14 DAY TRIAL // A Dutch company selling private label ink cartridges claims HP included a preconfigured failure date for some HP printers that prevents the devices from using non-HP ink cartridges.
The company, 1234inkt, discovered the problem on September 13, 2016, when a large number of its customers called to complain that their 123inkt ink cartridges stopped functioning.
An in-depth investigation of the issue revealed that only HP printers were affected, and all started having problems on the same day, out of the blue.
123inkt says HP lied when it blamed the issue on a firmware update
While HP Netherlands wasn't able to provide an immediate response for why HP printers started having problems with non-HP ink cartridges, the company said a day later that it was because of a firmware update.
But there was a problem with its explanation. 123inkt had received reports of malfunctioning printers from companies that had not connected these printers to the Internet and couldn't have received this update.
After further investigations, 123inkt discovered that HP had not released any firmware update for any of the affected printers since March 2016.
"Therefore, 123inkt.nl's conclusion is that the problem is not the result of a recent update, but of the manner in which printer firmware has been programmed some time ago," the Dutch reseller writes in its report. "HP's statement that the problem is caused by a recent firmware update is in our opinion incorrect and misleading."
HP's explanation didn't hold water
Their theory that the HP firmware contained a pre-programmed date after which the printers started failing was reinforced after hundreds of users from all over the world started complaining about the same behavior on HP's support forum, also on September 13.
Seeing that this little incident was slowly turning into a media disaster, HP issued a statement through Dutch TV station NOS admitting that some non-HP ink cartridges will not work anymore with HP printers.
The company says that only HP and some non-HP ink cartridges that contain a special security chip will work from now on with some of its printers. The company justified this decision by saying the chip ensures better data transfer security between the printer and the ink cartridge, but that it also "protect[s] innovation and intellectual property."
HP says that only OfficeJet, OfficeJet Pro and OfficeJet Pro X print models currently block non-HP printers. Companies that want to go around this failure point should downgrade their printer's firmware to a version released in 2014 (123inkt recommendation).
