HP subscription ink cancelled and told cartridges will no longer work

lr1277

Here is a word of warning with an off-topic tale.

My mum has a HP printer where we buy the cartridges as and when. When we got the message to replace the cartridges back in February 2024, I went onto Amazon and bought 4 colour cartridges.

It was only a few months later that we actually needed to replace the cartridges and we did. The printer flagged the error, these cartridges were for a new printer and so would not print with them.

Then checking my Amazon order, no mention these cartridges were for a new printer. I think HP support said said words to the effect of these cartridges won't work because they are for a new printer. Because it had been months, the seller had disappeared and had many very poor reviews. It was my mistake not to check the reviews before purchasing. Amazon wouldn't do anything. So a waste of over £100.

Went onto HP and bought the correct cartridges and they work fine.

So I urge you to be careful and not make my mistake of trusting every marketplace seller on Amazon.

Undervalued

As others have said, you need to read and understand a contract before deciding whether to enter into it!

For some situations the HP instant ink can be a very economical way of printing. For others it can be expensive. The advantage comes if you want to print lots of (particularly A4) photographs or other graphics that use lots of ink. You pay the same price per page regardless of how much ink it consumes. Also, if you do need to "clean" the print heads (which uses lots of ink) you don't pay at all for however much ink that uses.

If on the other hand you print mainly pages with just a few words of text and lots of white space you are probably far better off just cartridges when required (or using a b&w laser printer if you do lots).

Finally, as mentioned in the post above, be careful with 3rd party cartridges. Many printer manufacturers make it increasingly difficult to use 3rd party cartridges and even if you find ones that will work now they could be blocked by future printer firmware updates.

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head

lr1277 said:

Here is a word of warning with an off-topic tale.

My mum has a HP printer where we buy the cartridges as and when. When we got the message to replace the cartridges back in February 2024, I went onto Amazon and bought 4 colour cartridges.

It was only a few months later that we actually needed to replace the cartridges and we did. The printer flagged the error, these cartridges were for a new printer and so would not print with them.

Then checking my Amazon order, no mention these cartridges were for a new printer. I think HP support said said words to the effect of these cartridges won't work because they are for a new printer. Because it had been months, the seller had disappeared and had many very poor reviews. It was my mistake not to check the reviews before purchasing. Amazon wouldn't do anything. So a waste of over £100.

Went onto HP and bought the correct cartridges and they work fine.

So I urge you to be careful and not make my mistake of trusting every marketplace seller on Amazon.

https://www.cartridgepeople.com/

Are pretty good in my experience. 

Izzywizzypoppypoo

Thank you everyone for your replies.

35har1old

Undervalued said:

As others have said, you need to read and understand a contract before deciding whether to enter into it!

For some situations the HP instant ink can be a very economical way of printing. For others it can be expensive. The advantage comes if you want to print lots of (particularly A4) photographs or other graphics that use lots of ink. You pay the same price per page regardless of how much ink it consumes. Also, if you do need to "clean" the print heads (which uses lots of ink) you don't pay at all for however much ink that uses.

If on the other hand you print mainly pages with just a few words of text and lots of white space you are probably far better off just cartridges when required (or using a b&w laser printer if you do lots).

Finally, as mentioned in the post above, be careful with 3rd party cartridges. Many printer manufacturers make it increasingly difficult to use 3rd party cartridges and even if you find ones that will work now they could be blocked by future printer firmware updates.

Are you not able to select different plans that suit your needs?
So the cost per page would likely not be the same
On the HP site it states plans are flexible can be paused and cancelled 
Update plans range from 4p to 15p per page

Undervalued

35har1old said:

Undervalued said:

As others have said, you need to read and understand a contract before deciding whether to enter into it!

For some situations the HP instant ink can be a very economical way of printing. For others it can be expensive. The advantage comes if you want to print lots of (particularly A4) photographs or other graphics that use lots of ink. You pay the same price per page regardless of how much ink it consumes. Also, if you do need to "clean" the print heads (which uses lots of ink) you don't pay at all for however much ink that uses.

If on the other hand you print mainly pages with just a few words of text and lots of white space you are probably far better off just cartridges when required (or using a b&w laser printer if you do lots).

