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From: DManzaluni on 19 Feb 2010 12:13
Can someone give me some information as to how to deal with HP.

Possibly I have been a bit gullible but that doesn't support what has
happened.

I had a Deskjet 6520 printer which had the wrong carts in it. HP told
me that the region was set wrongly so I needed a new printer. We
discussed options (I also have a Deskjet 932 and a Photosmart 7550
which only have Gutenprint drivers) and they tried to sell me a new
one. I figured that the price they were offering it to me for was only
marginally more than their (!) cost of carts. So I just went ahead
and instead of figuring out how to change regions without HP knowing,
I bought it, - a 5460.

It arrived and I plugged it in and almost immediately found that IT
doesn't have Snow Leopard drivers at all!

So I called H P and said 'you just sold me a printer to replace one
which wont work with my OS which doesnt seem to have drivers for my
OS. Do you have any drivers please?' They checked carefully and
agreed. They admitted that SL took them all by surprise and no one at
HP thought to do proper drivers. (their site says that SL had its
stripped down generic drivers which should do basic printing work but
which may or may not have any functionality)

But instead of replacing it with the only printer they now have which
does have drivers for 10.6.2, just want to SELL me another, - the
right, - printer!! And when I start to complain, they just ignore
me. So when I ask to speak to a supervisor, they pull the old 'do
another call or two and see if, by the time you get back, the customer
has got sick of hanging on yet'

Trouble is, I do all this on a speaker phone and while they have me
on their 20 minute holds, I get on with my work, letting THEM
interrupt ME as opposed to ME waiting plaintiflly for THEM. And I
have three lines here (and was careful to use the least worked, -
VoIP, - one for this call) so I can hang on forever if necessary. So
ultimately they got rid of me by pretending that the supervisor was
going to return my call, (which I did mention was fairly obviously a
lie). But I am pretty sure that with this attitude, they must have so
many operatives that no amount of my calling their tech support can
have much effect on them?

I did get a case reference number for that initial call and tried to
call back and cite that number but the operatives just play dumb: When
I quote it, they start asking me all sorts of stupid questions which
seem to indicate that their notes say something along the lines of
'start this one from the beginning all over again and see if you can
get rid of him when he realises that he is getting nowhere'

Does anyone know if it is possible to actually get though to anyone on
this sort of problem or have they discontinued their customer support?
I note with consternation that whereas they used to have a plethora of
printers, they do now seem to have discontinued most of them and now
only seem to have the 7560 to print photos [along with a slew of multi-
functions]. or does this mean that they are coming out with a whole
new line of them to replace these two (?) year old models soon?
From: DManzaluni on 19 Feb 2010 14:03
On Feb 19, 12:47 pm, Martin Trautmann <t-use...(a)gmx.net> wrote:
> On Fri, 19 Feb 2010 09:13:08 -0800 (PST), DManzaluni wrote:
> >  Does anyone know if it is possible to actually get though to anyone on
> >  this sort of problem or have they discontinued their customer support?
>
> No, stay away from HP.

> The only HP printers to recommend are network printers with postscript /
> pcl - the risk of incompatibility is much lower then, even if the
> support of grayscale or images may be less than perfect.
>
> - Martin

Sounds reasonable but I am having a different problem: I had to pay
them to sell me a printer (because they have some stupid region
setting they wont change) and immediately I opened the brand new
printer to find that it doesn't work, they want me to pay them to
sell me one which does actually work!
From: mickey on 19 Feb 2010 17:27
On Fri, 19 Feb 2010 09:47:09 -0800, Martin Trautmann <t-usenet(a)gmx.net>
wrote:

