My new Canon PIXMA MP830 multifunction printer (copy / scan / fax / print) arrived yesterday. I set it up this morning and gave it a whirl. The six photos I printed were all perfect: good colors, fine detail, and no sign of streaking due to misfiring ink jets.

I showed them to my wife, who declared that the prints from the C5280 were better. I’m not sure what planet she is living on, but at least I have a better understanding of why HP has been able to sell the poor C5280 to so many people and convince them that they were getting good photo prints out of it.

The one complaint I have about the MP830, at least so far, is that it is significantly bigger than the C5280. On the other hand, the MP830 has several significant features that the C5280 does not, including two-sided scanning and printing and a built-in fax machine (which we are not using fight now, but probably will eventually). Another big advantage of the MP830 is that it has separate ink tanks for each color, which means that you don’t end up wasting two colors of ink in a tri-color cartridge when the third color runs out.

Today, I received a FedEx from HP with not four labels, or even three labels, but just one label, and of course no check.

I just sent this email:

Ms. [elided],

Not only did I not receive four FedEx labels to enable me to send back all three printers and a box containing the photo paper and ink cartridges I don’t want, I actually received via FedEx today only one FedEx label, and no check.

To be clear: I will not consider this matter resolved and notify the court that the small claims case can be dismissed until (a) I’ve received a check for $600 from HP, and (b) I’ve received EITHER three FedEx labels to send back the printers and a written assurance from you that you don’t want the paper and cartridges returned, OR four FedEx labels so that I can send back the paper, cartridges, and printers.

Thank you,

  Jonathan Kamens

It’s amazing that they can’t even lose properly.

I’m leaning toward the Canon PIXMA MP830.

Any comments about Canon printers in general or this one in particular?

I’m going to be smart this time and not believe any of the hype about the quality of its photo printing. If it prints decent prints, great, but if not, we’ll just use it for everything else and use CVS or one of the other local places when we need prints.

Shortly after filing the suit, I faxed a copy of the filing to my HP case manager.

On May 22, someone from HP called to discuss the filing. My wife told her to send me email, which she did. I did not have time to call her back or respond to her email before today.

She called me again today, June 4. She said she wanted to try to resolve the matter without going to court, and I said I would love to do that. I told her that the only reason I ended up filing suit was because my case manager had refused to send FedEx to pick up the printers and supplies, which would have cost HP only $16 more than they had already agreed to spend to buy back the printers.

She agreed immediately to refund the approximately $400 I’d paid for the printer, supplies, and small claims filing fee, and to send FedEx to pick up all the boxes from my house.

I told her I appreciated the offer, and although it would have been good enough before I’d been forced to file suit against HP, it was no longer sufficient. I told her she was going to have to offer me some compensation for the ten hours I’d wasted on this problem, and that if it went to court, I’d be able to easily prove false advertising and win triple damages.

She offered me another $200, and I accepted.

Here’s the email I received from her a few minutes later:

Dear Mr. Kamens:

Hewlett Packard values each of its customer relationships. It is unfortunate that you have had a less than satisfactory experience concerning HP’s equipment.

HP is pleased that we have been able to resolve the issue that has arisen concerning your HP equipment in a way that is acceptable to us both. Specifically, HP has agreed to a settlement of $600.00. You in turn have agreed to return three HP Photosmart C5280 printers (Fed Ex labels will be sent to you) and accept this remedy in full satisfaction of any claim you might have and have agreed to release HP from further responsibility relating to this problem without the need for you or HP to determine whether HP is at fault. HP does not make any admission of liability concerning this matter but values your business and wishes to retain you as a customer.

You agree to dismiss with prejudice the above-captioned complaint and agree that this document constitutes a full release to the above-captioned lawsuit or any other lawsuit or action based on the transaction described in this letter.

If this letter does not accurately reflect your understanding of the resolution of this matter, please contact us immediately at elided or email elided@hp.com so that we may resolve any misunderstanding. If this letter accurately reflects our agreement, please respond with your agreement or sign and return a copy of this letter via fax or US mail.

