HP sued for deceiving ink printer users (San Jose Mercury 19.Feb.05)

  • Thread starter Thread starter ThomasH
  • Start date Start date
David said:
[...]
I don't doubt it. HPQ's stock price rose 15% within minutes
of the announcing of Carly's departure.

Dave
Click to expand...

Carly's reign of terror was obvious for quite some time. At the
2002 shareholder's meeting, Walter Hewlett was given a standing
ovation, and Carly was booed. 'Course, the attendees were mainly
individual investors, not the big institutions that got bought off
with lucrative investment banking deals, and outright bribes.
Two million paid to Deutsche Bank for "market intelligence" comes
to mind:

http://www.sec.gov/news/press/2003-100.htm

Think of it. Martha's in the slammer, and Carly's walking around
scott free with a few hundred million in shareholder's money. Now
the CFO that had his hands really dirty in that deal is the acting
CEO. Golly gee, wonder if he's going to fire himself?

Back to the inkjet cartridges, can someone explain why the region coded
cartridges have almost escaped notice? Seems like a heck of a bigger
deal, at least to the Europeans, than a silly little time bomb that goes
off after 30 months:

http://online.wsj.com/article_email/0,,SB110593238031627672-IFjgYNmlad4nJysa3qHa6yAm5,00.html
Click to expand...

Fascinating, its like nonsence with the DVD's! My wife
is Dutch-Indonesian and we have DVD's from 3 regions.
Its a horror with this region code crap...

Thomas
 
ThomasH said:
Greg said:
[...]

Regardless of the merit of this lawsuit, as an HP insider I can tell you
with certainty one should stay at least 10 feet away from _any_ HP
product produced in the last five years. Carly Fiorina was hired to
gut the company, and that's precisely what she did. Their business
Click to expand...

:-) Apparently nobody really likes or values her and
all voice joy and satisfaction now that she is gone...

I doubt however that her agenda was to 'gut the company',
she did however destroyed the famous HP culture.
Click to expand...

That's exactly what I meant by "gut". And to be more accurate,
Carly laid off 40% of HP's workforce (20,000 employees with
an average length of service of 20 years), sent most of these jobs
overseas "in order to keep the company profitable", and then
proceeded to take over $15 million in bonuses for herself.

But obviously one person cannot gut a company the size of HP.
All of Carly's actions were done with the blessings of HP's
board of directors -- which is why I said to not expect any real
changes in the company even though she's no longer there.
 
Another factor some people forget is that if you print a lot of one of
the colors of ink in a cartridge, it may well run out of one color,
rendering it pretty nearly useless, long before the other colors are
out. I have to remind my wife NOT to keep using yellow backgrounds on
all her greeting cards.
Click to expand...

Ron,

that's a good reason to have a printer with separate ink tanks
for the four or more colors.

I reported on my new Canon PIXMA iP3000 recently, which has four
separate ink tanks, and I can now say that the printer still
works perfectly. Recommended.

Hans-Georg
 
Strange, all the HP printers I've used keep going until the ink runs out and
any warnings of low ink can be ignored.
Click to expand...

Steve,

I think that's pretty bad. My printer is used by other people
who are not at the printer to check print quality. They have to
rely on the low ink warning and the low ink stop feature of the
printer, which, in my case (Canon PIXMA iP3000) works perfectly
well. The printer halts before the ink runs out totally, and
somebody can walk up to it and replace the ink tank. The warning
is nicely displayed on the remote source computer.

Hans-Georg
 
Again, the issue is the expiry date on the cartridges. If you continue
to try to use a cartridge that has expired by date, it will not work and
you are deprived of the ink stil in it. In fact, as I understand it,
you could install a full OEM cartridge and find it would not work at all
because it was beyond the date "stamped" into it.

Art
 
ThomasH said:
David Kinsell wrote:

[...]
Back to the inkjet cartridges, can someone explain why the region coded
cartridges have almost escaped notice? Seems like a heck of a bigger
deal, at least to the Europeans, than a silly little time bomb that goes
off after 30 months:

http://online.wsj.com/article_email/0,,SB110593238031627672-IFjgYNmlad4nJysa3qHa6yAm5,00.html
Click to expand...


