wrongly so I needed a new
printer.

I don't know what the two problems have to do with one another. If you
have the wrong cartridges, get the right ones. Or is there more to the
story that leads up to this?

I don't know what they meant by "region", but I strongly suspicion
that you were being told something that was not true. Perhaps it was
an outright fabrication by someone who didn't know better and simply
wanted you off the phone. (This is a running theme with HP tech
support, at least as far as printers are concerned.)

(I also have a Deskjet 932 and a Photosmart 7550
which only have Gutenprint drivers)

The Gutenprint drivers ought to work fine for older printers such as
these. I'm sure the DeskJet 932 would be fully functional. Don't know
about the Photosmart 7550.

It arrived and I plugged it in and almost immediately found that
IT doesn't have Snow Leopard drivers at all!

Did the HP web site state that it did? What about third parties that
reviewed the printer?

It really is inexcusable that HP hasn't developed drivers for an
operating system that has been out for several months now!

But instead of replacing it with the only printer they now have
which does have drivers for 10.6.2, just want to SELL me
another, -  the right, -  printer!!
 And when I start to complain, they just ignore me.

How long have you had the printer they sold you? If it hasn't been
very long (less than 30 days if you're in the US), just arrange to
return it. No need to tell them what's wrong, just exercise your
option to send it back. If they insist upon having a reason, tell them
simply that "it did not work".

Or failing that, did you pay for this printer with a credit card?
Dispute the charges. The credit card company will back you up on this,
and it ought to get HP's attention when nothing else will.

And then, when you've returned that printer, do your homework! Read
product reviews, look on user to user forums and on newsgroups such as
this one. The money, time and frustration you save could well be your
own!

William

 

[William R. Walsh]

Hi!

Bill, Dave, the principles and company they created are long
dead.

Wouldn't it be more correct to say that Bill and Dave's company is now
known as "Agilent"?

I'm not sure how much of a role Bill and Dave still had in the
business by the time HP diversified into computers and printers.

William

 

[DManzaluni]

OK I get the message, dump Hewlett Packard, issue in Small Claims for
the trouble they have caused and switch manufacturer

Problem is, what on earth to buy instead? The Canon PIXMA IP4700 (and
similar Lexmark which has only half the DPI) only get very lukewarm
reviews everywhere in sight while the 7560 (which apparently only
PRETENDS to be wireless) is seem by the reviewers as producing photos
of "near professional quality" compared with pharmacy-produced photos.
It seems to be the only one which isnt described as 'great for a
budget printer'

Has any site done any genuine comparative reviews of the photo quality
of the best printers out there? I dont need larger format than 8x10
and I emphatically dont want yet another all-in-one to go with my
humongous Canon ImageClass 8180c which dominates my office so the
Kodak seems to be out.

Or is there now really no difference in picture quality between all
these budget printers and supposedly 'professional' ones?