Again, we are pleased that we could help you resolve this problem, and we hope that you will continue to be a satisfied HP customer.

Very truly yours,

elided
Executive Customer Relations Group

Now we just have to wait and see if the FedEx labels and $600 check show up.

3:48pm: My case manager left voicemail asking me to fax him copies of my receipts.

4:59pm: I faxed the receipts.

5:30pm: My case manager called.  He agreed to refund my money.  However…

Apparently unwilling to go down without a fight, he informed me that he would be unable to refund the sales tax on my purchases.  I informed him that since I was returning the products to the company from which I had purchased them, it was in fact illegal to refuse to refund the sales tax; that I was done negotiating with him on his terms and it was his term to negotiate with me on mine; and that if he needed to get someone to authorize him to refund the sales tax, he’d better go ahead and do that, because otherwise I was just going to go ahead and sue HP as I explained in my letter.  He put me on hold for a minute and then came back and agreed to refund the sales tax.

However, because he apparently just couldn’t resist trying to make this experience as bad as possible for me in every respect, he informed me that I would have to take the two replacement printers to a FedEx drop-off location, although he would send a pick-up label for the original printer.  I once again informed him that I was no longer interested in negotiating on his terms, and that he was either going to send me labels to have all the items being returned picked up from my home at HP’s expense, or I would be filing suit against HP in thirty days.

He again informed me that he was not going to authorize home pick-up for the two replacement printers, at which point I cut him off, told him that I was finished discussing the issue, he had my terms in writing, and he should get back to me when he was ready to abide by them.

He called back a few minutes later, but I ignored his call and deleted his voicemail without listening to it.  I then sent the following letter by fax:

Case #__________

April 14, 2008

I will no longer discuss this issue on the telephone.  If you call and I answer, I will hang up.  If you leave messages, I will ignore them.  I am finished arguing with you on the telephone.

You may correspond with me in writing via mail to __ ___ Street, ___, __ _____-____; email to jik@alum.mit.edu; or fax to ___-___-____.

As I explained in my letter, I expect the three printers, cartridges and photo paper to be picked up from my home at HP’s expense, and I expect to be refunded for their full purchase price, including sales tax, as shown in the receipts I faxed to you earlier today.

I will not allow any of these items to leave my possession until I have written confirmation from you that I will receive a refund of the full amount, $354.78.  Please note that the total in my last letter was incorrect due to an error, as you can confirm by adding up the totals on the receipts.

It’s outrageous that you attempted, in violation of the law, to refuse to refund the sales tax I paid to HP.

It’s outrageous that you refused to send a delivery service to pick up all the packages from my house.  After wasting more than nine hours of my time, do you really think it’s worth tarnishing HP’s image even further by refusing to pay $16 to pick up the four packages (three printers, plus a fourth box with the cartridges and paper)?

The fact that HP has resorted to customer “support” whose goal is clearly not to make customers happy, but rather to eke every possible penny out of every customer interaction, is yet another proof of the depths to which HP has fallen.  I have used HP products for over two decades.  I remember when it wasn’t like this.  What a disappointment.

When you are ready to pick up the packages and refund my $354.78, you may send four pickup-authorized return labels to the address listed above, along with written confirmation that I will receive a refund of $354.78 within 30 days of when the returned items are delivered to you.  There is no reason to contact me again if you are not prepared to do this.

You have thirty days to comply before I file suit against HP.

Don’t waste your time or mine attempting to contact me again by telephone.

Sincerely,

Jonathan Kamens

April 14, 2008

Hewlett-Packard
Fax: ___-___-____

Ref: HP case manager ID # __________ (previously __________)

To whom it may concern:

This is a demand letter as required by Chapter 93a of the General Laws of Massachusetts.

In August 2007, I purchased an HP C5280 All-In-One unit directly from HP, via the HP Shopping Web site.

My primary reason for purchasing this unit was to be able to produce high-quality digital prints at home.

The unit has failed to produce a single high-quality digital print since the day I bought it, despite many attempts.

