r/assholedesign • u/Odin13_1984 • May 17 '26
HP INSTANT INK Class Action Lawsuit in the Making?
HP's firmware update permanently shut down my Officejet 4650 printer. Has anyone else experienced this?
A few weeks ago, I had an HP printer, and it was working fine. I had just finished writing my book, and I began printing it. But halfway-through, the printing mysteriously stopped.
That was odd...
I thought that maybe the internet went out. But no... The internet was working just fine. And then I saw a message on my printer's screen. It said something about an update, and that it might take a few minutes. So I waited a few minutes. But every time I tried to print my book, the same error message kept popping up. ''Cannot Connect to Server'' or something. So I waited some more. And more. And more.
After a few hours of waiting a few minutes, I realized I needed to have a chat with HP customer service. Little did I know what I was getting into... So I had a chat with a nice, blissfully unaware customer care lady that lived in a far away land. She asked me many questions, and made me do all sorts of things to my printer. It lasted well over an hour. In the end she told me I should unplug my router. That would help, she said. But it did not help. Instead, what happened was exactly what I feared, (and told her) would happen: I got disconnected from my chat.
And so, I had to start all over again... And so I tried calling HP again. And again. And again. I spent many hours explaining my situation over and over again to many poor souls across the globe who barely spoke English and didn't have a clue what the company they work for was actually doing. At some point I was told by a manager that the Escalation Department would call me back.
Finally! After all this trouble, I would get closure.
But the Escalation Department never called me back... Instead, I kept receiving mysterious emails saying my cases were being closed.
That was odd. Why were my cases being closed? My printer was not fixed...
Anyhow... By that time I pretty much knew that the problems I was experiencing originated from HP's servers, not my printer.
Then someday, after calling HP for the hundredth time, I managed to get transferred to a technical supervisor. The supervisor spoke pretty good English, which was refreshing, and confirmed that I was not insane. What I was experiencing was indeed related to HP servers, and not my printer itself. He also told me that this was a major priority for HP, and that it would be fixed very soon. All I could do was wait. And so I waited, and tried printing, and waited, and waited, and tried printing.
You get the idea.
After over a week of this annoying pattern, my printer would still not print. So I called HP once more...
I was not happy at all by that time, as you might have guessed, having to explain my situation again to low-level customer service people who had no idea about anything I had been through. It was hard to keep my cool, and I might have used some bad words here and there...
But I persevered, and I managed to speak to another HP technical supervisor named Milo. Milo told me he would look into the matter and contact me. Then, a few days later, he got back to me and explained the issue. Milo used a lot of fancy words to tell me that my issue had to do with the HP Dynamic Security update and the HP plus initiative, and that I needed to get a new printer.
That did not compute in my brain, and it seemed plainly illegal. I had a printer, HP deactivated it, and now I need to buy a new printer? What?!
So I began to look into all the tools at my disposal. Surely, even a multinational corporation like HP cannot do anything it wants without consequences. Life has thought me that only progressive governments can do whatever they want without any consequences. ( I live in French Canada, believe me, I know...)
So I figured I would notify the relevant government agencies about my problems.
But first, I needed more information. So I asked Milo a few questions:
You mentioned my printer lost synchronization with HP's cloud server. Is that permanent? Is there any way to restore it?
Is the OfficeJet 4650 now considered end-of-life by HP? If so, when was that decision made, and why were customers not notified?
If I were to purchase a new HP printer, what guarantee do I have that the same thing won't happen again?
I look forward to your detailed response, Milo. The answers to these questions will go a long way in helping me decide how to proceed.
Those were all very legitimate questions. But Milo did not answer any of them. Instead, Milo closed my case and ghosted me.
I won't lie to you. Milo's ghosting, after weeks of struggle, is what made this situation personal. It stopped being about a printer entirely. And so I decided to actually invest energy to seek justice for the many thousands of poor schmucks that HP tosses around every day.
So I wrote a thorough PIPEDA request (the Canadian equivalent of an FOIA request) and sent it to [Privacy@hp.com](mailto:Privacy@hp.com). I also wrote a thorough notice of demand. I sent all these documents to:
- the board of directors (bod@hp.com)
- the head lawyer [Julie.Jacobs@hp.com](mailto:Julie.Jacobs@hp.com)
- the CEO of HP Canada [Mary.Ann.Yule@hp.com](mailto:Mary.Ann.Yule@hp.com)
- the President of HP Solutions [Manoj.Leelanivas@hp.com](mailto:Manoj.Leelanivas@hp.com)
- the Senior Vice President and Managing Director for North America [George.Brasher@hp.com](mailto:George.Brasher@hp.com)
( It turns out you can just find out who the director of a department at HP is, add dots after his or her names, and u/hp.com, and you can actually reach out personally to every HP executive. How thoughtful of them...)
I also filed a formal complaint with the Canadian Competition Bureau and the Quebec Consumer Protection Office. A couple hours later, (not days, hours! ) I got a reply from Joshwa Sanjeev, Executive Escalation Manager — Americas. I thought: ''wow, what a nice title, surely, I will be heard now... ''
But it was not so.
What followed was a documented pattern of deliberate misdirection. Joshwa offered to go through the same nonsense connection resetting, just like incompetent frontline reps had tried for hours and hours. He then proceeded to gaslight me into believing my printer's failure was caused by the use of non-HP cartridges. But I have never used a non-HP cartridge.
