HP Printer Ink Class Action Lawsuit

Dec 19, 2007 (Click to Rate!) Loading ...

Ars has the scoop on a Boston man who is sick and tired of walking into a office supply store and paying $30+ dollars for ink for his printer.

This was discussed years ago on Slashdot before we had sites like Digg and social networking was all the buzz. At the time the discussion was made that at current prices of black ink from manufacturers like HP, ink was priced at roughly $4000 per gallon. The number today looks closer to $8000 per gallon, especially when dealing with colored inks. The complete bullshit of it all is that even though these companies make 90% profit on ink sales, they continue to embed technology into the cartridges and software to tell you a cartridge is empty long before it is actually empty.

In addition to that, HP and others continue to use “destroy at all cost” tactics against 3rd party ink vendors claiming copyright infringement, DCMA infringement and other all-out bullshit to protect their nothing-but-profit industry.

For folks that want to jump on this class-action with both feet, I’d point out that $8000/gallon ink is the reason you can buy a high resolution photo printer/fax/scanner/copier for like $150 and not $450. Once HP has it’s foot in the door at your house by way of one of it’s printers you are more or less agreeing to a subscription-based model. You continue to “subscribe” to their ink, and they will continue to allow you to use their printer. The chips in the printers and print cartridges now don’t allow you to mix-and-match them or use 3rd party sources, which makes this relationship much more subscription-like than you may realize. It does help to subsidize the cost of the printers obviously… but is it worth it to you?

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class action, extortion, HP, ink, law, politics

This post was written by:

Riyad Kalla - who has written 1727 posts on The “Break it Down” Blog.

"Ultimately I just want to provide a resource that folks find useful."

14 Comments For This Post

barbara Says:
September 18th, 2008 at 12:49 pm

How does one get in the class action lawsuit?

Tom Janes Says:
September 22nd, 2008 at 2:13 pm

If you want to sue the shit out of HP, I’m in. I’m sick of their bullshit, just like Lexmark’s. My ink cartridge is mine to do with as I see fit and I am being denied the right to use my own property through nothing less than Al Capone style Organized criminal operations designed only to render my personal property unusable.

If you need help in this lawsuit, I will do all of the paperwork, including filing the RJI in a United States Federal District court. It should be prosecuted under the RICO act (Racketeering in Criminal Organizations). Doing so can afford those of us who HP has screwed up to three times the value of the ink cartridges we bought, every Goddamn one of them.

This nonsense has gone on long enough. I write programs and many times I have to write out sources for my code. It’s got so bad that you can’t even print out two or three source code samples anymore without paying these stinking, thieving crooks $30.00.

While I can do the paperwork to initiate the lawsuit, we will require the aid of a professional attorney as I cannot represent others in a court of law, only myself, but any attorney worth his weight in salt should be able to win this case based on the simple Constitutional concept that we are being denied our right to the free pursuit of liberty and denied our right to use our own property without due process of law.

The very fact that Lexmark and HP don’t give users any options, or instructions on how to refill their own property is prima-facia evidence of this conspiracy to screw the general public.

What HP and Lexmark are doing is no different

Editor Says:
September 26th, 2008 at 11:14 pm

Guys,

Not sure if you found this information, but to get included in the class action, first Ranjit Bedi and his lawyer would need to get people signed up to file the class action, so you might want to get in touch with him or his lawyer (I couldn’t find any contact information for you in my quick looking, sorry)

once the class action is settled, assuming it is, you will have up to 3 years to sign up under the class action and get whatever the compensation was that was agreed to.

Generally speaking, the compensation for the individuals is ridiculously small, the lawyers only concern is settling because he’ll take a portion (30-50%) of the per-person settlement and be fat and happy.

So I wouldn’t expect anything dramatic out of this if they do sue and win… HP, Brother, Lexmark, etc. will fight this to the ends of the earth because it’s their golden goose.