Every single print produced by the unit has visible streaks across the entire print, because some of the ink jets in the photo ink cartridge are not working properly. Every single self-test page produced by the unit has visible gaps in the test patterns for the photo cartridges, thus visibly and obviously confirming that some of the ink jets in the photo cartridges are not working properly.

HP case managers have sent me two replacement units which are still in my possession. Neither of them has solved the problem. They have sent me several replacement ink cartridges. None of them has solved the problem. They have sent me new photo paper. It did not solve the problem.

I have tried cleaning the ink cartridges using the C5280’s setup menu. I have tried cleaning the ink cartridges as instructed by HP technical support engineers. I have tried cleaning the contacts on the ink cartridges and inside the printer as described on the HP Web site. None of this has helped. Frankly, if it did help, that would indicate an absurdly unreliable printer and ink cartridges, since these problems have occurred with brand new cartridges and new and newly refurbished C5280 units.

I have wasted over nine hours of my time troubleshooting this issue, setting up replacement units, and testing replacement units and ink cartridges. I have also wasted a huge amount of ink from working ink cartridges (since a possibly defective cartridge cannot be tested without using ink from a working cartridge at the same time); paper used to print alignment and self-test pages; and photo paper.

The HP Web site claims that the C5280 produces “lab-quality snapshots.” Every single print the C5280 has produced for me has been visibly and obviously inferior to a print of the same digital images produced at my neighborhood drug store. This would be true even if the C5280 were working perfectly – even aside from the streaks, the prints produced by the C5280 are visibly inferior to the drug-store prints. The claim of “lab-quality snapshots” is therefore false advertising, which is illegal under Massachusetts law.

The HP Web site also claims that the C5280 comes with a “one-year warranty,” but clearly HP does not actually honor that warranty, because HP’s case managers have been unable to resolve my problem and yet have repeatedly refused to take back my original C5280 unit, the two replacement units, and all of the photo paper and ink cartridges I have purchased directly from HP and refund my money.

I have also asked repeatedly for an HP technician to be dispatched to my house to resolve the problem on-site, since my case managers’ attempts to resolve the problem through remote troubleshooting have failed and have therefore done nothing but waste my time. This request has also been repeatedly refused.

In short, HP has engaged in false advertising of the C5280, has sold me a defective product, has failed to address the defect, and has refused to refund my money.

Here are your options for resolving this problem to my satisfaction:

1. Send a trained HP printer technician to my house to troubleshoot and resolve the issue. If the technician is unable to resolve the issue in a single visit, he must leave with my original C5280 unit, the two replacement units, and all of the ink cartridges and photo paper I purchased from HP, and present to me before he leaves a check for $285.64 to fully reimburse me for the purchase cost of all of these items.

2. Mail me a refund check for $285.64 and send a delivery service to my home at your expense to pick up the three printer units and all of the ink cartridges and photo paper. Please note: I will not allow any of these items to be picked up to be returned to HP until I have the refund check in my hand.

3. Mail me a refund check for $285.64 and confirm in writing that you do not want back the three printer units or supplies, and I will dispose of them myself.

If you are unable to resolve this problem to my satisfaction within thirty days, I will have no choice but to file suit against HP to recover not only the $285.64 I’ve spent trying to print photos with the C5280, but also $___ in compensation for the time I’ve spent trying to resolve this problem, plus the $40 small-claims filing fee, plus triple damages for HP’s multiple violations of M.G.L. Chapter 93a, for a total of $_,___.__ plus interest.

In addition, I will find every single Web site on the Internet which discusses the C5280 and allows users to post their own reviews, and I will post a review on every single one summarizing my terrible experience and giving the C5280 the lowest possible rating.

This letter and all previous documentation of my problem with the C5280 are fully documented at http://blog.kamens.brookline.ma.us/tag/c5280/.

I look forward to your prompt response.

Sincerely,

Jonathan Kamens

C5280 print	CVS print

The CVS print was produced by an instant-print kiosk, not by the big honkin’ machine behind the counter. If I’d hung around longer and used the big machine, the print would be even better than this one.

