HP inks & corp policy...

John1999 said:

Being an electronics techician in the telecommunications industry
for a major corporation for almost 2 decades has given me exposure
to a wide variety of very expensive Hewlett-Packard test gear. For
the most part HP's equipment has worked fine with superb support
and documentation. If this is the new face of HP, then I think an
internal memo to our engineering and purchasing department may be
in order to caution them about any future procurement of HP
products!

Click to expand...

You realize, of course, that the test and measurement business was spun off as Agilent Technologies four years ago. The current HP (with the stupid "invent" subtitle) is predominantly a printer company, although it also sells high-end UNIX servers and manufactured-to-spec PCs.

The company that was founded by two first-rate engineers (Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard) is now run by a medieval historian (Carly Fiorina). As a former employee of HP and Agilent (17 years), I'm appalled by how far this once-great company has fallen.

Tony

.. gall is the fact that since I've had this printer over the past three years, I've only used HP cartridges - I've MORE than PAID FOR THAT DAMN PRINTER! by using their inks rather than generics or refills. You'd think their attitude would be: hey fix or replace her printer cause we'll get the money back out of her with the inks she's buying. But nooo, they'd rather take this approach so that if I have to replace it, I'll buy Canon or such, use Canon inks and boy have I got a big mouth for telling folks what to buy/not buy. Nikon has already about 15-18 camera sales at Henrys in Toronto due to people saying "you know about cameras, what should I buy?" When you give someone advice about a product, they listen more to "what happened to me" rather than "what I've read about that product". I've spoken to dozens of people in Costco ink aisle about using generic versus OEM inks - now my attitude will change and I'll steer them towards refills or generic cartridges. "Hey, if your printer is going to get wrecked by ink anyway and if they're not going to stand buy their own product, why give them the $73.99 for HP brand"???????? You might as well save your money and take the same chance with generic inks.

Oh by the way, I heard back from Carly Fiorina! "Thank you for your kind comments and feedback. (kind? what kind words?) We very much appreciate them. They have been forwarded to the appropriate people within Hewlett-Packard for their information or action. Should more clarification or information be needed, you may be contacted directly.

Your input is important to us and very much appreciated." If that isn't a robot-reply, nothing is!! LOL Time will tell on this...
--
Sandi http://www.pbase.com/sjackson
FCAS March Winner
'Too short alive, too long dead - live life!'

... in this case Sandra has not misuse the cartridge, nor install them in such a way as to damage it. She has the deskjet for years, and the cart 'behaved' in such a way that is beyond Sandra's control.

Rick K said:

Look at the back of a pack of any major brand of batteries. . .
Duracell:
"Should any device be damaged due to a battery defect, we will
repair or replace it at our option if it is sent with the
batteries..."
I don't see why HP should be any different. Leaking ink is
certainly not within the manufacturing tolerances of their product.
They should stand up and do the right thing.
Rick K

Click to expand...

--
fotografer

...the great paper chase! (see http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1003&message=5683956 )

... perhaps Carly IS an A.I. robot! I know she's supposed to be brillant (intelligent), but she is definitely ARTIFICIAL (hypotrical) in her apporach to 'bring HP back to its roots' - the litany she kept singing to us since she became the CEO in 1999! She is STILL singing the litany to the lower stuff (engineers and below) at this moment, I reckon...

Sandra Jackson said:

.. gall is the fact that since I've had this printer over the past
three years, I've only used HP cartridges - I've MORE than PAID FOR
THAT DAMN PRINTER! by using their inks rather than generics or
refills. You'd think their attitude would be: hey fix or replace
her printer cause we'll get the money back out of her with the inks
she's buying. But nooo, they'd rather take this approach so that if
I have to replace it, I'll buy Canon or such, use Canon inks and
boy have I got a big mouth for telling folks what to buy/not buy.
Nikon has already about 15-18 camera sales at Henrys in Toronto due
to people saying "you know about cameras, what should I buy?" When
you give someone advice about a product, they listen more to "what
happened to me" rather than "what I've read about that product".
I've spoken to dozens of people in Costco ink aisle about using
generic versus OEM inks - now my attitude will change and I'll
steer them towards refills or generic cartridges. "Hey, if your
printer is going to get wrecked by ink anyway and if they're not
going to stand buy their own product, why give them the $73.99 for
HP brand"???????? You might as well save your money and take the
same chance with generic inks.