> On Fri, 19 Feb 2010 09:13:08 -0800 (PST), DManzaluni wrote:
>> Does anyone know if it is possible to actually get though to anyone on
>> this sort of problem or have they discontinued their customer support?
>
> No, stay away from HP. They do build some great products. But never ever
> expect that they will fix anything which is broken for newer OS
> versions.
>
> I had the same experience already with the first inkjet printer they
> built (HP Deskwriter) - the printer driver did consume every possible
> bit of available memory for its queue after the OS was upgraded. I guess
> this was about MacOS 7.5 or 7.6. The problem was well known but never
> got fixed.
>
> The only HP printers to recommend are network printers with postscript /
> pcl - the risk of incompatibility is much lower then, even if the
> support of grayscale or images may be less than perfect.
>
> - Martin
No disagreement with HP's customer service, it has always been their
Achilles heel but the Deskwriter was not the first inkjet printer. The
first was the ThinkJet in 84.
http://www.hp.com/hpinfo/abouthp/histnfacts/museum/imagingprinting/0011/index.html
The DeskWriter series was their third generation inkjet if I recall.

Mickey
From: mickey on 21 Feb 2010 10:14
On Fri, 19 Feb 2010 23:26:18 -0800, Martin Trautmann <t-usenet(a)gmx.net>
wrote:

> On Fri, 19 Feb 2010 14:27:19 -0800, mickey wrote:
>> No disagreement with HP's customer service, it has always been their
>> Achilles heel but the Deskwriter was not the first inkjet printer. The
>> first was the ThinkJet in 84.
>> http://www.hp.com/hpinfo/abouthp/histnfacts/museum/imagingprinting/0011/index.html
>> The DeskWriter series was their third generation inkjet if I recall.
>
> Hi Mickey,
>
> I guess you're right about earlier injet printers at all. But AFAIK the
> DeskWriter was the first Apple compatible inkjet printer from HP - it
> was the DeskJet with an AppleTalk interface (RS-422) and Mac drivers.
> Since this thread was about MacOS incompatibility (Snow Leopard / MacOS
> 10.6), I did not consider the DOS world (Hm, I guess, Win 3.1 was around
> by that time).
>
> - Martin

No harm. It was a long time ago. It only caught my eye because I'm a
former HP employee with friends and family associated with the inkjet
divisions. Was friends and worked with the industrial Eng that designed
the first inkjet, the ThinkJet. Have owned several thinkjets, a
pagewriter and several Deskjet models. Son is an Eng at the Vancouver
printer Div. Have been a Canon owner for at least 5 yrs.

Mickey
From: William R. Walsh on 23 Feb 2010 12:43
Hi!

> I had a Deskjet 6520 printer which had the wrong carts in it.
> HP told me that the region was set wrongly so I needed a new
> printer.

I don't know what the two problems have to do with one another. If you
have the wrong cartridges, get the right ones. Or is there more to the
story that leads up to this?

I don't know what they meant by "region", but I strongly suspicion
that you were being told something that was not true. Perhaps it was
an outright fabrication by someone who didn't know better and simply
wanted you off the phone. (This is a running theme with HP tech
support, at least as far as printers are concerned.)

> (I also have a Deskjet 932 and a Photosmart 7550
> which only have Gutenprint drivers)

The Gutenprint drivers ought to work fine for older printers such as
these. I'm sure the DeskJet 932 would be fully functional. Don't know
about the Photosmart 7550.

> It arrived and I plugged it in and almost immediately found that
> IT doesn't have Snow Leopard drivers at all!

Did the HP web site state that it did? What about third parties that
reviewed the printer?

It really is inexcusable that HP hasn't developed drivers for an
operating system that has been out for several months now!

> But instead of replacing it with the only printer they now have
> which does have drivers for 10.6.2, just want to SELL me
> another, -  the right, -  printer!!
> And when I start to complain, they just ignore me.

How long have you had the printer they sold you? If it hasn't been
very long (less than 30 days if you're in the US), just arrange to
return it. No need to tell them what's wrong, just exercise your
option to send it back. If they insist upon having a reason, tell them
simply that "it did not work".

Or failing that, did you pay for this printer with a credit card?
Dispute the charges. The credit card company will back you up on this,
and it ought to get HP's attention when nothing else will.

And then, when you've returned that printer, do your homework! Read
product reviews, look on user to user forums and on newsgroups such as
this one. The money, time and frustration you save could well be your
own!

William
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