What you should notice is that the C5280 print has vertical stripes spaced evenly across the entire print. These stripes are caused by ink jets that are not firing properly. Every single ink cartridge I tried in the C5280 had misfiring ink jets. The problem persisted with three different C5280 units.

In addition, the CVS print is much sharper and has much more uniform colors. Even if the ink jets weren’t misfiring, the quality of the C5280 print would clearly be inferior. Here’s what HP has to say about the C5280 on their Web site: “Get lab-quality snapshots that resist fading for generations with optional six-ink color”. While I wasn’t really expecting this printer that to produce “lab-quality snapshots”, that’s what HP claims it’ll do, and that’s clearly false advertising.

I just spoke once again to my guy “Steve” at the Hewlett Packard case manager line. He says that since we’ve tried replacing the printer and ink cartridges and it hasn’t helped, we need to try replacing the paper. He’s supposedly sending me a new package of photo paper.

This, despite the fact that I’ve seen the problem consistently on multiple kinds of paper produced and purchased in different lots, including on a brand new box of genuine HP glossy photo paper which was sealed until I opened it last night immediately before testing the third printer he had sent me.

I asked him for the second time to send a technician to my house to solve the problem, since troubleshooting it remotely clearly has not worked. He once again refused.

I asked him to send FedEx to take back the printers, ink and photo paper I bought from HP and give me my money back. He refused. He told me that if I wanted my money back, I would have to go the merchant from whom I bought the printer. When I told him that I bought the printer, the photo paper and the ink cartridges directly from HP at hpshopping.com, he told me that I would have to speak to hpshopping.com about a refund. Um, hello, the reason why I bought everythin directly from HP is because I assumed that HP would support it!

I asked if there was anyone else to whom I could speak who would be able to do more. He said no.

I asked for the telephone number of HP’s executive complaints department. He said I could get it from the HP Web site, and they would just refer the case back to him.

I asked how I could file a warranty claim against the printer, which is within its warranty period and remains defective despite HP’s best efforts to fix it, and he said that HP does not give refunds and the only thing he could do is send me a package of photo paper to see if that solves the problem.

I’ve spent $285.64 on the printer, ink, and photo paper I purchased from HP. At this point, all I want is for HP to give me back my money and take back their printers, ink cartridges, and paper.

Hewlett Packard used to be such an amazing company. It’s such a shame that they are no longer.

When I started trying to print photos, which was the primary use for which I purchased this printer, the photo quality was abysmal. My attempts to get HP to do something about it met with a great deal of difficulty.

Since my last blog posting on this, I have dealt with two HP escalation engineers. I have on numerous occasions been promised call-backs which never came. HP has sent me two replacement printers, for a total of three printers I’ve tried, and numerous color and photo ink cartridges, for a total of seven cartridges I’ve tried. I have wasted around seven hours of my time, countless sheets of paper, countless 4×6 photo sheets, and countless ink on alignment pages, test pages and prints.

None of this has helped. Every single alignment page I’ve printed has shown gaps in some of the patterns. Every single self-test page I’ve printed has shown missing lines in the test grids. Every single photo I’ve printed has shown uniformly spaced lines across the entire photo.

To confirm that it’s the printer, not the photo, which is at fault, I’ve made a print from an SD card with the C5280, and then taken exactly the same SD card over to CVS and made the same size print of the same exact image. The print from CVS looks great; and the prints from the C5280 are garbage. Anyone who knows anything about inkjet printers can tell immediately from looking at the prints that some of the jets are not working properly. And let me repeat — this has happened with three different printers and seven different ink cartridges.

Lest you think I’m making this up, here’s a scan (100 DPI, blown up a bit so you can see it better) of a small section of the best print I’ve been able to generate from the various printers and ink cartridges I’ve tried.

Here’s the same section of the photo at 400 DPI, so you can better see the lines (I included the 100 DPI scan first to show how obvious they are — if you can see them in a 100 DPI scan, then they are surely easily visible to the naked eye):

The vertical lines you see are clearly visible in the actual physical prints — they are not scanner artifacts. As I mentioned above, this is the best of all the test prints — the lines are even more obvious and annoying in all the others.