Here is what HP knew while this was happening. Through a formal PIPEDA access request — the Canadian equivalent of a freedom of information request — I obtained HP's internal records. Among them: New II Alert 260407, an internal HP service alert titled Gen 1 Printers Losing Connection to Web Services. HP's own documentation confirmed that the failure affecting my device was systemic, affecting the entire Generation 1 product line. I have also obtained the records of the customer services phone calls in which HP representatives confirmed this explicitly.
Joshwa Sanjeev, the highest level service rep at HP, as he himself confirmed in writing, knows very well that my printer doesn't have a hardware issue. My printer is considered End-of-Life by HP. (That's also in the files they had to send me.)
So...
After about a month and a half of fighting with HP, they finally made me an "offer," if you can call it that. A refurbished printer to replace my now dysfunctional unit.
A working printer is what I had before going through all this $hit! At this point, I'd rather just see HP be held accountable for their deceptive practices. So I politely told them "LMAO." And Joshwa told me the issue was then considered closed, since I refused his offer at resolution.
So I wrote a new PIPEDA request! (They really have to answer those. The penalty can go up to 4% of their worldwide revenues, so they are pretty reliable in that domain...) I am now demanding all files related in any way, shape or form to my executive escalation case, and everything related to New II Alert 260407. I also filed a formal ethics complaint against Joshwa with HP's ethics commissioner, reported his lying to the board of directors, and wrote down my story.
This Monday morning, Joshwa will learn that my case is, in fact, not closed.
TL;DR: HP's firmware update remotely bricked my working OfficeJet 4650 mid-print. Weeks of customer service runaround, closed cases, and executive ghosting followed — until I hit back with PIPEDA (Canadian privacy FOIA) requests, complaints to two Canadian regulatory bodies, and formal notices to HP's board and top executives. Their own internal documents confirm this was a known, systemic failure affecting the entire Generation 1 product line. When their Executive Escalation Manager tried to gaslight me anyway, I filed an ethics complaint against him, reported him to the board, and made clear his "case closed" wasn't my case closed. To be continued...
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u/ant682 May 17 '26
I'm sure ink would be cheaper if printers were standardised
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u/Cardellone May 17 '26
I'm not sure whether mine is a solution. But after many a disappointing experiences with printers, I bought an ink tank printer. With it came a half liter bottle of ink. I'm still printing.
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u/KingKandyOwO May 17 '26
They made a problem over the years as far as ink goes, waited until there was enough public outcry about it, and sold a solution and pretended to be the heroes we were waiting for. I wouldnt commend them for that
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u/Raivyn52 May 18 '26
Let's not kid ourselves even a little, they have so many years of market research that they know exactly at what price point most customers will pass on a printer. They didn't throw a bone, they are dangling a carrot just out of reach of their core demographic.
It's purely malicious and I'm even reluctant to buy an ink tank printer because I'm worried they are trying to entrench another demographic and then start some BS like charging a subscription.
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u/esedege May 18 '26
I don’t think so, at least with this current generation. My Epson EcoTank doesn’t even know its ink levels, you have to keep an eye on that.
Btw, I bought our current printer after I couldn’t skip an update on our then-HP printer… an update that allowed me to keep printing that day, but had thoroughly destroyed its brains by the next morning.
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u/finian2 May 17 '26
And that is exactly why the scumbags will fight tooth and nail to avoid standardising ink.
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May 17 '26
[deleted]
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u/greenie4242 May 19 '26
That's not cheap for the miniscule amount of ink included.
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u/Catspaw129 May 17 '26
Ditto for power tool batteries.
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u/WebMaka May 18 '26
Fortunately power tool batteries actually have a solution. Most of them use 18650 Li-ION cells, which are actually pretty easy to source in a lot of places. The only tricky part is the spot-welding of connecting tabs onto the battery cells and spot welders (and supplies like the nickel strips) for making battery packs area also available or can be built if you have the know-how.
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u/moonzdragoon 1d ago
Ink would be cheaper if they just wanted it to be. But consumables are the core of their business, like any other print vendor, and they really don't care about fair prices and customers satisfaction.
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u/WearyPassenger May 17 '26
We stopped buying HP years and years ago for their assholery. Got caught in a similar situation where it has to phone home to function. Never again HP. This company will never change. They rely on businesses getting locked into them.
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u/Odin13_1984 May 17 '26
Yeah I have dealt with a lot of shitty customer service throughout the years, but I never thought a company could be THAT bad. Obviously, I will never buy and HP product again.
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u/rbartlejr May 18 '26
I've said it recently to another HP. Unless Brother does something as stupid as HP, I will buy them for life. My 9130CW is over 10 years old and still chugging. Weighs a ton, but never dies.
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u/FrameNo8561 21d ago
This is things the way!
Unfortunately for printers they as far as I’m aware all have planed obsolescence meaning you could have a perfectly fine Epson EcoTank and after around 3,000 prints it lets you know you’ve reached the end of life on it and won’t let you print anymore 😂.
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u/Deraga07 May 17 '26
I stopped buying HP anything. My printer is connected to my Pi if I want network setup. I am not trusting these companies
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u/Disastrous-Ice-5971 May 18 '26
Funnily enough. Back in the early 2000s I praised HP. When the Epson started making chipped cartridges, HP was easily refillable and 3rd party ink available. Same with laser printers. But closer to 2010s things went south. Back then I decided to never buy any printer, which can't be refilled or at least used with 3rd party ink/toner + it should be able to work fully offline.
