HP Printer Ink & Toner Scam
We love HP printers, but their latest printers are showing they are out of ink or toner and will not print another page until the ink or toner is changed when in fact, there is a significant amount of ink or toner remaining! What a scam! Read on!

November 2009

Urgent Notice to all valued Hot Link Data customers about Hewlett Packard Printers.

fraud, n.

1. A deception deliberately practiced in order to secure unfair or unlawful gain.
2. A piece of trickery; a trick.
3. a. One that defrauds; a cheat. b. One who assumes a false pose; an impostor.

It’s no secret that printer companies often don’t make any money off the actual initial printer sale. The supplies (like ink or toner) are where they make their millions. That's all fine and good, but for goodness sake, don't tell me I need to replace my toner or ink before I actually need to!

Several HP printer owners have reported to us that their printers are reporting they are out of ink or toner and the customer KNOWS it just can't be true. One HP customer wrote "When all three of my cyan, magenta, and yellow cartridges in my HP Laserjet 2605 ran out of toner simultaneously (i.e., on the same page), I was immediately suspicious. The printer’s LCD flashed “Replace Supplies” and refused to print another page (even grayscale!) unless I replaced all three cartridges."

His suspicion was confirmed when he pulled the yellow cartridge and realized it was almost full. As it turns out, the printer ticks a counter every time a page is run through the printer, which has nothing to do with how much toner is actually consumed.

Thankfully, there is a printer setting that HP probably doesn’t want you to know about.

How to use ALL of the toner in your HP Laserjet 2605 or 2600
1.On the printer itself, hit the big green checkmark button to access the menu.
2.Select System Setup -> Print Quality -> Replace Supplies.
3.There is likely an asterisk (*) beside “Stop at out”.
4.Hit the > arrow once, and the display should read “Override out”.
5.Press the checkmark to confirm that (the asterisk should now be beside “Override out”).
6.Back out of the menu. The LCD should now display “Override in use”, meaning, you can now continue printing for as long as you actually have toner in the cartridges (and beyond, probably).
Thank you HP, for providing this “feature”, and for burying four levels into a completely non-obvious menu. I guess they had to call it “Print quality”, because “Not paying triple on already overpriced toner” wouldn’t fit on the LCD. Now we know how they turn a healthy profit on their oh-so-green cartridge recycling program. (”It’s free!”)

HP does describe this feature on their knowledge base. Just try Googling "HP override out" They also strongly recommend against using it, because it may cause “Color matching and other print quality defects related to the absent(sic) of a color.” Ha! Who would have thought. Oh, and–better yet–this feature voids the warranty on the toner you were about to throw out send to HP for recycling anyway.

Please feel free to send your friends and family a link to this article.