H-P sued over printer cartridge expiration

[JSB]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7012754/

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

The suit filed in Santa Clara Superior Court in northern California last Thursday seeks to represent anyone in the United States who purchased an H-P inkjet printer since Feb. 2001. H-P is the world's No. 1 computer printer maker.

An H-P spokesman said the company does not comment on pending litigation.


H-P 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.

"The smart chip is dually engineered to prematurely register ink depletion and to render a cartridge unusable through the use of a built-in expiration date that is not revealed to the consumer," the suit said.

The suit, which seeks class-action status, asks for restitution, damages and other compensation.

JSB

[waheed]

HP are conning their customers big times

Take a look at this thread about HPs region coding for printers, a great way of ripping customers off for maximum profits:

https://www.videohelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=256568&highlight=

[Poppa_Meth]

It's not like they are the only ones. I have an Epson R300. The thing cleans itself constantly taking up way more ink than needed. When a cart is no where near empty it lists as empty and will not continue printing (at least HPs will continue to print after the warning until all ink is gone.) Also once the drip pad gets full and the drop counter reaches a certain point you have to send the R300 in to have a new pad installed and the counter reset. Biggest rip-off I ever put money into. And whoever said a 6 tank system is cheaper inkwise? Not with the price of Epson inks.

[BJ_M]

ink jet cartridges are a major rip off ... what a scam ..

[JSB]

It's not like they are the only ones. I have an Epson R300. The thing cleans itself constantly taking up way more ink than needed. When a cart is no where near empty it lists as empty and will not continue printing (at least HPs will continue to print after the warning until all ink is gone.)

This is why I threw away my Epson and got a Canon.
My Canon S900 uses a optical sensor to "see" if there is ink left. NICE! When I have had to change an ink cart there is nothing left exept for the sponge side.

JSB

[alsyed]

oh this is backed up what i always thought all along. I had an epson c41ux, that should have been the cleanest thing in my house with the amount of cleaning it did. Took the cover off and watched before and after every print, power on and off, yep you guessed, in came the cleaning process. And sometimes even when just checking status. Man, i installed a fresh cartridge in, and after 1 test page, it had registered as 72% full. I could print about 2 pages, and then it would 'gunk up' requiring about 2 - 5 cleans, before it would print normally again.

so i bought a canon pixma ip1000, and its great. the colours are so much better, the printing is fast, i've printed 18 cd jewel case covers, 9 fullsize dvd covers, 2 pages letters, and 3 6x4 glossy photos, and its still registering near full! And its ink cartridges are cheap compared to the epson ones.

I'm so glad i got a canon, i'm not a heavy printer, but i expect a printer to print out each page as it should, and not requrie cleaning!

I just hope that the cartridges don't have an automatic expirty thingy on them!

[alsyed]

it will be interesting to know how she discovered that those cart.. had expiry dates on them.


perhaps then, once its known, then it can open things up to reviewers who can go further into printers and check what happens behind the scenes.

[BJ_M]

do a google search on "epson clogged heads" -- it is a major problem with them (and i have one )

i just a search and found 3 class action law suits against epson, 3 against HP, 2 against cannon and a few various other ones (several against brother)--

seems no one one is really happy with ink jets ... they seem to be a throw away item -- 1 year life ... i wondwer if i will get the rebate before it dies ... worried now .. cx5400

[zzyzzx]

Bah humbug. Just get a laser printer.

[waheed]

I own a Laser Printer, only a monochrome though (dont really need colour, mainly use it for printing documents).

So far since ive bought the printer (Brother HL 5140), ive printed over a thousand pages and the toner has still a long way to go.

I can get replacement toners for only like £30-£40 and able to print over 6,000 pages.

Laser printers may be costly to buy, but cheaper to run. besides, you dont need to worry about replacing the toner for a looooong time.

Just my personal experience.

[Roundabout]

it will be interesting to know how she discovered that those cart.. had expiry dates on them.

The HP carts that I've bought (OEM) have dates right on the outside of the box.

In fact, I have some I haven't used that I bought in early '01, and now I don't know if they're going to work or not if/when I get around to using them. I have a HP all-in-one that I bought about the same time, but I put it away for a while, as I bought a Canon printer with the 4 separate ink carts to use.

However, it does the same thing that Poppa_Meth talked about - it eats ink even when off! I have been using a refill kit for some time, that I bought at Sam's Club for about $16 that keeps me in ink and not broke

However, every time it sits for a while and I turn it on, the carts seem to empty themselves into the waste pad. I've gone through most of the refill ink by just being waste ink. It cleans itself for over a minute every time it's turned on, and more ink is wasted.

If I'd been using OEM carts, I'd be pissed by all the ink that's been just wasted. It's expensive enough without the unit using it all up cleaning itself. I've had times where I've refilled all 4 carts, totally, then not use the printer for a week or so, and turn it on to find the carts less than half full! I'm really sick of it.