Finally, as mentioned in the post above, be careful with 3rd party cartridges. Many printer manufacturers make it increasingly difficult to use 3rd party cartridges and even if you find ones that will work now they could be blocked by future printer firmware updates.

Are you not able to select different plans that suit your needs?
So the cost per page would likely not be the same
On the HP site it states plans are flexible can be paused and cancelled 
Update plans range from 4p to 15p per page

Yes, but all are priced per page regardless of how much ink is used. So, excellent value for full page photographs and dense graphics but expensive for limited amounts of text with lots of white space.

Yes, you can cancel at any time (the cartridges will be "switched off" remotely). I don't fully understand the terms and conditions of "pausing" your subscription as it has not been relevant to me as yet.

mikrt

I'm one of the lucky ones. I still get instant ink free up to 15 pages a month (which I rarely get to and have a reminder set to print a full test page to prevent dying up) then it's £1 for the next 10 pages (which I've never exceeded)

Original printer bought about 6 years ago, I bought a new printer 6 months ago and transferred account to new printer.

I would still be happy to pay if it wasn't free though. 

DiddlyDog

We signed up to the HP instant ink scheme when we bought a new printer a year or so ago. Initially it cost buttons (less than £2 per month) so it was ideal for our very low usage.  We got the first set of cartridges fairly quickly as the included ones with the printer were 'demo' versions with very low capacity. So far so good.

Pretty soon after, the minimum price went up to around £5/m so it was becoming a marginal decision whether to stick with it but we persevered.  More recently, the printer stopped printing magenta (it uses a 4 colour cartridge plus a black one). Went through all the cleaning cycles etc, to no avail, even trying out a few other approaches suggested elsewhere. Sadly the printer was reporting the colour cartridge as being ok, so no replacement from HP at that point. Tried contacting HP by a number of means to no avail, each route seemed to refer me back to the app which of course didn't 'see' any problem.

Net result is I've cancelled the contract having 'donated' around £40 since the replacement cartridges were supplied and bought replacement cartridges at my own cost.

Like a lot of things these days, what looks and feels like a good idea soon falls apart if you need to contact mission control.

pinkshoes

I tend to do most my printing at work, so was also on the lookout for a low cost option for printing at home.

I ended up with the cheapest Canon Pixma printer, then instead of paying for their extortionate cartridges, I just bought a refill bottle and followed some instructions on YouTube than involved drilling a hole in the back of the cartridge (under the sticker), and re-inked the sponge inside. It still tells me my ink is low but prints just fine being re-inked. Everything I needed came in the kit and it was surprisingly easy! The kit was so much cheaper than the cartridge!

Undervalued

DiddlyDog said:

We signed up to the HP instant ink scheme when we bought a new printer a year or so ago. Initially it cost buttons (less than £2 per month) so it was ideal for our very low usage.  We got the first set of cartridges fairly quickly as the included ones with the printer were 'demo' versions with very low capacity. So far so good.

Pretty soon after, the minimum price went up to around £5/m so it was becoming a marginal decision whether to stick with it but we persevered.  More recently, the printer stopped printing magenta (it uses a 4 colour cartridge plus a black one). Went through all the cleaning cycles etc, to no avail, even trying out a few other approaches suggested elsewhere. Sadly the printer was reporting the colour cartridge as being ok, so no replacement from HP at that point. Tried contacting HP by a number of means to no avail, each route seemed to refer me back to the app which of course didn't 'see' any problem.

Net result is I've cancelled the contract having 'donated' around £40 since the replacement cartridges were supplied and bought replacement cartridges at my own cost.

Like a lot of things these days, what looks and feels like a good idea soon falls apart if you need to contact mission control.

I am surprised as I have never had a problem getting to speak to somebody when necessary. Clearly an overseas call centre but better than most and have always resolved any issues.

The big saving to be had is if you are printing A4 photos which would cost a fortune in ink if you were buying genuine retail cartridges. Also, most inkjet printers benefit from being used to keep the ink flowing so, perversely the more you print the less problems you will have. I am currently paying £4.49 per month for 50 pages. Yes, very expensive if you are mainly printing a few words of text on an otherwise blank page. On the other hand less than 10p for ink for an A4 photo is exceptional value.