This week I learned about a new scandal involving the HP printer brand, a brand I’ve had banned for a while now because I don’t like their anti-consumer policies.
But Goguma, I’ve always heard that HP printers are among the best
I’ve also heard this mantra and I don’t know exactly where it comes from, I’ve never owned an HP printer. I did have a laptop from this brand many years ago and it turned out pretty bad (we’re talking about 2012), an HP G62 whose battery lasted just over a year. Nothing since then. So when it comes to printers, I have no idea, I don’t know if they’re good or bad.
So what’s your problem then? Try them and then talk.
Well, what I do know are their anti-consumer policies. They invented the subscription model applied to printing. The way it works is simple: you buy the printer and subscribe to the ink plan. Depending on how much you want to print, you’ll pay a series of lovely monthly fees. Super convenient, you pay and keep receiving ink at home. And if you pay but then print less, well, better for them.
I still don’t see the problem. You pay based on how much you print, right?
Yes, but the difference is in the nuance: here the ink is not yours. If you stop paying, goodbye printing, regardless of how much ink you have left. Oh, and of course there’s a minimum commitment period, just in case you get the idea of stopping printing. This also means you need to be connected to the internet at all times; if for whatever reason you can’t connect, goodbye printer, since it can’t verify your subscription status.
If that doesn’t sound bad enough, it can get worse
What do you do once you already have an ink plan? Well, of course, go all in and launch a plan that includes the printer itself. The All In plan is exactly that. You pay a fixed amount every month and they send you everything. But it’s a subscription: nothing you pay for (printer, ink, paper) is yours, it all belongs to HP. You just pay to own nothing. Sure, you didn’t have to pay for the printer all at once. You’ll pay it off monthly instead (and then some).
Alright, it’s clear this isn’t your favorite company. So what’s the scandal?
Well, it turns out that in India they colluded with distributors to manipulate prices in public auctions. In other words, as happens in many countries, the government opens a bidding process to select the cheapest supplier. What’s known is that they agreed with other suppliers to inflate prices and split the difference among themselves. HP would state the price it wanted to sell at, and the rest of the suppliers would offer higher bids. Part of the difference was then shared among all the distributors. And all of this happened through WhatsApp, in the most low-rent way possible. Not even that, they couldn’t manage.
And how was this discovered?
Here comes the funniest part. They were inflating prices so much that even the distributors started feeling uncomfortable with the situation. They could see things were going too far. Then the most predictable thing happened: the Indian government opened an investigation.
And this is where they get caught, right?
Wait, it gets better. As I was saying, upon seeing the mess, the Indian government starts looking into it because something smells off. And guess who wasted no time reporting the cartel? Indeed, HP. When they realized there was an ongoing investigation and saw how serious the potential penalty could be, they decided to self-report in order to try to reduce the fine. The very same company behind the collusion reported the rest of the distributors to the Indian authorities. On top of being corrupt, snitches too.
Well, how did the story end?
It ended with a hefty fine for HP (around 14.4 million USD) for doing this. To me, that seems too little; I’d have punished this with jail time rather than a fine.
What’s today’s lesson?
Look, I’m not going to tell you what to buy, we’re all adults here. But I don’t like a company that does this, and it’s definitely not among my favorites. Out of curiosity, I’ll tell you that my printer is an Epson EcoTank with an ink tank, and I think it’s fantastic; even if you don’t print much, you save a lot on ink cartridges. And the refills, which last me years, are super cheap.
For me, it’s worth paying more to own something that’s actually mine, but that’s up to each person to decide.
What about you? Do you not mind not owning the printer as long as you avoid the upfront cost? Did you know the story about HP India? What did you think? I’ll be reading you in the comments.
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