Fascinating, its like nonsence with the DVD's! My wife
is Dutch-Indonesian and we have DVD's from 3 regions.
Its a horror with this region code crap...

Thomas
Click to expand...

Yeah, it is a pain. I guess in Britain, players that ignore the
regionalization are quite common.

Didn't you just love that HP exec claiming that it wasn't being done
to make more money? Wouldn't want to have Europeans smuggling gray market
goods into their countries, would we?

Found an old article that's somewhat related. Can anyone comment on
whether this law actually took effect? Doesn't seem like it:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2002/12/30/eu_tells_hp_et_al/
 
Yeah, it is a pain. I guess in Britain, players that ignore the
regionalization are quite common.

Didn't you just love that HP exec claiming that it wasn't being done
to make more money? Wouldn't want to have Europeans smuggling gray market
goods into their countries, would we?

Found an old article that's somewhat related. Can anyone comment on
whether this law actually took effect? Doesn't seem like it:
Click to expand...


There is absolutely NO POINT in an expiration date that cripples a cartridge
that includes the print-head.

The stupid thing will either PRINT, if the ink is still liquid, or NOT PRINT,
if the ink has dried up.

There is only one logical reason for the printer to stop on a given date, and
THAT is so HP can sell you another cartridge.

On some of HPs printers, the print-head and ink cartridge are seperate, so
what did they (HP) do??? they built an expiry date into BOTH the ink and the
head. (I think it was the 2000C where I first saw this.) No reason for this
other than to sell print heads...

HP deserves all the bad press that this lawsuit will generate.. Do I agree
with the basic philosophy behind the lawsuit? No, its stupid in the extreme
to be bringing suit about something as silly as this. Much bigger advantages
are gained by simply purchasing a printer from a company that dosen't screw
you to the wall for ink. Vote with your WALLET not your Lawyer..

Do I own any HP printers??? Yes (though I NEVER use it for photos) I have a
nice little 3 in 1 that I use for a copier, its not even hooked to a
computer. It doesn't generate the Ozone that comes out of a regular copier,
and I only copy a few documents every month.
 
Kibo informs me that "Greg Coulter said:
Did I mention they don't even make their own printers any more?
Click to expand...

Dunno about the more recent models, but the original HP LaserJets were
Canons, with HP ROMs & an HP badge on the front.
 
Greg said:
ThomasH said:
Greg Coulter wrote:

[...]
Regardless of the merit of this lawsuit, as an HP insider I can tell you
with certainty one should stay at least 10 feet away from _any_ HP
product produced in the last five years. Carly Fiorina was hired to
gut the company, and that's precisely what she did. Their business
Click to expand...

:-) Apparently nobody really likes or values her and
all voice joy and satisfaction now that she is gone...

I doubt however that her agenda was to 'gut the company',
she did however destroyed the famous HP culture.
Click to expand...


That's exactly what I meant by "gut". And to be more accurate,
Carly laid off 40% of HP's workforce (20,000 employees with
an average length of service of 20 years), sent most of these jobs
overseas "in order to keep the company profitable", and then
proceeded to take over $15 million in bonuses for herself.

But obviously one person cannot gut a company the size of HP.
All of Carly's actions were done with the blessings of HP's
board of directors -- which is why I said to not expect any real
changes in the company even though she's no longer there.
Click to expand...
Unfortunately, what you have observed is the norm in large businesses,
NOT something rare. The company I last worked for had to pay the old
CEO who bankrupted the company, 7 million dollars to get rid of him. I
got 4 weeks pay after 17 years, and waited 17 months for it!

At least HP is still in business, which is more than I can say for
EITHER of the companies I worked for, one for 18.5 years, and the other
for 17 years. You have nothing to complain about.
 
Hans-Georg Michna said:
Ron,

that's a good reason to have a printer with separate ink tanks
for the four or more colors.

I reported on my new Canon PIXMA iP3000 recently, which has four
separate ink tanks, and I can now say that the printer still
works perfectly. Recommended.

Hans-Georg
Click to expand...
Yes, there is an advantage to having separate tanks. There are also
some disadvantages, such as cost, air in the lines, ink drying out, and
size of the printer. For the amount of printing I do, maybe 5 pages a
month, the cartridges aren't a problem.
 