Oh by the way, I heard back from Carly Fiorina! "Thank you for your
kind comments and feedback. (kind? what kind words?) We very much
appreciate them. They have been forwarded to the appropriate people
within Hewlett-Packard for their information or action. Should more
clarification or information be needed, you may be contacted
directly.
Your input is important to us and very much appreciated." If that
isn't a robot-reply, nothing is!! LOL Time will tell on this...

Click to expand...

--
fotografer

...the great paper chase! (see http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1003&message=5683956 )

I remembered her 100-day 'world' tour around all HP sites speaking to us employees about her 'back to the roots' approach. Brillant speeches. I thought then that there were many internal suplicates and excessess that needed 'trimming' and she was sharp in that she realised it and actually by August 2000 (the year I left did seem to have done some good job restoring the R&D department and the HP labs to inspire them not to be 'afraid' of innovation. Thus the 'silly' invent logo she changed from 'expanding possibilities'.

Then she gave a glowing speech about 'the people are the SOUL of the company', and that we must do it the 'HP way, but not as if we abuse this statement to mean we tolerate half-hearted attempts at achieving customer's satisfaction' or something along that line. At that time, even internally, since the ink cart manufacturing department is soooo huge, every process is like a company in itself with a section manager. Every one of our immediate process team are our customers and we had treated them as such, reporting our yield and quality control WEEKLY, inviting them to critique our manufacturing process/technique. Sharing with them any innovative way to improve the already high yield (over 98% most of the time) etc..

Now, she seemed to have relagated the support team (the SOUL of the company, since they are employees of HP as well!) into some soul-less robots, not daring to go over and beyond for a loyal customer! I know they have subcontract the support to India or some such place to have made their '24-hour' phone support service possible, but I am not sure if folks outside NA are getting the same sub-contracted personnels with below sub-standard service policies?

Sandra, do tell us if the names you heard from them were foreign to you or were they 'typical' Canadian names and they spoke with local accents?

Cerfcanuck said:

John1999 said:

Being an electronics techician in the telecommunications industry
for a major corporation for almost 2 decades has given me exposure
to a wide variety of very expensive Hewlett-Packard test gear. For
the most part HP's equipment has worked fine with superb support
and documentation. If this is the new face of HP, then I think an
internal memo to our engineering and purchasing department may be
in order to caution them about any future procurement of HP
products!

Click to expand...

You realize, of course, that the test and measurement business was
spun off as Agilent Technologies four years ago. The current HP
(with the stupid "invent" subtitle) is predominantly a printer
company, although it also sells high-end UNIX servers and
manufactured-to-spec PCs.

The company that was founded by two first-rate engineers (Bill
Hewlett and Dave Packard) is now run by a medieval historian (Carly
Fiorina). As a former employee of HP and Agilent (17 years), I'm
appalled by how far this once-great company has fallen.

Tony

Click to expand...

--
fotografer

...the great paper chase! (see http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1003&message=5683956 )

fotografer said:

... perhaps Carly IS an A.I. robot! I know she's supposed to be
brillant (intelligent), but she is definitely ARTIFICIAL
(hypotrical) in her apporach to 'bring HP back to its roots' - the
litany she kept singing to us since she became the CEO in 1999! She
is STILL singing the litany to the lower stuff (engineers and
below) at this moment, I reckon...

Click to expand...

The way things are going, there soon won't be "lower stuff" to sing to. Many of my former colleagues in HP were laid off over a year ago, presumably because their jobs were "offshored" to low-cost areas such as India and China.

The old HP really cared about its employees and was a great place to work. When times were tough and it was necessary to reorganize or shut down divisions, HP did its damnedest to find new work for its people (even to the extent of relocating them to other countries, as in my case).

To be honest, though, it may be impossible for any company to treat its employees the "old way"; even IBM is offshoring a lot of its work.

Bill and Dave must be rolling in their graves. :-(

Tony

Cerfcanuck said:

Bill and Dave must be rolling in their graves. :-(

Click to expand...