Stephen T. Snowberger Says:
November 29th, 2008 at 10:12 am

I’M MAD AS HELL AND I’M NOT GOING TO TAKE IT ANYMORE!!
THESE SOB’S HAVE PUSHED ME TOO FAR THIS TIME!!!
THIS IS AMERICA DAMNIT AND I SHOULD HAVE THE CHOICE OF USING A LESS EXPENSIVE (even the “cheap” ones are outrageously expensive on a $/ounce basis) REMANUFACTURED OR REFILLED CARTRIDGE IF I SO CHOOSE!
If they want to make their machines so they can detect a non-proprietary cartridge and give me some sort of stupid alert about loss of quality or some such B.S. that’s fine. What they should not be allowed to do is to program my machine so that it suddenly starts giving me a warning AND THEN LOCKS UP AND WILL NOT FUNCTION AT ALL UNTIL I GO BUY THEIR GROSSLY EXPENSIVE CARTRIDGE!!! THAT’S UN-AMERICAN AND SHOULD BE ILLEGAL IF IT ISN’T ALREADY!!
I WANT TO SUE THE BAS***** AND MAKE THEM STOP!!!

Eric Hochstein Says:
January 5th, 2009 at 7:58 am

I don’t like the idea of barring remanufactured cartridge use either, but I am getting very upset about HP’s practice of filling different cartridges with different amounts of ink inside of the same “value pack”.

I have a Photosmart C6150, which uses individual color cartridges and I am amazed by the costs of ink for this printer. What gets me the most is that my printer seems to go through the Cyan and Magenta colors, as well as the Black and Yello, but doesn’t touch the Light Cyan and Light Magenta.

The cost for the ink is astounding, and the printer uses the different colors very unequally. Thus, I have to get new black, cyan, magenta, and yellow cartridges frequently, and rarely need to replace the light cyan and light magentas.

I currently have about 8 extra Light Cyan and Light Magenta cartridges, and always run out of the Black, Cyan and Magenta cartridges.

Let’s use the HP Website pricing for the cartridges – we all know that we can get some limited discounts at local office stores (Max/Depot/Staples) but everything is relative here, so lets use the HP prices.

If I need one Cyan cartridge, I can buy one for $10.99 or a twinpack for $18.99. Or I can buy the Value Pack, for $39.99.

So, if I need one Cyan, one Magenta, and one Black cartridge, I can buy individual cartridges for $10.99, $10.99, and $19.99 (total $32.97) and get the yellow ($9.99), Lt. My. ($10.99), and Lt. Mg. ($10.99) and 150 sheets of paper, for $7.02.

This doesn’t seem “right.” But that’s how they price it. So, I’ve been buying the value pack, and building a warehouse of Lt. Cy and Lt. Mg. cartridges.

Well, I was wondering why the ink flow is so different in the various colors, and sure, the primaries might be used more, but it didn’t make a lot of sense.

So, yesterday, at Staples, I started investigating more. It turns out that with the 5 non-black colors, there are different amounts of ink in each cartridge (at least those that are sold individually.) For example, the black cartridge has 10ML of ink (.33 fluid oz.) But the Cyan has only 4ML, and the Magenta has 3.5ML, while the Lt. Magenta has 5.5ML. (The Lt. Cyan didn’t even have the volume of ink listed on either the individual packaging or the twinpack.)

So, let’s see. HP sells me a Magenta cartridge with 3.5ML for the same price as a Lt. Magenta which has 5.5ML, and I run out of the Magenta cartridge about 4x as often as the Lt. Magenta???

I like the economics of this from the HP perspective – good business. But it sure seems like bad deal from the customer’s perspective.

This gets more complex. HP doesn’t want people asking these questions. So they obscure the issue by measuring page yield rather than the quantity of ink that they sell. Here’s a link to their page that describes, in absolute detail, how they measure page yield.

http://tinyurl.com/3xx9yb

But when they sell the packages of ink cartridges, there’s really no mention that 1) the cartridges have different amounts of ink in them 2) that the ink is used in different amounts on average pages 3) that some ink cartridges will be used up in significantly different amounts of time/pages.

I am getting very upset by the growing warehouse of light colors, and the increasing expense of the primary colors – cyan, magenta, and yellow.

I am wondering if others have similar concerns about this, and what we might be able to do to collectively complain about this absurd situation.

Ray Marek Says:
April 16th, 2009 at 9:51 am

I have a C6180 All-in one printer/fax/copier/scanner. I rarely make color copies or color prints but it tells me that a color cartrige is out of ink!. I come to find out that each cartrige has an expiration date and a chip inside that will not allow you to make even b/w copies until you replace the expired color cartrige even if the cartrige is full!!! This is like a license to steal!!!