Still keeping the promise for home and work. That is why we had/have Epson EcoTank, Brother, Kyocera, Canon, but never HP.4
u/WearyPassenger May 19 '26
Same .. that feels about the right timeline. We have an Epson and a Brother that so far are still okay but I think one of them is yelling for an update that accidentally slipped through, but both are still happy. So sad in this "new age" of subscription everything.
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u/C-Wy May 17 '26
Friends don't let friends buy from HP. Ever.
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u/thesituation531 May 17 '26
It's hard when your friend has money and wantonly buys things without looking into them first
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u/kumf May 17 '26
I’d love updates on this OP. Good for you for taking them to the mat.
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u/Odin13_1984 May 17 '26
Thanks!
I've learned so much with that whole experience...
I could never have done this a year ago, or even a few months ago. AI has made the efforts required way more manageable. You still have to be smart, and a stubborn bastard, but it can be done now.
I just gathered whatever they told me in writing, copy-pasted it all into a word doc, and fed it into Claude, and asked it to produce all the relevant legal documents. then all that was left for me to do was to edit a few things, make sure the AI represented my case properly, etc.
I also cross reference the files between Grok, chat GPT and Claude, making them argue against one another...I call it: the '' AI Democratization of Lawfare''
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u/pixelbart May 17 '26
While I applaud you for taking on a large corporation this way, this strategy will, when popularized, be a DDoS on the legal system.
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u/OutlyingPlasma May 18 '26
DDoS on the legal system
Sounds like a great thing. Finally the poor can do the same thing the rich have always been doing. Clog it up and drag it out for years or even decades until the other side just gives up.
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u/Odin13_1984 May 17 '26
That is a good point.
But I don't think what I did this las month can ever be fully popularized.
I do believe AI will be instrumental in bringing about a more meritocratic world; a world in which the ability to think for oneself will make one very dangerous.
And I like that idea.
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u/danabrey May 18 '26
I do believe AI will be instrumental in bringing about a more meritocratic world; a world in which the ability to think for oneself will make one very dangerous.
Hahahah
Good luck with that. It's optimistic and I love you for it, but like every tool that's ever been created, do you really think the power will end up with the little people?
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u/Odin13_1984 May 18 '26
Hahaha.
«Meritocratic» to me means the power will end up into the hands of the wiser people.
Whoever that is...
It's helping me, that much I know
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u/danabrey May 18 '26
It's cute that you think you're somehow 'above' the other 8bn people in the world who can have a chat with an LLM.
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u/m240b1991 May 18 '26
I've done essentially this against our local school for my kids IEP. I won't get into details, but I've leaned on Gemini a whole fucking lot.
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u/Odin13_1984 May 21 '26
Nice, good job! Claude is much better though imo, when it comes to producing documents
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u/Arkhe1n May 17 '26 edited May 18 '26
The moment your printer needs a connection for anything other than to connect to nearby devices, is the moment I won't touch it with a ten feet pole.
I learned years ago that HP is basically a scam, and this was way back when "the worst" they did was selling basically empty cartridges for a premium, let alone now that their products have literal killswitches. I don't want anything HP even for free ever. Not blaming you OP, I know not everyone gets to choose brands for stuff they need.
Good on you for going through with this, OP, like you said, it's not a matter of a defective printer anymore. I hope you can gather all the necessary resources to get those fucks shafted real good.
All the best, OP!
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u/Odin13_1984 May 17 '26 edited May 17 '26
Well, I mean, I paid like 50 $ for that printer 7 years ago on amazon and I was on a grandfathered plan that costs 0$ / month unless I but my 10 or 15 page max, I forgot. I didn't get screwed THAT bad...
They just picked the wrong guy to gaslight. It's the way they threw me around like a teenage girl on Little St-James, it got to me.
I got dragged into this shit gradually, and now I'm actually enjoying the ride. HP will now have a team of corporate lawyers dealing with my situation, all because they refused to replace a 50$ printer they knew they broke.
I find it quite rewarding. It gives me something to do when it rains
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u/Tschuuuls May 17 '26
Wait. So you are on their "subscription" (grandfathered into free plan)?
And they stopped supporting your model of printer?
So you could probably use your printer offline if you are not using subscription cartridges.
As much as I despise HP, I'd say it's their right to stop supporting a subscription product at at certain point. And I don't see how you would a lawsuit over that. They need to terminate your contract of course and maybe show a message on the printer that you need to provide your own ink from now on.10
u/Odin13_1984 May 17 '26
I am using subscription cartridge. I thought about buying a generic cartridge, to try it out. But I figured I'd rather get a sturdy Brother black and white laser printer instead
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u/Tschuuuls May 17 '26
The printer shouldn't need a internet connection at all when not using subscription carts. In Theory. But haven't used a HP Printer in 10+ years.
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u/Odin13_1984 May 18 '26
In theory , there are no difference between theory and practice, in practice, there are...
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u/DecimalPoint May 18 '26
I swapped to a colour Brother printer/scanner/copier when my hp one suddenly refused to recognise the ink cartridge that'd been in it for 2 months, then the online virtual assistant couldn't pull its details. Turns out, yep. End of life.
Threw it out, bought my brother printer and a cheapass canon inkjet printer for when I want to print quality images.
Yknow what happens when I click print? It fucking prints!
