Instant Ink confuses customers

January 20, 2020

Ryan Sullivan shared on Twitter that after he cancelled his $4.99 (€4.50) charge from HP only labelled “Instant Ink”, his printer stopped working.

Ryan Sullivan bought a HP printer over a year ago and seemingly unknowingly to him, he subscribed to the HP Instant Ink programme for his cartridges. When he cancelled the monthly charge of $4.99 (€4.50) that he claims he “wasn’t sure what it was for”, his printer stopped working.

In his tweets on 17 January, he said “I just found out what it did”, explaining that although his perfectly functionable printer, after ending the subscription, “HP remotely disabled perfectly good ink cartridges because I don’t pay a monthly fee?”

As a result, on the twitter thread, several other users claimed they had similar experiences and the only way to get around it was to exchange all instant ink cartridges and start a new, no matter how much ink was still left in the cartridges.

Asking a while later for recommendations for new printers, Ryan Sullivan expressed that he was looking for a printer that “doesn’t do this nonsense”.

Editor’s Opinion: This one of many regular “instant ink” complaints we receive. On the surface a simple offering. You buy a printer and you sign up for the instant ink programme. Stop paying and HP makes sure you stop printing. But the gist of most of the complaints it stopped working because… and HP seems unwilling or unable to respond.

Are you and your customers having the HP Instant Ink experience. If you are let us know.