Riyad Kalla Says:
April 16th, 2009 at 9:55 am

Ray, you are exactly right — it’s maddening.

AnninJapan Says:
May 21st, 2009 at 7:41 pm

I am also getting VERY angry about this.. Hardly use color yet it runs out..and refuses to even print black and white. Wont’ be buying HP again..even if the others are similar GRRRRRRRRRRR

compatible hp toner Says:
August 5th, 2009 at 1:57 pm

Using compatible hp toners is one way to fight this unfair practice of major printer brands like HP. And as more and more people unite against it, the more the authorities will be compelled to act.

Steve Wilson Says:
August 17th, 2009 at 2:45 pm

I have a new OfficeJet 8500 Wireless All-in-one. I just found out what Ray found out. If I run out of any of the color cartridges, the printer WILL NOT print in black only mode…even if I set Black Ink only in the printer properties. I just got off the phone with one of their idiot support people in India and confirmed this to be true. He said to replace the color cartridge. I said, “No…filing a class action lawsuit will be much more fun!”

Riyad Kalla Says:
August 18th, 2009 at 8:40 am

Steve,

That’s unbelievable… the shenanigans these guys have been allowed to execute on the consumers is really surprising. But I guess that’s what always happens when corporations go unnoticed for years.

r Says:
September 24th, 2009 at 12:39 am

I am certainly interested in getting a class action suit against HP …. I am no lawyer … but I would provide all … and I mean ALL info that helps …. I filed complaints for BBB and HP called me just today … throwing b***s*** trying to “educate” me that I need to buy a new ink and I need to understand how it works. And totally disregarded the fact that ( my other 4 packs of ink is at 100% level while my yellow ink [ likely due to the "CHIP" malfuntioning] ends up a 0 % and refuse to print ) ….
So …. this cartridge would be a perfect example of a locking-mechanism …. and it should be good for evidence until it dry up in, what, like “right now” ? ( According to HP .. they said my ink has “dried up” …..which is certainly not ! .. and … I am saying the following cuz I think this would work.)

1. have the ink inspected by certified lab …. that the ink has same composition of a new ink …. ( in chemical formulas / chemical compositions ) … so that HP cannot say “they are trying to prevent BAD INK ruining your print head)
2. have the ink replaced with a brand-new purchased ink’s chip ( i.e buy a new ink just for its chip … to prove that the current ink is totally working, and it’s the chip that’s providing locking mechanism )

…. and I suppose these evidences should be very LOGICAL that HP is imposing a LOCK !

Bruce Says:
September 27th, 2009 at 9:10 am

Hewlett Packard fights back in a lawsuit against third party inkjet cartridges

bruce1953 Says:
October 16th, 2009 at 3:14 pm

I agree with all of the above, but by pursuing a law suit would only benefit the lawyers. I would prefer to stop doing business with these bastards. but are any of the other brands better? That would be my question to the group. To make matters a little more complicated I use a Mac. Any suggestions (other then buy a windows OS) would be gratefully appreciated.

Thanks,
Bruce

barbara Says:
September 18th, 2008 at 12:49 pm
How does one get in the class action lawsuit?
Tom Janes Says:
September 22nd, 2008 at 2:13 pm
If you want to sue the shit out of HP, I’m in. I’m sick of their bullshit, just like Lexmark’s. My ink cartridge is mine to do with as I see fit and I am being denied the right to use my own property through nothing less than Al Capone style Organized criminal operations designed only to render my personal property unusable.

If you need help in this lawsuit, I will do all of the paperwork, including filing the RJI in a United States Federal District court. It should be prosecuted under the RICO act (Racketeering in Criminal Organizations). Doing so can afford those of us who HP has screwed up to three times the value of the ink cartridges we bought, every Goddamn one of them.

This nonsense has gone on long enough. I write programs and many times I have to write out sources for my code. It’s got so bad that you can’t even print out two or three source code samples anymore without paying these stinking, thieving crooks $30.00.

While I can do the paperwork to initiate the lawsuit, we will require the aid of a professional attorney as I cannot represent others in a court of law, only myself, but any attorney worth his weight in salt should be able to win this case based on the simple Constitutional concept that we are being denied our right to the free pursuit of liberty and denied our right to use our own property without due process of law.

The very fact that Lexmark and HP don’t give users any options, or instructions on how to refill their own property is prima-facia evidence of this conspiracy to screw the general public.

