HP accused of printer sabotage by Dutch ink vendor

123inkt claims to have received 'more than a thousand' complaints after third-party cartridges were rejected from HP printers

Dutch printer ink vendor 123inkt has accused HP of intentionally reprogramming its printers to reject third-party cartridge.

123inkt, says it received "more than a thousand" complaints on 13 September from customers claiming the firm's third-party cartridge are no longer working in HP printers.

According to 123inkt, HP claims that the problem is caused by a firmware update that unintentionally stops third-party cartridges from functioning in certain HP printers.

123inkt however states that there have been no firmware updates on the affected printer models for some time, with the last update being applied on 22 March 2016, and that printers with even older firmware versions were experiencing the same problem. Furthermore, the Dutch firm claims that even printers with no network access, which could not be updated, were also affected.

Error messages reported to HP include "cartridge problem," "one or more cartridges are missing or damaged" and "older generation cartridge".

"The problem is not the result of a recent update, but the manner in which printer firmware has been programmed some time ago. HP's statement that the problem is caused by a recent firmware update, is in our opinion, incorrect and misleading," the ink vendor claimed in a press release.

"The (un)intended result usually is that the operation of lower-price private-label cartridges is disturbed and error messages are triggered. This time the problem was not the result of an update to improve the operation of the printer, but the HP firmware was apparently programmed in such a manner that this problem started at 13 September 2016."

123inkt claims several HP OfficeJet Pro and OfficeJet Pro X products have been affected.

CRN sister title Channelnomics Europe had contacted HP and was awaiting response at the time of publication