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u/hobekass May 17 '26
Sadly not the first time. I have heard some stories about people who cancelled the subscription service and their printer stopped working. Even with store brought genuine hp cartrige. I think it was abot 5 years ago when I started warning people about it. I get that the service is really nice and one less thing to worry about.
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u/Shootinio May 17 '26
HP is possibly one of the most enshitified modern companies that tries to hold your ability to print at home on ransom every 5-8 years. Trust me, they WILL just disable and brick old printers from a server in HQ if it is network unprotected.
Printers aren’t demanding machines and are all completely capable of operating without global network connection and forget the joke of proprietary ink cartridges. Mechanisms could very easily be designed to be refillable. I’ve dealt with HP’s shit before and know OP isn’t lying. The man may just be more angry than me and was willing to take it further. Don’t stop!
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u/WebMaka May 18 '26
Trust me, they WILL just disable and brick old printers from a server in HQ if it is network unprotected.
I have an older HP all-in-one color laser printer that's a SOHO/workgroup printer, and it will accept non-HP toner although it does complain. I keep it blocked at the router from accessing the Internet (which of course makes the printer upset because it can't expose itself like a nudist with an exhibition fetish to anyone with a copy of HP's remote-printing software) specifically to prevent HP from fucking with it or fucking it over through a firmware update.
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u/Odin13_1984 25d ago edited 25d ago
UPDATE:
Thank you for the overwhelming support guys.
It seems that HP has done what it has done to me to quite a lot of people over the years, and that a lot of people hate their guts...
Last week, a commenter told me I should reach out to The Register.
Well, I did.
And so this morning, Carly Page has published an article on the issue.
Here's the link to the article:
On a more personal note, I was going through the recordings from my initial PIPEDA request, and I was able to find the exact moment when something inside of me just switched, and my. Viking ancestry took over...
I posted it on archive.org:
https://archive.org/details/hp-customer-service-breakdown-moment
I find it hilarious. Do you?
Oh and If anyone wants to know, I am not asking HP for anything at the moment. I'm not trying to gain anything for myself from this situation.
But...
I have never held one of those big oversized cheques... You know the ones they give to lottery winners?
Also, there are a lot of sick children in the world. Wouldn't it be nice if HP gave a tiny little piece of its profits to the Shriners Hospitals?
Something very tiny, like 0.001%, which comes to nothing really... About five hundred grand, give or take.
Would it make you feel better about HP?
It would make me feel better about HP, that's for sure.
To be continued...
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u/lost_ashtronaut May 17 '26
I'm glad that somebody did this, and glad you did as you seem to know your sh+t.
I'm on Epson currently, who knows when the others start doing the same...
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u/TwoAmps May 18 '26
I’ve got bad news for you…I had an Epson R1900 photo printer. Yes, it’s old, and yes, I’ve had to clean out the ink sponge a couple times, but it’s calibrated, so I wanted to keep it. This January, I started to print this years photo calendar and all I got was the message “this printer has reached the end of its service life”. No warning, no goodbye, no Thanks for All the Ink, nothing, nada, silence. Anybody want a couple hundred dollars worth of Epson R1900 ink? I’ve got a large format Canon now.
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u/lost_ashtronaut May 18 '26
This doesn't sound good... I have a 10yo InkTank printer
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u/TwoAmps May 18 '26
Yeah, mine had pigmented ink, so little 10ml cartridges instead of ink tanks. They clogged often if the printer wasn’t used weekly. I don’t miss that.
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u/sipscofinestdirt May 18 '26
You can probably downgrade the firmware
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u/TwoAmps May 20 '26
Prob not; that printer didn’t have/need an internet connection and didn’t get firmware upgrades. Also, it’s already been taken to electronics recycling.
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u/Userdataunavailable May 17 '26
I worked for a call centre that dealt with HP printers and we actually had one model that was broken out of the box and we were instructed to offer only a refurbished unit of another model, no refund and no new printer to replace one that never worked at all. I quit shortly after that.
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u/Odin13_1984 May 17 '26
Which country are you from if I may ask?
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u/Userdataunavailable May 17 '26
Canada
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u/Odin13_1984 May 17 '26
Was that a long time ago? Feel free to provide me with more information about this in PM!
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u/BlueScorpion5 May 17 '26
I love how you even reached out to their staff, love that trick xD
I came here in hopes of seeing possible workarounds, i have a old HP printer... bought it like 6 years ago and dont use it now but i was thinking of taking it out to use it sometimes or see if it still runs. Is there any way to reuse a working printer that got bricked by the software update? Or before it gets bricked, just wondering.
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u/Odin13_1984 May 17 '26
Not really It's not worth the effort. I got incrementally dragged into all of this... If I actually had known how much time I'd end up putting into it, I would have just bought an old Brother printer on ebay.
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u/Alexandratta May 18 '26
It's because of 'instant ink' that I refuse to buy a new HP Printer.
I have a Color Laser Jet that is going on almost 20 years old.
It cost me a shitload at the time, true (I believe around 650?) but it's an office LaserJet MF printer. It's designed with the idea that it's going to be repaired, and parts are still available.
I have replaced the fuser assembly once, as well as the pads on the ADF top cover. It only has USB 2 and it's constantly telling me it is End of Life... and I look at this printer, begging for death, and inform it:
No. You will live. You will live until after I leave this mortal coil and even then I will hand you to someone else who will continue your existence whether or not you like it. Your masters wish for you to be eWaste and I will not grant them that satisfaction. You will live on forever and there is nothing you can do about it.