Hans-Georg Michna said:
Steve,

I think that's pretty bad. My printer is used by other people
who are not at the printer to check print quality. They have to
rely on the low ink warning and the low ink stop feature of the
printer, which, in my case (Canon PIXMA iP3000) works perfectly
well. The printer halts before the ink runs out totally, and
somebody can walk up to it and replace the ink tank. The warning
is nicely displayed on the remote source computer.

Hans-Georg
Click to expand...
My printer cost $125. How much did yours cost? Might have something to
do with the features....
 
Arthur said:
Again, the issue is the expiry date on the cartridges. If you continue
to try to use a cartridge that has expired by date, it will not work and
you are deprived of the ink stil in it. In fact, as I understand it,
you could install a full OEM cartridge and find it would not work at all
because it was beyond the date "stamped" into it.

Art
Click to expand...

This is the first I have heard of such a scheme. I can think, off-hand,
of several ways around the problem, and would use one of them if such a
problem came up. I would also let the company know of my displeasure,
loudly. However, I have yet to encounter any such thing on any of the
HP printers I have owned (5).
 
Yes, there is an advantage to having separate tanks. There are also
some disadvantages, such as cost, air in the lines, ink drying out, and
size of the printer. For the amount of printing I do, maybe 5 pages a
month, the cartridges aren't a problem.
Click to expand...

Ron,

oh, sure. But cost should be the advantage.

Air in the lines has never been a problem in any of the Canon
printers I owned. They seem to have solved that problem. I have
also never seen any dry ink, even if I don't use the printer for
weeks.

By the way, I should have mentioned that for higher quality
photo printing one should consider the higher quality photo
printers in the Canon PIXMA line. Mine is the four inks iP3000,
but the iP4000 already has additional photo ink.

Hans-Georg
 
Arthur Entlich said:
Again, the issue is the expiry date on the cartridges. If you continue to
try to use a cartridge that has expired by date, it will not work and you are
deprived of the ink stil in it. In fact, as I understand it, you could
install a full OEM cartridge and find it would not work at all because it was
beyond the date "stamped" into it.
Click to expand...

But this is not a problem for this user, as he is using a #45 cartridge. The
#45 cartridge does not have any expiration date readable by the printer or the
computer. No DeskJet, Photosmart, or PSC all-in-one printers have any built in
expiration.

The printers that enforce a 4.5 year expiration date are those that have
separate ink and printhead designs.

- Bob Headrick, not speaking for my employer HP
 
Arthur Entlich said:
Again, the issue is the expiry date on the cartridges. If you continue
to try to use a cartridge that has expired by date, it will not work
Click to expand...

Haven't HP said they will replace any that expire before they run out of
ink? I thought I read that somewhere?. Presumably if it's half full when the
date expires you get a nice new full one.
 
<snip>


Annoying top post re-sited
Again, the issue is the expiry date on the cartridges. If you continue
to try to use a cartridge that has expired by date, it will not work and
you are deprived of the ink stil in it. In fact, as I understand it,
you could install a full OEM cartridge and find it would not work at all
because it was beyond the date "stamped" into it.
Click to expand...

That's right, if the date says 16:48 05:05:2005, it means that on May 5th, at
16:48:01 the cartridge will explode, the printer will fall apart, your dog will
be eaten alive by fleas, your car won't start, and your wife will leave you for
a 450 lbs lesbian.
Twit.
P.S.: plonk.
 
I no longer have HP's printer, but back many years ago, refilling ink
is a very comment practise.

If the printer refuse to print while the catridge has plenty of fresh
ink (assume refilled), just because the time stamp is expired, I don't
think this is compliant to HP's internal handbook "The proper business
conduct". (To be precise, the Pre-CF version).
 
I've lost track of the original posting for this, so I'm not sure what
the response was to anymore.

But thanks for the clarification regarding which printers have
programmed expiry dates for the printer cartridges. Does this mean only
the printers with separate ink cartridges and heads have "install by" dates?

Art
 
I believe I read that as well, in fact, I stated so on several
occasions, even if I did not in this particular posting.

Art
 
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