Unfortunately, Carly being a robot she is, is not afraid of spirits, I reckon. I think she makes a 'good' politician. I mean delivering glowing promises but not meeting them. There were even talks about her running the congress in some of her interviews I read in HP and most recently from a cnet broadcast internet interview.

If she becomes the next (and first) woman president of America, all I can say is 'GOOD LUCK, America!'

--
fotografer

...the great paper chase! (see http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1003&message=5683956 )

fotografer said:

Sandra, do tell us if the names you heard from them were foreign to
you or were they 'typical' Canadian names and they spoke with local
accents?

Click to expand...

Even this can be misleading. According to this article ( http://news.com.com/2100-1022_3-5068795.html?tag=lh ) some Indian call center workers are forced to use foreign names and foreign accents. If the call center workers use "eh?" at the end of each sentence, I'd be really suspicious, since most of us Canadians don't really talk like that; a better test would be to ask them what a "timbit" is.

Tony

Being in Canada though, it is quite customary to get people with accents! Very multicultural. First call to advise of problem, tech name was Chris, a guy with no accent. He was the guy who advised me that as long as I could prove I used their catridge and no refills, etc "I'd have no problem as it's our problem, not yours". Second call to follow up after I faxed my receipt was a woman, sounded like very young woman, with no accent. Third call after that call got cut off while she was getting an authorization number was to a guy with an accent - Middle Eastern, not Indian. This was the call where they said "no printer cleaning, just replacement cartridge". Fourth call last night to get info techs' names and times of calls - sounded Indian/Pakistani and when I asked the guy what time was on the call sheet for this call, he said 6:30pm. When I asked where are you located, he said "thats confidential", I advised I didn't want to know the exact address just the location as Toronto local time was 8:30pm. Him: Ontario. Me: well you can't be in Ontario and have a time different of 2 hours from Toronto. Him: well that's what the server says so maybe the server where this is stored is in a different location, he said it read 6:30 MT. I then advised him that this is "Mountain Time", which means Alberta probably. Interestingly enough, he also said that the name on the first call was not "a guy named Chris"! I asked if it was a woman's name, and he said "yes". That means that after the supervisor denied my claim, they went into their records and changed them!!! Naughty naughty naughty, that makes for very interesting argument in a lawsuit! I've got his name on the piece of paper where I scribbled the fax number which they wanted the receipt sent to! I have a paper trail. Don't f* k with an anal-retentive paper-pack-rat smart woman, she'll get ya every time!

fotografer said:

Sandra, do tell us if the names you heard from them were foreign to
you or were they 'typical' Canadian names and they spoke with local
accents?

Click to expand...

--
Sandi http://www.pbase.com/sjackson
FCAS March Winner
'Too short alive, too long dead - live life!'

Good one! This guy last evening didn't even understand what time zone codes are and that's international!! (and Standard Time was invented by a Canadian, by the way) First two techs were definitely Canadian.. third was accented, fourth didn't know time zones in Canada, specifically Ontario. Interesting..--
Sandi http://www.pbase.com/sjackson
FCAS March Winner
'Too short alive, too long dead - live life!'

Rick K said:

Rick K said:

Robert Schoner wrote:

Hi Sandra,

I know you won't like this but, no one in any industry that I am
aware of covers collateral damage; i.e. damage caused by product
failure over and above the cost of the damaged product.

Click to expand...

Look at the back of a pack of any major brand of batteries. . .
Duracell:
"Should any device be damaged due to a battery defect, we will
repair or replace it at our option if it is sent with the
batteries..."
I don't see why HP should be any different. Leaking ink is
certainly not within the manufacturing tolerances of their product.

Click to expand...

Rick,

You're right, I forgot about Duracell; but I think they are the exception. Another similar exception is the unlimited warranty of the Zippo lighter (everyone else gives a limited warranty) ; no receipt or anything necessary, just send in the lighter (even if it was run over by a truck).

In these cases Duracell and Zippo state their policy clearly and use it as a maketing advantage. What does the HP ink cart say; I'm at work and don't have one?