The HP engineers with whom I’ve spoken have told me repeatedly that the problem I’m experiencing is highly atypical and they can’t explain why I’m having it. I find that somewhat hard to believe, given that the problem has persisted through three printers and seven ink cartridges.

Furthermore, if the same customer called over and over again about a problem which they’d never seen before, do you really think they’d send that customer five replacement ink cartridges and two replacement printers without so much as asking for a credit card number to ensure that all the printers but one would be returned?

Also, at no time during this ordeal has any HP employee asked to see sample output from the printer that shows the problem I’m trying to solve. It hardly seems likely that they would be willing to send all these replacements without any proof of an actual problem. Rather, it seems likely that the problem I’m experiencing is far more common than they’ve admitted.

Before HP sent me the third printer, I asked them to stop wasting my time, and instead send an HP service technician to my house to solve the problem. They refused. Tomorrow, I’m going to call HP again. This time, I’m going to demand one of the following:

1. Send an HP service technician to my house. If the technician cannot solve the problem, take back the three printers, all the photo cartridges, and all the photo paper I’ve purchased, all of it directly from HP, and give me a full refund for all of it.
2. Send FedEx at HP’s expense to pick up the printers, cartridges and photo paper and give me a full refund.

We’ll see what happens.

January 18, 2008

Mark Hurd, CEO
Hewlett-Packard
3000 Hanover Street
Palo Alto, CA 04304

Dear Mr. Hurd,

HP’s customer support organization has failed me. I am tired of wasting my time navigating through complicated telephone menus, talking to people who are incapable of solving my problem, and waiting for promised return telephone calls that never come. I am writing to ask you to solve my problem, as well as to address the systemic problems which have prevented my problem from being solved through normal channels.

My current problem in brief

I have two defective #99 photo cartridges, one which I purchased directly from HP in September and one which was sent recently as a replacement but turned out to be defective as well. I was told over a week ago that a case related to my problem (#[elided]) has been escalated and someone would call me back to resolve it, but no one has contacted me and I am thus unable to use my HP C5280 printer for the most important thing for which I purchased it, i.e., printing photos. I want a working photo cartridge, I want it now, and I want to be reimbursed for the 30 pages of 8.5×11 paper, the 15 4×6 photo sheets, and the ink I’ve wasted from the good print cartridges when printing out test pages while trying to debug the defective ones.

The whole story

On December 26, 2007, I ordered two inkjet print cartridges from the HP Home & Home Office Store (order #[elided]). When they arrived and I tried to use the cartridges, I discovered that one of them (#75XL) was defective. I was at the same time trying to use a brand-new photo cartridge (#99) that I had purchased on September 30, 2007 (order #[elided]), and it, too, turned out to be defective.

I cleaned the cartridges, realigned them, and printed many self-test pages with them. The test grids on the self-test pages showed multiple gaps for both of the defective cartridges, thus confirming that not all of the jets were inking properly. Furthermore, when I tried the other 75XL cartridge and the black 74XL cartridge I had ordered, the worked just fine, so it was clear that the issue was with the cartridges rather than the printer.

After performing all of these troubleshooting steps to confirm that the problem was with the cartridges rather than with the printer, I contacted your support organization through your on-line chat service. I was connected, of course, to one of your moronic off-shore Indian support “engineers” who don’t have a clue about anything and wouldn’t know a defective print cartridge if it bit them on the ass.

I told the guy right at the start exactly what the problem was and exactly what troubleshooting steps I’d done to confirm that the cartridges were defective. I told him right up-front that I had no desire or intention to have my time wasted going through his absurd script of troubleshooting steps, some of which would be completely irrelevant and the rest I’d already done.

Nevertheless, he made me align the cartridges (already done), clean them (already done), print self-test pages (already done), and perform soft and hard resets on the printer (irrelevant). I wasted over an hour of my time, over and above the hours I’d already wasted troubleshooting the cartridges on my own. I finally got so fed up that I put my foot down and said no to the last pointless exercise that he told me to perform, and told him that he needed to either replace my defective cartridges or escalate my case to someone with a clue who could authorize the replacement.