What HP and Lexmark are doing is no different
Editor Says:
September 26th, 2008 at 11:14 pm
Guys,

Not sure if you found this information, but to get included in the class action, first Ranjit Bedi and his lawyer would need to get people signed up to file the class action, so you might want to get in touch with him or his lawyer (I couldn’t find any contact information for you in my quick looking, sorry)

once the class action is settled, assuming it is, you will have up to 3 years to sign up under the class action and get whatever the compensation was that was agreed to.

Generally speaking, the compensation for the individuals is ridiculously small, the lawyers only concern is settling because he’ll take a portion (30-50%) of the per-person settlement and be fat and happy.

So I wouldn’t expect anything dramatic out of this if they do sue and win… HP, Brother, Lexmark, etc. will fight this to the ends of the earth because it’s their golden goose.
Stephen T. Snowberger Says:
November 29th, 2008 at 10:12 am
I’M MAD AS HELL AND I’M NOT GOING TO TAKE IT ANYMORE!!
THESE SOB’S HAVE PUSHED ME TOO FAR THIS TIME!!!
THIS IS AMERICA DAMNIT AND I SHOULD HAVE THE CHOICE OF USING A LESS EXPENSIVE (even the “cheap” ones are outrageously expensive on a $/ounce basis) REMANUFACTURED OR REFILLED CARTRIDGE IF I SO CHOOSE!
If they want to make their machines so they can detect a non-proprietary cartridge and give me some sort of stupid alert about loss of quality or some such B.S. that’s fine. What they should not be allowed to do is to program my machine so that it suddenly starts giving me a warning AND THEN LOCKS UP AND WILL NOT FUNCTION AT ALL UNTIL I GO BUY THEIR GROSSLY EXPENSIVE CARTRIDGE!!! THAT’S UN-AMERICAN AND SHOULD BE ILLEGAL IF IT ISN’T ALREADY!!
I WANT TO SUE THE BAS***** AND MAKE THEM STOP!!!
Eric Hochstein Says:
January 5th, 2009 at 7:58 am
I don’t like the idea of barring remanufactured cartridge use either, but I am getting very upset about HP’s practice of filling different cartridges with different amounts of ink inside of the same “value pack”.

I have a Photosmart C6150, which uses individual color cartridges and I am amazed by the costs of ink for this printer. What gets me the most is that my printer seems to go through the Cyan and Magenta colors, as well as the Black and Yello, but doesn’t touch the Light Cyan and Light Magenta.

The cost for the ink is astounding, and the printer uses the different colors very unequally. Thus, I have to get new black, cyan, magenta, and yellow cartridges frequently, and rarely need to replace the light cyan and light magentas.

I currently have about 8 extra Light Cyan and Light Magenta cartridges, and always run out of the Black, Cyan and Magenta cartridges.

Let’s use the HP Website pricing for the cartridges – we all know that we can get some limited discounts at local office stores (Max/Depot/Staples) but everything is relative here, so lets use the HP prices.

If I need one Cyan cartridge, I can buy one for $10.99 or a twinpack for $18.99. Or I can buy the Value Pack, for $39.99.

So, if I need one Cyan, one Magenta, and one Black cartridge, I can buy individual cartridges for $10.99, $10.99, and $19.99 (total $32.97) and get the yellow ($9.99), Lt. My. ($10.99), and Lt. Mg. ($10.99) and 150 sheets of paper, for $7.02.

This doesn’t seem “right.” But that’s how they price it. So, I’ve been buying the value pack, and building a warehouse of Lt. Cy and Lt. Mg. cartridges.

Well, I was wondering why the ink flow is so different in the various colors, and sure, the primaries might be used more, but it didn’t make a lot of sense.

So, yesterday, at Staples, I started investigating more. It turns out that with the 5 non-black colors, there are different amounts of ink in each cartridge (at least those that are sold individually.) For example, the black cartridge has 10ML of ink (.33 fluid oz.) But the Cyan has only 4ML, and the Magenta has 3.5ML, while the Lt. Magenta has 5.5ML. (The Lt. Cyan didn’t even have the volume of ink listed on either the individual packaging or the twinpack.)

So, let’s see. HP sells me a Magenta cartridge with 3.5ML for the same price as a Lt. Magenta which has 5.5ML, and I run out of the Magenta cartridge about 4x as often as the Lt. Magenta???

