564XL ink cartridge won't fit HP Photosmart Plus B209a

[RickFrye]

Just bought a cartridge combo pack. All three color cartridges fit the printer, but the photoblack cartridge is smaller and the front piece is configured differently from the original cartridge and won't fit the slot. The printer lists 564XL as the appropriate cartridge. Is there a way to fit it in or do I need to get a different black cartridge?

[PrintDoc]

Some printers that use this cartridge series have both a text black and a photo black.  Text black cannot be used on photos, so printers without photo black combine the three colors to make black.  Photo black looks better.

I believe your printer only uses three color cartridges and regular black.  The photo black cartridge is not for your printer.  Go get a 564XL Black (not photoblack) for your text black.

[cycletech]

This is totally unacceptable. When HP Solution Center says I need a black 564 or 564 XL, and I go out and buy the package marked 564XL it had better fit. If there are two different printers then use two different part numbers. I now want my money back or HP needs to provide the correct black cartridge to me.

[Bob_Headrick]

The thread here has a discussion of the differences between the Black and Photo cartridges.  The page here is HP's position.   More recent threads have suggest the user Contact HP  and ask for a one time exchange of the photo cartridge for a black cartridge.

[Fletcher59]

Yep, I just got burned too.  Bought three 564 XL photo black cartridges from Office Depot at 8:30pm tonight just because I wanted to make sure that I had enough ink to get an important print job done tonight.  Now it's 10:15pm and nowhere to go to get the right cartridges.  Brilliant job of packaging HP... freaking brilliant!  You buy a package with the correct model number on it and it doesn't work.  What other manufacturer doesn't use the model number to indicate any significant difference in the product? 

[Fletcher59]

It's really just an HP scam to sell even more ink.  A picture of a camera on the new packages isn't going to solve the problem.  People like me, who run out to buy ink for their home printers, are generally in a hurry and are already ticked-off because, "The ink ran out again... already!"  If there's not a color indicated but it still has the same model number, people are going to naturally assume that it's black!  Why would they just assume that they have the crappy printer that only uses four cartridges when they had no reason to know that there's one with five cartridges.  Do you people think we sit around and drool over the HP product line brochures?  Now let's see if Office Depot will take back the cartridge that I've ripped off all the packaging and tried to jam into my printer.  What do you think??  Do you think that I feel like a moron? Try again!

[Sirsparksalot]

After the nuisance messages about ink being almost empty when in fact it still had enough to print 40 or more pages. I just went out and bought an HP 564XL cartridge at Office Depot. They had the best price locally. After reading more, I found out that HP has 2 HP 564XL Black (not photo black) cartridges. One is good up to 550 pages (the one I purchased) and one that is good up to 800 pages. COME ON!! The one that prints up to 800 pages SHOULD BE A 564XLX or something other than the one that is only good up to 550 pages. THIS ALLOWS STORES TO PERFORM AN EASY BAIT-AND-SWITCH!!!!!!!!

[Bob_Headrick · Accepted solution]

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@Sirsparksalot wrote:

[snip] After reading more, I found out that HP has 2 HP 564XL Black (not photo black) cartridges. One is good up to 550 pages (the one I purchased) and one that is good up to 800 pages. COME ON!! The one that prints up to 800 pages SHOULD BE A 564XLX or something other than the one that is only good up to 550 pages. THIS ALLOWS STORES TO PERFORM AN EASY BAIT-AND-SWITCH!!!!!!!!

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The cartridges are priced so that the cost per page is the same.  See here for information from HP on this issue.

[RickFrye]

Thanks, problem is solved

[62270boo]

Thanks for all the info - just got off the phone with an HP Supervisor.  They were very helpful and understanding.  They agreed to send a replacement for the one I thought was the black cartridge - a ONE TIME deal.  Now that I've been educated I won't make that same mistake.  I too needed to get a print job done and thought I was set with the combo pack I purchased.  They need to put in BOLD BIG LETTERS - DID YOU CHECK THE SYMBOLS ON THE PRINTER TO MAKE SURE IT MATCHES THE SYMBOLS ON  THE CARTRIDGES IN THIS PACKAGE YOU ARE BUYING???  Because the hexagon won't take a photo symbol. I hate to throw away this 564XL photo cartridge.  Someone should start a recycling program for all of us that purchased a cartridge we don't need!!!!!