Hope no one takes this the wrong way, I encourage Sandra to keep going. But, sometimes it helps to understand where the other party is coming from. A marketing guy once said you don't get what you deserve, you get what you can negotiate. If she keeps at it she may be successful. There was a thread a while back about a guy that got a printer replaced from Canon even though it was out of warranty. Things like this happen to keep up a company's good will.

If she is successful it will be interesting to see how HP words the rebate or whatever they decide to do.

Bob Schoner

Called their legal department this morning. Assistant called back and asked for all the details of the case. I advised I'm not taking the route of warranty service on the printer, I'm taking the route of "your product damaged my property". She understood this! She is going to investigate it and will call me back tomorrow. I did tell her that it will be very interesting if it goes to a legal situation that the tech notes have been changed from the time they admitted liability until the time they denied service for the problem. "as these notes shall be called into play in a legal matter, changing them will be a very serious thing for the company to have done and it will not be viewed favourably". That got attention. I'm a-thinkin' I'm-a gonna get either a printer-bath or a new printer but I think now they know Sandi's not going away!! LOL Didn't drop the bomb yet that this case is being followed on a printer website that gets over 8,000,000 unique visitors a month!! LOL

--
Sandi http://www.pbase.com/sjackson
FCAS March Winner
'Too short alive, too long dead - live life!'

Had high end VCR, kept having a jamming problem, in and out of service dept while under 3 yr warranty. Still kept having same problem even after warranty period. Finally spoke to head technician who asked "what will it take to make you happy?" Me: New high VCR, I give you $100 (they were around $600 at the time). Him: Why give me $100? Me: cause I'll get an even better one with more features, another 3 year warranty so it's only fair. Him: SOLD!!! We'll deliver it tomorrow and we'll pick up the old one and the $100. We actually want to get the old one back so we can tear it apart in the lab here and find out what's wrong! THAT's customer service!

I advised the assistant from the legal department at HP that I thought they'd be very interested in a cartridge that's leaking out the seams, not the bottom! since this is sold via Costco and they might have a LOT of claims on their hands!

--
Sandi http://www.pbase.com/sjackson
FCAS March Winner
'Too short alive, too long dead - live life!'

Sandra,

There is a while back that there were counterfeit carts 'manufacturers' that tried to pass off as the real thing. These are not third party refills with a reputation to protect. They look just like real carts with the 'original' packaing. Some Epson halograms are even faithfully reproduced.

What happened, according to PCMag (online), is that large superstores were lured by the ultra low discounted prices for ordering huge quantities and their seeing the carts looking so real, some bigwigs are actually fooled.

Your mentioning that the carts leaked at the seams is very, VERY, unusual. Normally the weakest link (and the most difficult to manufacture) is the nozzle plates, and when nozzle plates fall off, if the pressure is 'right' and the back pressure is somehow 'gone', ink can leak downwards, causing a mess. Leaking from the seams seemed very unlikely and suspicious, since the no.45 cart (the black you use for your 932) is hermetically sealed and the side 'wielded' to ensure the backpressure is sustained in the carts for normal ink capping and retain its integrity even if you move the ink carts and printer in high altitude, such as people using mobile printers on planes.

BUT, when all is said and done, HP should be VERY concerned that such a strange incident happened, and should be intrigued to look further into the matter, while at the same time, easily replace the damaged printer to a loyal customer who has been using only original carts from the start.

They are not only loosing the goodwill, they are loosing the cow-sense to investigate further why such a bizarre occurance could happen with their no.45 cart and determine if indeed countefeiteers are striking them again...

Sandra Jackson said:

Had high end VCR, kept having a jamming problem, in and out of
service dept while under 3 yr warranty. Still kept having same
problem even after warranty period. Finally spoke to head
technician who asked "what will it take to make you happy?" Me: New
high VCR, I give you $100 (they were around $600 at the time).
Him: Why give me $100? Me: cause I'll get an even better one with
more features, another 3 year warranty so it's only fair. Him:
SOLD!!! We'll deliver it tomorrow and we'll pick up the old one and
the $100. We actually want to get the old one back so we can tear
it apart in the lab here and find out what's wrong! THAT's
customer service!