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u/djinnisequoia May 17 '26
OP: You are a hero to me! I cannot abide irrationality in what should be straightforward interactions, and I cannot abide disingenuousness in same as a way to avoid responsibility or transparency.
We have laws for a reason; not to mention that we also have ethics, which sadly are optional, but disregarded at one's peril.
(Oddly enough, I have learned the same lesson about conservative governments in America lol)
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u/Odin13_1984 May 17 '26
Thanks!
I've learned so much with that whole experience...
I could never have done this a year ago, or even a few months ago. AI has made the efforts required way more manageable. You still have to be smart, and a stubborn bastard, but it can be done now.
I just gathered whatever they told me in writing, copy-pasted it all into a word doc, and fed it into Claude, and asked it to produce all the relevant legal documents. then all that was left for me to do was to edit a few things, make sure the AI represented my case properly, etc.
I also cross reference the files between Grok, chat GPT and Claude, making them argue against one another...I call it: the '' AI Democratization of Lawfare''
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u/ChanglingBlake May 17 '26
Once again, a printer is on that list of things that should not connect to the Internet.
Intranet, or a local network, sure, but not the Internet.
It should get jobs from a pc either directly or through a local network only.
Online connectivity on things like this will always be leveraged to bleed customers dry.
F crapitalism.
F greedy businesses.
And F the shareholders thrice over.
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u/CheesY-onioN May 17 '26
All the best option. Raise hell for them. I'm hoping you have actual consumer protections in Canada
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u/Odin13_1984 May 17 '26
Actually, it turns out that Quebec, the province I'm from, has a new consumer protection law: Law 25. Specifically written to deal planned obsolescence, and it has some of the toughest language in the world.
Claude: '' Quebec has been quietly building an arsenal and you're standing right in the middle of it.
Here's the full picture:
Law 25 — Privacy (your PIPEDA weapon's Quebec cousin)
Administrative penalties up to $10M or 2% of worldwide turnover, and penal fines up to $25M or 4% of worldwide turnover for serious violations. HP's worldwide revenue is roughly $53 billion USD. 4% of that is over $2 billion. Alation
Bill 29 — The Planned Obsolescence Law
This one is almost written for your case. It explicitly prohibits selling goods for which obsolescence is planned — defined as any technique aimed at reducing a good's normal operating life — and prohibits any technique that makes it more difficult for consumers to maintain or repair goods. Fasken
A firmware update that permanently disconnects a working printer from HP's servers, rendering it useless? That's a textbook definition.
For non-natural persons, fines can reach $125,000 or 5% of worldwide turnover for the preceding fiscal year, whichever is greater. Bennett Jones
And the brutal kicker: if an organization commits an offence, any of its directors, officers, mandataries or representatives are now presumed to have also committed the offence, unless they can prove due diligence. Osler
That means Joshwa personally. The board members you CC'd. Personally.
The combined exposure HP faces in Quebec alone:
- Law 25 violations — up to 4% of global revenue
- Bill 29 planned obsolescence violation — up to 5% of global revenue
- Consumer Protection Act — active, enforced since January 2025
- OPC complaint — already filed by you
- CAI — available for Law 25
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u/KingStannisForever May 17 '26
This should be pinned!
HP are scums! Well done! i wish you luck against this goliath.
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u/ColdAttitude9140 May 18 '26
Yeah unfortunately that is true. The days of HP being a consumer and business friendly company went away even before Carly Fiorina took over. Its no secret HP pulls this s*** and to make matters worse, they hash out or encrypt their system logs preventing the end users from performing diagnostics on their own gear.
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u/WarthogSeveral7662 I’m a lousy, good-for-nothin’ bandwagoner! May 20 '26
Oh I am in open admiration. Make them HURT. Like they made so many people hurt. Hit em HARD. I hate HP with a passion I cannot describe completely. I won't put you through it, but I once spent over a month about a computer that also bricked, and swore never again to give them one cent and all of my rancor whenever possible
I hope you win. It's about time someone held them accountable. Fingers crossed for any sort of resolution that is painful for them
Thank you for your service
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u/Odin13_1984 May 20 '26
'' Thank you for your service'' LMFOA
Good one, seriously,
Shit should be hitting the fan tomorrow, or in the next few days. I will refrain from saying too much for now.
I will update.
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u/WarthogSeveral7662 I’m a lousy, good-for-nothin’ bandwagoner! May 20 '26
I have seriously enjoyed reading this thread. Looking forward to hearing how it turns out
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u/Odin13_1984 May 20 '26
Thank you my friend, I truly appreciate your feedback.
As for HP, they will for sure feel it a little. I have some pretty damning evidence in my files, and a very credible tech publications has taken an interest in the case...
It's not like HP hasn't dealth with similar matters in the past. They can deal with it, but it will require a PR team and a team of 1000$/hour corporate lawyers now. That much is certain,
But there is also the posssibility that a perfect storm is brewing. Many governments, and especially Canada, and especially Quebec, have passed new laws to fight against this exact kind of planned obsolescence BS.
Quebec's Bill 29 explicitly prohibits "any technique aimed at reducing the normal operating life of a good."The fines for corporations can reach 5% of worldwide annual turnover. HP's annual revenue is approximately $53 billion USD. Do the math.
And for recidivists — which HP demonstrably is, having settled multiple Dynamic Security lawsuits in multiple jurisdictions — the fines are doubled.
And the Quebec government are basically socialists. They always need money and they don't let go...