I like the economics of this from the HP perspective – good business. But it sure seems like bad deal from the customer’s perspective.

This gets more complex. HP doesn’t want people asking these questions. So they obscure the issue by measuring page yield rather than the quantity of ink that they sell. Here’s a link to their page that describes, in absolute detail, how they measure page yield.

http://tinyurl.com/3xx9yb

But when they sell the packages of ink cartridges, there’s really no mention that 1) the cartridges have different amounts of ink in them 2) that the ink is used in different amounts on average pages 3) that some ink cartridges will be used up in significantly different amounts of time/pages.

I am getting very upset by the growing warehouse of light colors, and the increasing expense of the primary colors – cyan, magenta, and yellow.

I am wondering if others have similar concerns about this, and what we might be able to do to collectively complain about this absurd situation.
Ray Marek Says:
April 16th, 2009 at 9:51 am
I have a C6180 All-in one printer/fax/copier/scanner. I rarely make color copies or color prints but it tells me that a color cartrige is out of ink!. I come to find out that each cartrige has an expiration date and a chip inside that will not allow you to make even b/w copies until you replace the expired color cartrige even if the cartrige is full!!! This is like a license to steal!!!
Riyad Kalla Says:
April 16th, 2009 at 9:55 am
Ray, you are exactly right — it’s maddening.
AnninJapan Says:
May 21st, 2009 at 7:41 pm
I am also getting VERY angry about this.. Hardly use color yet it runs out..and refuses to even print black and white. Wont’ be buying HP again..even if the others are similar GRRRRRRRRRRR
compatible hp toner Says:
August 5th, 2009 at 1:57 pm
Using compatible hp toners is one way to fight this unfair practice of major printer brands like HP. And as more and more people unite against it, the more the authorities will be compelled to act.
Steve Wilson Says:
August 17th, 2009 at 2:45 pm
I have a new OfficeJet 8500 Wireless All-in-one. I just found out what Ray found out. If I run out of any of the color cartridges, the printer WILL NOT print in black only mode…even if I set Black Ink only in the printer properties. I just got off the phone with one of their idiot support people in India and confirmed this to be true. He said to replace the color cartridge. I said, “No…filing a class action lawsuit will be much more fun!”
Riyad Kalla Says:
August 18th, 2009 at 8:40 am
Steve,

That’s unbelievable… the shenanigans these guys have been allowed to execute on the consumers is really surprising. But I guess that’s what always happens when corporations go unnoticed for years.
r Says:
September 24th, 2009 at 12:39 am
I am certainly interested in getting a class action suit against HP …. I am no lawyer … but I would provide all … and I mean ALL info that helps …. I filed complaints for BBB and HP called me just today … throwing b***s*** trying to “educate” me that I need to buy a new ink and I need to understand how it works. And totally disregarded the fact that ( my other 4 packs of ink is at 100% level while my yellow ink [ likely due to the "CHIP" malfuntioning] ends up a 0 % and refuse to print ) ….
So …. this cartridge would be a perfect example of a locking-mechanism …. and it should be good for evidence until it dry up in, what, like “right now” ? ( According to HP .. they said my ink has “dried up” …..which is certainly not ! .. and … I am saying the following cuz I think this would work.)

1. have the ink inspected by certified lab …. that the ink has same composition of a new ink …. ( in chemical formulas / chemical compositions ) … so that HP cannot say “they are trying to prevent BAD INK ruining your print head)
2. have the ink replaced with a brand-new purchased ink’s chip ( i.e buy a new ink just for its chip … to prove that the current ink is totally working, and it’s the chip that’s providing locking mechanism )

…. and I suppose these evidences should be very LOGICAL that HP is imposing a LOCK !
Bruce Says:
September 27th, 2009 at 9:10 am
Hewlett Packard fights back in a lawsuit against third party inkjet cartridges
bruce1953 Says:
October 16th, 2009 at 3:14 pm
I agree with all of the above, but by pursuing a law suit would only benefit the lawyers. I would prefer to stop doing business with these bastards. but are any of the other brands better? That would be my question to the group. To make matters a little more complicated I use a Mac. Any suggestions (other then buy a windows OS) would be gratefully appreciated.

Thanks,
Bruce

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