A few years back, I signed up for an Instant Ink subscription to my HP home printer. The monthly cost is based on how often you use the ink. When the ink runs out, the printer will send a message to HP and send a replacement cartridge by mail.
However, I have been hardly using my printer so I tried to reduce the amount of ink ‘ordered’ each month. This is difficult because the website doesn’t allow me to cancel or change my subscription. I received conflicting messages.
In the end it turned out that it had been cancelled and, after a very frustrating call to the customer service helpline, I was told it couldn’t be reset.
HP has sent me a message to my printer, stating that the subscription is over and the ink has been made unusable. I now have four cartridges of ink that I can’t use. I cringe to think about how much and how little ink was used.
CR, Norfolk
HP’s Instant Ink subscription, which the company says has 11 million subscribers around the world, claims to offer Britons a saving of up to 70% on their printing costs. HP states that subscribers pay for how many pages they print per month and not for cartridges, which some users may overlook. For a home user, this monthly subscription service starts at 99p for 10 pages, and goes up to £9.99 for 300. You started out paying £1.99 in 2019 for 50 pages but the cost of this plan increased to £2.99 earlier this year.
HP says: “Customers can adjust their plan or cancel whenever they like. Instant Ink cartridges will not work if a printer has been enrolled in the HP Instant Ink Service. The cartridges that were part of a subscription cancelled will no longer work and must be returned to HP via the provided postage-paid envelopes. To continue printing after the billing cycle ends, customers are still able to use standard cartridges in their printer.”
Overall you spent about £90 and feel that by disabling the cartridges HP is preventing you from using ink you have paid for. Although the company follows the scheme’s rules, it doesn’t seem to be able to allow you to finish the cartridge in the printer. I can understand why you feel so shortchanged.
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