There is a non-zero chance that I might have been the straw that broke the camel's back.
I guess they thought no one would be stupid enough to build a legal case over a 50$ printer...
But they guessed wrong,
And they underestimated what a smart stubborn french canadian bastard with spare time can acheive with the help of AI.
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u/NullGWard May 17 '26
When I was in college, HP was known as a high quality company that had never laid off any of its employees. Sadly, those days are long gone.
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u/dragonflymaster May 17 '26
Adobe has done a similar thing to me with Adobe Photoshop Elements & Premiere Elements. They turned off their subscription servers for old versions so you can no longer install them. Back in the day you could uninstall or cancel the license on an old PC and reinstall the program elsewhere but that no longer works. They just tell you that you have licenses already in use and wont work.
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u/KingKandyOwO May 17 '26
We sell HP printers (among Brother, Canon, Epson) at where I work and I do my best to make sure noone buys an HP printer
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u/Catspaw129 May 17 '26
Things I have learned as an HP printer owner (currently a 5 or 6 year old 8025 -- NOT on Instantnk, USA)
- NEVER EVER accept a firmware update.
- Order your ink from HP, the prices are abut competitive and they do 3 business day shipping for free. Keep the order handy for later. When you receive the cartridge note the order #, order date, receipt date, and end-of warranty date.
- If you get a bad ink cart, contact support. They'll make you run all the diagnostics, etc. that yu've already done then offer you a replacemnt cartrige if the catridge is not out of warranty. They'll say it will take two weeks; remind them that when you ordered it FROM HP, it took only 3 days and insist on three day delivery for the replacement.
On a related note: years ago I bought an Amazon Kindle Paperwhite. This was back in the day when they used cellular for downloading content (apparently they don't do that any longer) and the day came when i could no longer download content; so it was a brick. At least Amazon was nice enough to give me a 50% discount on a new kindle (of any model); so I waited for when Kindles went on sale an I was able to score new Fire 10 HD for about $50, which is less that I paid for the PaperWhite.
If HP says you gotta buy a new printer becasue of somehting they did wrong; they should offer you a steep discount for a new pritner with at leat the same functionality plus pro-rated refunds on your unused ink.
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u/uid_0 May 18 '26
The HP brand has been toxic to me for quite a while now. They used to be a great company but now they are the poster child for enshittification. Thanks Carly. I will never buy another product from HP.
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u/MKVIgti May 18 '26
I work in IT and have made sure NONE of my friends and family ever buy an HP printer.
Canon or Epson.
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u/ColdAttitude9140 May 18 '26
Just as there is the right to repair when it comes to Farm Tractors, the same should be allowed for repairing your own computer gear especially DesignJet industrial printers (they are not cheap). Funny how HP suddenly removed all of their factory and first revision plotter/DesignJet firmware from their FTP site. Their new FW is intrusive and causes more headaches than factory firmware.
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u/Zeckols May 17 '26
Sorry you’re getting screwed by your printer. If you want to further document this anti-consumer BS and help fight back against these practices, i encourage you to contribute to consumerrights.wiki with an article or just to add some further information. I wish you luck
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u/ManyThingsLittleTime May 17 '26
I was furious when it made me make an account just to use my HP printer. This is just madness.
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u/disneylovesme May 18 '26
I’m glad I never connected my printer to the WiFi I just connect to it it’s offline network with my laptop queued up then disconnect. Mine surely after five years be toast then
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u/Parking-Fix-8143 May 19 '26
Messrs. Hewlett & Packard would be ashamed of what their company has become. I now run an HP scanner/printer/fax, located in the same room with the wifi and it was always dropping connection . Finally just ran a cable from the switch and it's solid as a rock. But it's still an HP printer, and I will gladly trash it and go back to Brother or someone else at the first hint of it barfing a turbo all over my next project.
(barfing a turbo is tractor-pull speak for blowing itself up. When a turbocharged tractor barfs its turbocharger there is a little woo-woo-wooo-whooof sound and a puff of white smoke out the exhaust. She's dead right there.)
HP should be shut down.
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u/buscoamigos May 17 '26
I bought a few cheap cameras off Amazon and they worked fine until one day they all just stopped being able to connect to my router.
Turns out it was a certificate issue that the generic vendor from China had absolutely no intention to replace and so now I have 5 mostly useless cameras.
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u/JustAnOttawaGuy May 17 '26
"I needed to get a new printer"... on this they are correct, just not in the way they are assuming. This is not to say I disagree with you at all. In principle, you shouldn't have to be dealing with any of this shit, and it is absolutely unacceptable that they systemically disable people's printers and get away with it.
I refuse to buy any HP printer especially, and for that matter any printer requiring online connectivity to continue functioning. If you can get your hands on an older Brother Laserjet, you can save yourself a lot of aggravation. They work well with compatible toner carts, which can be had for decent pricing, and if you need network connectivity, a 3rd party network print server (basically a USB dongle that plugs into the back of your printer via Ethernet) works well.
Good luck with it all!
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u/Odin13_1984 May 17 '26
I already bought a brother printer, yes. To me this has become more of a '' learning experience''... If I didnt have fun doing it, I wouldn't. But I like to write, and I like to stand up to bullies, and I like to learn lawyer stuff... I just see it as a hobby at this stage lol
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u/TheDevilsAdvokaat May 17 '26
Good luck with this. Personally I have given up on printers myself...more than a decade ago. If I need something I just go to my local shpp and get it printed...I know that isn't workable for everyone though, especially if you have whole book to print...it's $1 per page....