I advised the assistant from the legal department at HP that I
thought they'd be very interested in a cartridge that's leaking out
the seams, not the bottom! since this is sold via Costco and they
might have a LOT of claims on their hands!

Click to expand...

--
fotografer

...the great paper chase! (see http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1003&message=5683956 )

Sandra Jackson said:

Called their legal department this morning. Assistant called back
and asked for all the details of the case. I advised I'm not
taking the route of warranty service on the printer, I'm taking the
route of "your product damaged my property". She understood this!
She is going to investigate it and will call me back tomorrow. I
did tell her that it will be very interesting if it goes to a legal
situation that the tech notes have been changed from the time they
admitted liability until the time they denied service for the
problem. "as these notes shall be called into play in a legal
matter, changing them will be a very serious thing for the company
to have done and it will not be viewed favourably". That got
attention. I'm a-thinkin' I'm-a gonna get either a printer-bath or
a new printer but I think now they know Sandi's not going away!!
LOL Didn't drop the bomb yet that this case is being followed on
a printer website that gets over 8,000,000 unique visitors a
month!! LOL

--
Sandi http://www.pbase.com/sjackson
FCAS March Winner
'Too short alive, too long dead - live life!'

Click to expand...

--
fotografer

...the great paper chase! (see http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1003&message=5683956 )

Sandra Jackson said:

I advised the assistant from the legal department at HP that I
thought they'd be very interested in a cartridge that's leaking out
the seams, not the bottom! since this is sold via Costco and they
might have a LOT of claims on their hands!

Click to expand...

Sandra,

Now you may have something. If there are others out there HP has a mfg or quality problem and they're into recall areas. Also, see Fotografer's post about counterfeit. If I may suggest, keep pushing on the possibility of a larger problem; a little leverage never hurts. This what I meant when I said it helps to understand where the other guy is coming from.

Good Luck,

Bob Schoner

...TIMBIT?!?! Some special Canadian slang?

Cerfcanuck said:

Even this can be misleading. According to this article
( http://news.com.com/2100-1022_3-5068795.html?tag=lh ) some Indian
call center workers are forced to use foreign names and foreign
accents. If the call center workers use "eh?" at the end of each
sentence, I'd be really suspicious, since most of us Canadians
don't really talk like that; a better test would be to ask them
what a "timbit" is.

Tony

Click to expand...

--
fotografer

...the great paper chase! (see http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1003&message=5683956 )

It's a small furry animal that burrows only in the roots of Canadian Maple trees, very difficult to find, very few people have ever seen it, there are some photographs of it, but none very sharp and clear. It's a distant cousin to the Yetti which is larger in size.

Seriously, it's the donut hole dough at Tim Horton's Donuts that is deep fried and used and sugared, just like a donut. They're the size you can pop in your mouth (well, guys' mouths that is!) and you can get a box of about 30-40 and drive the secretaries dileriously happy on Friday mornings! LOL

fotografer said:

...TIMBIT?!?! Some special Canadian slang?

--

Click to expand...

Sandi http://www.pbase.com/sjackson
FCAS March Winner
'Too short alive, too long dead - live life!'

Sandra,

Earlier, I said PCMag, it's actually an article from PCWorld. Here's the link that might interest you: http://www.pcworld.com/resource/printable/article/0,aid,111319,00.asp .

Don't take too seriously about their linking counterfeiteers to terrorism, though. LOL

--
fotografer

...the great paper chase! (see http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1003&message=5683956 )

Is this the first one or the second that is rightly called TIMBIT? Gosh, I feel like I am playing Jeopardy!

Sandra Jackson said:

It's a small furry animal that burrows only in the roots of
Canadian Maple trees, very difficult to find, very few people have
ever seen it, there are some photographs of it, but none very sharp
and clear. It's a distant cousin to the Yetti which is larger in
size.

Seriously, it's the donut hole dough at Tim Horton's Donuts that is
deep fried and used and sugared, just like a donut. They're the
size you can pop in your mouth (well, guys' mouths that is!) and
you can get a box of about 30-40 and drive the secretaries
dileriously happy on Friday mornings! LOL

Click to expand...

--
fotografer

...the great paper chase! (see http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1003&message=5683956 )