HPs Dirty Tricks During Coronavirus Shutdown

HPs Dirty Tricks During Coronavirus Shutdown

Messages have gone out to distributors of HP products in the UK that HP has conducted a firmware update on some of its popular inkjet printers.

And it appears to be happening in America too.

The firmware update, if accepted by end-users, will immediately lock consumers out from having a choice when it comes to the ink they purchase and use in their printers.

The products affected are HP953XL and HP903XL inkjet cartridges.

Retailers in the UK are being told to encourage their customers to accept the update. The notices going out clearly state, that once the update has been done, “current versions WILL NOT WORK.”

It’s advised the new firmware numbers that will cause products not to work are HP 953: 2006BR/A and HP 903: 2006BR.

“This is a low blow, particularly now when social distancing measures are being enforced and many office workers are working from home,” says Darren Turner from My Total Office Solutions in Rossendale, north-western England. “Many consumers are going to find their printers will just not work.”

Turner also explains that consumers are being forced into having to use the OEM product. “This is not right. It’s simply not fair on consumers or for us who provide a competitively-based quality product and service. HP is using the coronavirus outbreak to lock out small business from selling alternative product.”

And HP’s firmware update lockout strategy is happening in the USA too. The founding CEO of the largest online site for aftermarket print supplies in the world has added his concerns.

“We are seeing the same thing here in the US,” says Aaron Leon. “I think it is deplorable that HP is doing this right now while millions of children are doing school work from home. If they were using aftermarket cartridges in their printers, they now can’t print out their work.”

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barkha Mittal says:

March 20, 2020 at 5:30 pm

Though it is a bad practise but it will be wrong to relate this with corona virus shutdown. I dnt think HP has any intention to sync this news with the outbreak in order to bring more inconvenience to consumers.
However, I firmly beleive it is a hard time when consumer should understand from whom to buy and whom to not. They should make their choice on who is working for their benefits and such news from HP clearly indicates that they are not thinking in favor of consumers.

David Gibbons says:
March 21, 2020 at 2:28 pm

You may well be right Barkha. It may have been a planned firmware update ahead of the coronavirus. But given the millions of people now having to work in isolation from home around the world, don’t you think someone at HP might have stopped and asked whether a firmware update at this time is really going to help consumers? In my view, they must take responsibility for incredibly bad timing. Some would suggest the company is being opportunistic.