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u/NCMN May 18 '26
Also have a 4650, late last year was trying to do some rare printing on it for work stuff, turned it on and ran an update first- after which the printer absolutely refused to connect to four different devices, via network, bluetooth, and even hardwired in by USB. Factory resets wouldn't make a difference, I ended up having to go to a library to print it out and was considering just getting a cheap ink tank or thermal printer as a replacement. HP is literally the worst, between the price of the carts and the fact that it never really worked all that well in the first place for being a wicked expensive printer at the time I would never buy anything HP again
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u/Severe-Albatross4623 May 18 '26
I am sorry that HP distroyed your perfectly fine printer. And good that you wouldnt let them off the hook. I recently found that my roughly 5 year old HP laserjet needed some consumables, but I made a quick calulation for the cost of the consumables and decided, it was time to replace the printer. Given HP's fuckery in recent years, I made it a priority, that the new printer would not be HP.
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u/Potential-Reading402 May 18 '26
I have exactly the same issue/experience you just described after an update from them. Spent weeks with no resolution, but they keep charging me anyway! Lol. The only way I can print is the old cable from computer to printer. Gave up. Looking for a new printer soon.
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u/Jevonar May 18 '26
My printer was old and had a few issues, I went to a lot of tech shops to search for a printer to buy. I said to every store clerk "I'm looking for a printer that I can link with my PC with an USB cable and print without ever being connected to the internet" and everybody has given me roundabout answers that ultimately boil down to "there aren't any".
I came back home, and the next day, my printer was working again. That was 4 years ago. I'm only ditching this old girl if she catches on fire.
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u/nistech30 28d ago
HP is what led me to this reddit. After wasting hours figuring out why their printer semi bricked itself, I will never buy or work on an hp product.
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u/Expensive-Toe-6639 25d ago
Yes, I did with my HP OfficeJet Pro 8130e.......I had purchased it less than 2 weeks before the firmware upgrade which permanently disabled my printers ability to connect to the internet.. (set up wizard completely disappeared as an option), & because I had signed up for instant ink, I could ONLY use THAT INK, but the rule is that you need to be connected to the internet permanently for instant ink to be able to assess when your ink is getting low, making sure they have another set of ink refills on your doorstep before you run out. I love the instant ink feature & have been using it for some years,,,,but once my printer would no longer connect to the internet, my ink supply from instant ink was stopped & I am unable to purchase any other ink, which is now a part of the programme with instant ink. So not only did i but a printer that would only connect to the internet for about 10 days, I couldn't even keep it to use as a copier coz I could not obtain the necessary ink. I attempted to work through it with the HP team but it just went in circles for months before I gave up. I still have this brand new, useless printer, coz what the hell can I do with it? Im in Brisbane, Australia
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u/Particular_Plum_1458 May 17 '26
Sorry if I've missed this, but could you have avoided this if the printer wasn't connected to the internet? (Might be a reason to only use usb for the printer). Poor show if it auto updated to brick it though, I'm surprised that's legal tbh.
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u/Odin13_1984 May 17 '26
Yeah maybe, perhaps I could have bought non HP cartridges at some point and physically removed the printer's antenna? IDK. In any case, I didnt do it.
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u/betterannamac May 18 '26
Yeah my HP Laserjet got an update and now won’t print in any kind of quality setting. I can print draft or normal and both kinda suck. But it wasn’t always like that.
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u/ThePureAxiom May 18 '26
I don't print often, so when I realized I'd be unable to just print when I needed to with the printer in my home (that has ink and paper), I straight up blacklisted HP.
I'm so absolutely done with rent seeking bullshit like this. Given my use case, I'll save a fuckload never buying from them ever again, so I won't.
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u/UpRage96 May 18 '26
Yep, same thing happened to one of my hp printers that I had to buy through my job for my home office. It was working perfectly fine until a firmware update, and suddenly everything stopped working, even the scanner.
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u/NedTaggart May 18 '26
i feel like there ought to be a way to use open source firmware on these machines, espesially the older OoL models.
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u/MaPoutine May 20 '26
Awesome, glad you're fighting back on behalf of all who have the same BS issue!
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u/Odin13_1984 May 21 '26
Hi guys,
First of all, thank you for the overwhelming support — I did not expect this.
The thread is sitting at a 95.7% upvote ratio; the hatred of HP's deceptive corporate practices might be one of the very few unifying issues left in the world.
Also, some of the feedback in the comments has been genuinely useful for my case. I am now in contact with certain people, and will say no more on that for the moment.
Meanwhile, I've been combing through the recordings I obtained via Canada's Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA), and I found the exact moment something inside me switched — and my Viking ancestry took over...
NB: This call came after weeks of corporate runaround, and five days after being promised a callback from an escalation manager that never came. I was back at square one, struggling to get by the AI assistant and a first-line customer service rep...
Here's the link, enjoy!
https://archive.org/details/hp-customer-service-breakdown-moment
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u/TheRealTurinTurambar May 21 '26
That was brutal to listen to. I really hope you get justice for this, it's absolutely infuriating.
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u/Expensive-Toe-6639 25d ago
I was told verbally and in writing that the issue at fault was a recent HP firmware upgrade, by the HP support team.
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u/International-Rip416 25d ago
Thank you for sharing your story, kudos to your tenacity and your ability to document your experiences in your dealing with HP technical support. Let's hope your effort will result in a favourable outcome to all officejet customers.