I will eventually do what zzyzzx suggested: get a laser printer, when the color lasers come down to more reasonable price levels. Until then, nothing to do except keep refilling...

[unclebud]

I'm still using an Epson 600 color stylist printer from about 1997 ($300). It still works with all the generic Ink carts I bought back in 2000. I've been lucky with that one.
I also have 2 Epson $50 printers I bought last year. 1 has died and the other is probably not far behind.
Everything is junk unless you pay serious money for it these days..
UB

[BJ_M]

i think the way the ink jets die is built in (im almost sure of it )

we have large format ink jet plotters from24" up to 48" and they never jam ... have some OLD epson printers than print on 18" x 24" max paper size - they are almost 5 - 6 years old , sometimes sit on a shelf for months and when used - still work every time ....

of course those printers are 300-600dpi only ... which is good enough for most stuff really ...

[Poppa_Meth]

I think everything is built on a short lifespan throwaway concenpt now. Even cars. No new car will last the way old ones were built. You drive one to death and then shell out for a new one. Its the way the world works now. And let's not forget that everyone is expected to live on credit now either. I mean why BUY something when you can make payments on it at an inflated interest rate. (not that the banks give you any interest on your money that they so happily use).

[BJ_M]

refrigerators are a good case in point .. i know of people who have fridges made in the 50's - 60's and they work fine ...

but one made today would be lucky to run more than 6-7 years

[alsyed]

its only going to get worse, as technology gets more sophisticated, faster.

its the evolution thing.

back in the 50's, technology was developing, but not at the rate now, when companies know that they have a new line of everything every 6 months or so, which is far better than the rest. why design something to last 50 years, when you can make more money earlier by selling the latest?

even more cynical is the printing cartridge industry with there cartridges made to expire! golly!

[hoyboy]

Slightly off-thread, but related, The business that I work for sells electrical items. We have an LG fridge with a LCD Tv built in to it, so to demonsrate the tv we have to have the fridge working. t also has an Ice and Water feature, and tells us how much life is left before the filter need to be changed. Well. not one litre of water has gone through that fridge, but the filter is just about worn out!!!. Seems the filter is time based, not when it is really dirty. (sort of on topic...sort of ).

p.s.those filters are not cheap either - $80-100

[zzyzzx]

I think everything is built on a short lifespan throwaway concenpt now. Even cars. No new car will last the way old ones were built. You drive one to death and then shell out for a new one. Its the way the world works now. And let's not forget that everyone is expected to live on credit now either. I mean why BUY something when you can make payments on it at an inflated interest rate. (not that the banks give you any interest on your money that they so happily use).

According to the manufacturers, people are shopping for the lowest price on most items, not the best quality. Just look at the poor quality of blank CD-R's. You have to go out of your way to get good ones now. And it's way too expensive to get a refrigerator fixed when you can get a new one for cheap so no sense in spending extra money on making it repairable. Problem is the excessive labor rates on repairs, not the appliance manufacturers. And as far as your car comment, I figure I can keep my 1995 Ford Escort as long as I can get parts for it. I have the factory service manual, and it's quite detailed.

[Roundabout]

Although this thread has been a little jacked, I want to add to the same thing you guys are saying - and I've been saying it to anyone that would listen for years: almost every product made today is of disposable quality.

Like BJ_M said, there are fridges made back in the 1950's that are still in service today, and will keep working for years to come. Where I used to work, we had an old fridge (I forget the brand, I think it was Frigidaire) that was from around that time - no auto-defrost, no digital anything, just a compressor and coils, and a small freezer section surrounded by those coils. Thing worked like a charm...and we only had to defrost it every few months or so. Built like a tank.

I myself have an old electrolux (made in Baldrick's country) from the 50's, the old 'sausage' type design, all metal, and it's built like a tank too. You couldn't damage it if you tried. Just runs and runs and runs forever. I'll probably be long dead when this thing is still cleaning floors. It even has a cloth dust bag that you just empty out and keep using. Imagine that, reusable bag tech back in the 50's! I paid $5 for this vac at a garage sale about 20 years ago, and I expect I'll keep it as long as I live.

What happened to products made like that? There may be some things today that exist like that, but they are few and far between. I saw a massive change in the quality of Sony products in the years I worked there, too. I used to bitch at anyone in the design area I could get ahold of to quit cheapening things to the point where they're 95% plastic, and not good plastic at that. The car stereo's used to be solidly made, with metal gears and parts, but in the late 80's, everything went to cheap plastic gears. So they break constantly. You pay a lot of money for junk.

Guess it's hard to fight it, but that's my rant. If I find something of better quality, I'll be likely to buy it, if it'll last for a few years. It's just hard to find these days.