We were given a printer which works with the Instant Ink programme.

We de-registered it and then re-registered a new account in our name. The current cartridges have gummed up so we needed the new ones anyway.

The instant ink account said our ink had been shipped the day after we ‘enrolled’, and to wait ten business days for a delivery. It’s now been well more than that and no sign.

The account says ‘no tracking available’ and when I try and get assistance via the ‘virtual chat’ whatever time of the day it is it says their actual person chat is unavailable.

I didn’t mind waiting for the first delivery for a reasonable time, but it’s well past when they said it would be here, and we now really need to get it working and without any way of actually speaking to a human at HP I’m thinking about just cancelling it and buying some (shock horror!) third party ink.

If anyone has any insight or experienced the same thing, what did you do?

Read through some of the comments here about third party ink. HP thoroughly lock down their printers against it being used…

https://www.theregister.com/2020/11/12/hp_free_printing/

I think my first delivery was faster than claimed. Like, it said 14 days or whatever but turned up in a week. Bear in mind though, pretty much everything in the world is taking twice as long at the moment.

Might be worth checking with the original owner?

I bought mine from new and they send the ink like 6 months before we need it. It’s a bit annoying actually.

I’m sure there’s a customer helpline, try them.

Read through some of the comments here about third party ink. HP thoroughly lock down their printers against it being used…

https://www.theregister.com/2020/11/12/hp_free_printing/

Yes, I’m aware of that. However i) it’s unlikely the printer has been upgraded by the previous owner and ii) if I cancel the instant ink subscription I can use whatever ink needed thereafter.

Might be worth checking with the original owner?

Deffo been changed on the account etc.

pretty much everything in the world is taking twice as long at the moment.

Even taking that into account, it’s been way too long.

I don’t do a lot of printing and I thought there must be a problem with my registration as I hadn’t had a delivery for over a year. However I got a delivery email 3 days ago and the new cartridge arrived today. Printing has been fine all the time.

Just a reminder that when you cancel your instant ink subscription, all the cartridges in the printer and the full ones ready to go in stop working, as HP block them!

HP printer user here, 3rd party ink, four cartridges for £14, next day delivery from Amazon. On the fourth lot over several years, no issues at all.

Edit: are instant ink printers locked to the program?

Just a reminder that when you cancel your instant ink subscription, all the cartridges in the printer and the full ones ready to go in stop working, as HP block them!

That’s hardly unreasonable, you’re paying for a service not ink cartridges.

HP chat is appalling. It’s powered by Whatsapp. I sent them a message on it and got no response at all. Then 2 days later they replied as though I had just sent the message! But from that point on I had their full attention for nearly 2 days until my issue was resolved.
Then, they managed to send the ink to our old address even though I had updated it on our account. And because it didn’t come standard Royal Mail it wasn’t captured by the redirect we have set up. Luckily the person who bought our house managed to pass it on to us.
So, definitely worth checking that they have sent it to the right address – I think it says in tiny text at the bottom of the shipping email where they have sent it.

Edit: are instant ink printers locked to the program?

Apparently not, from what I can tell. Mine wasn’t when I got it – I subscribed separately after the free get-you-started cartridges ran out – but that was a few years back.

That’s hardly unreasonable, you’re paying for a service not ink cartridges.

Yes. If you cancel Netflix, do you they let you finish watching all the series you were in the middle of?

that’s correct. But I have 2 full ink cartridges that are now useless and going to get binned rather than used. I paid for the subscription to print so many pages a month. I didn’t print enough, so I’ve got print cartridges left over. So yes I have paid for them, so expect to be able to use them at the end, so not to waste the resources and energy used to manufacture and post from France!

So yes I have paid for them, so expect to be able to use them at the end,

But you said yourself,

I paid for the subscription to print so many pages a month.

You now no longer pay that subscription. If you could carry on using the cartridge without the sub then you could pay 99p for your first cartridge, immediately cancel and then get 25 quid’s worth of ink out of them.

So yes I have paid for them

No you haven’t. As above, you’re paying for a printing service not ink. This works in your favour when printing photos, for example, as it’s probably far cheaper. I could print 50 pages of the night sky on ultra high quality if I want; or I could just print 50 pages with a single character in the middle – and pay the same monthly fee. So I’m not paying for ink.

Has anyone had HP saying ink was sent and received but you haven’t received it?

They say I got ink in June but can’t provide any proof of postage like a signature. I’m wondering if someone dumped it on the front step and it went missing from there, either way we don’t have it.

I can’t seem to get through to a human to sort it.

boombang Full Member
I can’t seem to get through to a human to sort it

^^^ I recently had an ink supply issue. IIRC I couldn’t find a UK phone via HP’s own website. Google produced the customer service number 020 7660 3859 (M-F 9:00 – 17:00 ish).

Edit – great thanks I would have tried that tomorrow if on asking my wife for the 5th time about a print cartridge delivery she hadn’t suggested looking in the back of a random kitchen cupboard. She took delivery of it in June and decided to put it somewhere I would never look. I feel like a dick, but that is totally normal.