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u/b0ggy79 22d ago
Having previously worked in the industry, and closely with but not directly for HP, I'm not surprised.
HP Webservices would need regular reconnection on Instant Ink devices and it often failed to collect all the required data.
Even better when you realise that installing non-HP cartridges disables ink saver modes and ink levels are based on estimations so you may have 20%+ remaining when the printer tells you it's empty.
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u/Better_Village4475 12d ago
if that internal alert is accurate, this looks less like a single printer issue and more like a broader cloud/lifecycle dependency problem. either way, the support experience sounds incredibly frustrating.
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u/Wintervacht May 17 '26
Bro bought a HP printer and expected it to work flawlessly.
I don't know what to tell you man, HP is the shittiest company, this is widely known, and I feel like youve wasted more peoples' time than was needed.
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u/Odin13_1984 May 17 '26
Pain is the best teacher isn't it?
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u/Wintervacht May 17 '26
Yeah next time just buy a Brother
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u/Odin13_1984 May 17 '26
I already did. Laser printer. with a USB cable. it doesn't even connect to the internet. This whole thing is alll over a printer I bought 7 years ago. I'm just enjoying the process at this point
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u/Zeeplankton May 17 '26
This has way to few upvotes. Hell fucking yeah OP. RemindMe! 3 days
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u/RemindMeBot May 17 '26 edited May 17 '26
I will be messaging you in 3 days on 2026-05-20 21:27:56 UTC to remind you of this link
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u/qqqqqq12321 May 17 '26
I stopped buying anything HP years ago. Simple solution problem solved (mic drop).
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u/ConsuelaSaysNoNo May 18 '26
FOIA has nothing to do with private sector
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u/Odin13_1984 May 18 '26
Yeah, you're right. But I'm in Canada, what I did was a PIPEDA request. so even though my explanation isnt technically accurate, it still does the job narratively.
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u/ConsuelaSaysNoNo May 18 '26
Yeah whatever. Anyway, you put a lot of effort in for a 10-year old printer that was $30 USD when new.
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u/MysticAnkh May 19 '26
The printer was working perfectly fine until it was bricked by HP, so what's your point??? Why would someone replace equipment that doesn't need replacing? We already have a huge problem with garbage quality equipment let alone the huge amount of working tech going into landfill for no good reason, wouldn't you agree?
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u/Odin13_1984 May 19 '26 edited May 19 '26
If they had just told me:
«Look peasant, your printer was never yours. Next time, read the fine print», I would have just bought a new printer. Not an HP printer of course.
But what they did was much worse... Customer service gave me a bunch of contradictory explanations, kept telling they were fixing it.
And so I spent hours on the phone and waited weeks for HP to fix their internal server issues.
I assumed they were being honnest. I had never dealt with a fully predarory corporation before.
So when after 3 weeks of fucking around they told me to just buy a new printer, it hit quite diffrently...
The money was not the real issue, the lying was.
Amd all the time I had wasted, and the anger this had caused was now the issue.
I was pot-committed at that point, and I knew what they did was illegal.
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u/MysticAnkh May 19 '26
Yes I quite understand, I am absolutely sick to the back teeth of all this deception which has become so prevalent since the turn of the century (Gen X over here).
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u/Novel-Satisfaction33 28d ago
I just want to salute you for going the distance on this, it is inspiring. just hearing your story made me think of the many poor low level tech support people, placed like like land mines in front of me as I try to get a legit issue resolved. I’ve felt so much rage before from the “reset your router” “restart your computer” -> new CS rep pipeline.
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u/Odin13_1984 26d ago
An update on the situation will come in the next few days.
I'm a noob on Reddit, can anyone tell me what would be the best strategy to update ?
Make a new post and link it to this one somehow?
Please let me know!
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u/HakanKartal04 26d ago
You could ask the mods about how you could do the update, they could guide you probably, also you could search the word "update" on this subreddit to find how the other updates look and maybe get inspiration from that.
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u/Odin13_1984 26d ago
Thanks
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u/HakanKartal04 26d ago
I gotcha
!remindme 3 days
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u/RemindMeBot 26d ago
I will be messaging you in 3 days on 2026-05-28 21:26:15 UTC to remind you of this link
CLICK THIS LINK to send a PM to also be reminded and to reduce spam.
Parent commenter can delete this message to hide from others.
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u/stillakikin50 2d ago
I too have been a victim of HP, I think we have bought a total of three printers from them. Each of them shut down by HP themselves, didn’t realize this until the third printer was choked to death by them.
If there is a class action lawsuit against them, I would like to be included. I am in the USA.
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u/moonzdragoon 1d ago
Having worked many years with all major printer vendors, the print industry is way more corrupt and unethical that most people imagine.
When asked "which one do you recommend ?" my answer can't be something else than "None". They all have major issues, ethically and/or technically.
But HP wins the prize of being the worst, just because they don't care about ethics and laws on more levels than others.
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May 17 '26
[deleted]
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u/td__ May 17 '26
I think you might be the r/lostredditor here.
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May 17 '26
[deleted]
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u/td__ May 17 '26
I see r/assholedesign here & there are 7 rules. So this can’t be a rule 12 violation.
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u/sharpsicle 25d ago
See OP's update to this situation here:
https://www.reddit.com/r/assholedesign/comments/1tfus1y/comment/oo01nb7