At that point he informed me that he would authorize replacements for both defective cartridges. And indeed, the next day I received email confirming that a new 75XL cartridge was being shipped to me.

Oddly, however, I did not receive any email about the defective 99 cartridge. The reason for this became clear about a week later, when I received a phone call from an obviously American woman at HP to whom the case of my defective 99 cartridge had apparently been escalated (note that I had been told by the engineer with whom I chatted that a replacement 99 cartridge would be sent to me, not that he was going to have to escalate my case).

I want to take a slight detour and remark that my distinction between American and Indian support engineers is not rooted in racism, but rather in my personal experience and the experience of everyone else I know that the offshore support provided from India for products of all kinds is universally horrendously bad. I say a silently prayer of thanks every time I contact a support organization and the voice at the other end has an American accent. I will never understand why any company that actually cares about its customers would provide such outrageously bad customer support.

Returning to my narrative… The fact that I was told that a replacement cartridge would be sent when instead my case was escalated is completely unacceptable. The fact that it took many days for someone to actually call me about the escalated case is also completely unacceptable.

In any case, the woman with whom I spoke was very friendly. When I quickly explained that the self-test page from my printer was showing gaps for the 99 cartridge and that I had realigned and cleaned the cartridges and power-cycled the printer to no avail, she said she had no idea why the first engineer with whom I had chatted had not authorized a replacement cartridge, and agreed to send me one immediately.

The cartridge arrived a few days later. I found it sitting in a shipping box on my porch in 10-degree weather. This concerned me, since the wrapper on the cartridge says that it should be kept below 59 degrees. My concern was apparently justified, since when I opened the new cartridge and tried it out, it showed gaps on the self-test page similar to the gaps from the first cartridge.

This prompted me to wonder whether the problems I had had with the first cartridge as well as with the 75XL cartridge might have also been caused by low-temperature conditions, a possibility which I mentioned when I yet again contacted your customer support organization, this time by a telephone to 800-HP-INVENT.

I told the entire story to the Indian (damn!) support engineer to whom I was connected, and then I told the entire story again to the second Indian (damn!) suppor engineer to whom the first apparently felt compelled to escalate the case. They said that given that two cartridges in a row had failed to work properly, they were concerned that perhaps the printer itself was at fault, so they were going to have to escalate the case to specialists for further action. They gave me the case number mentioned above, [elided], and assured me that someone would contact me the next day about my case. It is now over a week later and I have not been contacted.

I’ve been working in the computer industry for over twenty years. For many years I have been telling people not to buy anything but an HP printer, that HP printers are far and away the best on the market and that they support them well. My faith in HP’s printers and printer support were shaken when I first purchased this printer, for reasons about which I wrote to you through your Web site (see http://blog.kamens.brookline.ma.us/~jik/wordpress/?p=100 for the details). You never responded to that letter, which further eroded my confidence that HP cares about its customers and does what it takes to support them properly. My experiences described above are just about the last nail in the coffin, as far as I’m concerned. The fact that I’ve now been sent three defective print cartridges in short order means that I can no longer count on your products to be of adequate quality, and the fact that trying to get the problem resolved has been such a hellish experience means that I can no longer count on HP to adequately support its products.

I honestly don’t know what I’m going to advise my friends, family and company in the future about printer purchases, but I’m pretty sure if I say anything about HP, it’ll be accompanied by a strong warning that if anything goes wrong, they should expect to have to go through hell to get it fixed.

There’s just one more thing I want to point out. I assume that you want people to buy their print cartridges directly from you because the cartridges are where the real money is in inkjet printers and because your profit margin is higher if customers buy direct. Please consider the fact that if I had bought the defective cartridges from the Staples less than a mile from my house, I could have taken them back there with my receipt and in five minutes exchanged them for new cartridges. If you want to encourage people to buy cartridges directly from you, then you had sure as hell better find a way to make it less painful for them to exchange defective ones.

Sincerely,

Jonathan Kamens