The Counterfeit Cartridge Scam with HP

[Geek-9pm]

This not new. Just new to me. And you too?
HP has called non-HP ink cartridges Counterfeit. Oh my, I did not know HP was part of the US mint. The cartridges are refilled and meet technical specs and work fine. The do not damage the printer. In fact, the error message may have little to do with ink quality or the level.

One use said the HP carts report out of ink after a number of print jobs. So ink level is not used to determine the need of a fresh cart.

It seems a number agree. And this was found on the HP forum. Well, thanks to HP for letting people voice grips on the forum. But is it true what he said?
Here is the link:
http://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Inkjet-Printing/Counterfeit-Cartridge-Scam/td-p/2641127

[DaveLembke]

Start of this introduces an Espon Stylus C60 printer with a problem... then 11:55 more info on printer. Then.. 24:56 for more info then 42:39 to Russian Hacker. Then...

Skip to 51:30 to see the Epson Stylus C60 printer that this guy is able to reset a hidden counter chip designed to brick the printer when a certain amount of prints were performed with a Russian hardware hackers reset tool. I got blanked by Epson on this same printer and same problem! 

I was shown this video by a canadian friend when we were talking about planned obsolescence and when I saw the Epson C60 printer with the same failure that my printer had years ago. I felt like Epson stuck it to me for a better choice of clean words! 

I tossed my printer away because all of a sudden in the middle of printing college papers in which I printed many many papers and manuals ever at times in couple hundred page PDF's etc, it had a fault and would no longer print any more. No paper jam or any other indication of a mechanical problem it just simply stopped right in the middle of a 30 page paper that was due. I tried everything including installing latest driver, trying printer on a different computer and the printer was bricked. I was forced to buy a new printer. Later to see this same printer with the Doomsday printer counter in it. I feel like Epson should send me $80 for by design killing my printer intentionally at a certain print count + wasted ink cost that all had to be thrown away since god forbid they just stick with one ink cartridge that will work on 50 different models... No lets make all these different ink cartridges and make them just about model specific maybe 2 to 5 models will use the same. This way you cant migrate ink to a newer printer etc. You need a like /compatible model or throw the ink away.

I actually went backwards in printing technology then. I still had my dot matrix Epson LQ1050+ and bought a ribbon for $9 and printed far more documents far cheaper than the ink jet. Just noisier which was only a problem to wife when I was printing my college work at 2am when working full time job days and college nights get about 4 hours of sleep and repeat the next day.

I have since ... (holding back how I really feel)..... done away with printing when I dont need to. And instead save lots of PDF's for free. Anything I need printed, I have a $30 laser printer i bought and use that as for the ink doesnt dry up like ink jets and it does the job for a no name printer on newegg black friday special.

The printer industry is a bunch of thieves!      Their business model is a cheap printer and make up the large margin profitability in rip off ink prices!!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1j0XDGIsUg

[Salmon Trout]

Most if not all printer makers restrict what csrtridges you can use. Some even 'region code' them - they have realised that to make money in a low-wage economy like (say) Indonesia they will need to sell the cartridges at a much lower price than in a first world economy like Australia (nearby). Since they don't want Ozzies flying over to Jakarta and buying cheap cartridges, ruining their business model, they regionalise the printer firmware to only allow cartridges with the right region code or codes in their chip to run.

[BC_Programmer]

The OP in the linked post is a crazy weirdo. These are the sorts of insane posts you can easily find on any company's support website if they have a forum. I remember seeing one post on the Logitech forum where a similarly insane poster claimed that their F710 wireless controller was a "Microsoft scam".

A few posters recommend avoiding "HP's bullcrap" by using an Epson. Thankfully, there are crazies on the other side of that fence saying Don't buy inkjet printers from Epson.

Just to condense down how insane the OP of the HP thread is into one concise quote:

I have re-staticed electrified  my magnetic stripe

It's mostly a number of complaints about HP printers being a scam and how it refuses to allow any refilled or non-HP cartridge to be used. And yet other posters in the thread pop their head in about how they want to know how these people enabled that feature since they've been trying to prevent their company Printers from using refilled cartridges.


The "Printer bricks itself" thing is a result of many Inkjet printers having internal circuitry that tracks how many prints various components are present for. The idea is that the value would get reset when a part is replaced for that component and it tells you when you need to replace it. For some reason, some manufacturers have decided that the printer should no longer function once one of those values trips. This is sort of like if a Hard Drive manufacturer decided their drive would just refuse all ATA commands once it goes beyond the S.M.A.R.T thresholds.

I have an old Inkjet (Lexmark) from 13 years ago or thereabouts. It still works but it's a massive pain to deal with as it always wants to print alignment pages, then the color cartridge doesn't work at all but the printer pretends it is.


I bought a Color Laser Printer in Feb 2015 and haven't looked back. Toner lasts longer, doesn't dry out, and oddly it's cheaper than ink.

There are of course the good old Laser Printer yellow dot-codes that people worry about.

[Geek-9pm]

Thanks for the balanced viewpoint, BC.
In years past I did use laser printers. But in time they did wear out. Because of financial conditions, I can no longer pay 400 to 500 $ for a quality laser. So I buy cheap inter jet printers.  My HP is now running on the bogus carts. I just had to answer a lot of questions about what I wanted to do.  So now the printer knows what kind of tightwad I am and has stopped the nagging. 

[BC_Programmer]

Yep, Inkjets are certainly cheaper. My Inkjet (My first printer in fact) was $80. The last time I replaced the Ink cartridges, they cost around the same price as the printer for the official Lexmark cartridges. It makes a lot more sense to use refill services. To save money.

IMO these "safeguards" that inkjet's add are sensible but they should never prevent you from using your printer. If the consumer wants to use refill ink, they should be perfectly free to take the (IMO very minimal) risks associated with not using manufacturer ink. Calling such ink "Counterfeit" or non-manufacturer cartridges "counterfeit" is certainly going a bit far, but it doesn't look like HP officially takes that position.

It's interesting that this seems mostly exclusive to Inkjets. Laser Printers seem a bit more straightforward in that they are usually more accepting of refilled toner cartridges. This does seem to suggest (IMO) that the manufacturers are acting in the interest of keeping their divisions profitable.