HP Instant Ink, Reviews, Warning

[Kage9862]

I just bought a HP Envy printer and, especially for the price, it has been fantastic. When I went to register I was offered to join the HP Instant Ink plan and not long after subscribing, I 've already decided to cancel. I am disappointed in the fine print details and how to whole plan in general works. I wanted to give some feedback to others so if their situation is similar to mine, they are aware. When I first signed up and on subsequent visits to the website I saw these great, quoted reviews, but I haven't been able to find anywhere to write a review(I genuinely have no idea how authentic they really are). This might not be an appropriate place but since I couldn't find anywhere else, I decided to add my review/two cents here:

I signed up for HP Instant Ink and based on the amount of pages I estimated that I’d be printing for the year I chose the FREE plan(15 pages a month, 180 total a year). Let me tell you why I've already decided to cancel...
PRO
- Huge savings to get free cartridges monthly

- Cartidges get delivered, so avoid trips to the store
CON
- While it may be my fault, I never once saw that the cartridges only work if you are signed up for a plan. When you cancel you have to check a couple boxes showing you acknowledge certain repercussions when cancelling and as far as I could see, it did not mention this anywhere in there. Only after in the confirmation email did I see they won’t work and I need to return them.
- Printing is connected through the internet, which has me concerned for privacy and security(All of the recent data leaks are enough of a headache)
- Free plan allows for 180 printed pages a year, way more than I’d use. Yet I could only print 15 a month or else I’d be charged $1 for 10 additional pages. Some months I need more than 15, while most 0.
- After cancelling, you have to wait out the current 30 day plan. If you’ve reached your limit of pages and print before the plan month is over, you risk being charged.
- Seems like a waste of ink since I have to return the cartridges, even the one I’ve already printed with. I also live in 100+ degree weather and after the cartridges were delivered they were extremely hot, so who knows if they are fried and still work or not.
- Free plan sends you two cartridges each month which won’t ever get used unless you go over and pay for extra pages.

- Maybe not HPs' fault, but the first package of cartridges I recieved through USPS was opened.

FOR ME this plan just doesn’t work, for others it is might be pretty great.  If HP decided to change it from monthly to yearly I’d consider signing back up, even for a monthly fee, although the privacy is still concerning. I don’t really want to risk getting nickeled and dimed by each month. It might or might not cost me more to buy a couple cartridges from the store but to me it is worth the extra cost, especially for the peace of mind when it comes to privacy. I think part of the problem was simply that multiple negative things all converged early on in the plan and has left me with a really sour taste.

Maybe the worst part was when I first got the printer, I wanted to test it out and I used an old stack of paper instead of the pricier new ones I had just bought just in case any issues came up when first printing. I was unaware that there were Ruled Paper pages mixed in the middle so I had to reprint some and ended up wasting 10 out of my 15 pages. I hit my monthly quota pretty quickly and was handcuffed the rest of the month. I take complete responsibility for this, but I don't think it is that irrational that someone would want to make sure their brand new printer is working properly and not have it eat into their monthly page limit.

**With all this being said, this should not be seen as an indictment on HP, I think the overall concept of Instant Ink is a good idea and probably saves a lot of people quite a bit of money/time. I've had multiple HP printers over the years and found them great and easy to use. I've also had HP computers in the past and did not have issues with them. I just want others to be aware and, if possible, avoid the situation I found myself in.

[Bob_Headrick]

Sorry the plan did not meet your needs, but there are a few things that should be corrected or clarified:

• You will not receive ink shipments every month.  The printer will monitor ink levels and report page counts and ink levels to the HP Instant Ink servers. The service aims to keep you in enough ink that you could print two months of your subscription.  For the free fifteen page per month plan it may well be a year after the initial cartridges are sent before you would need more ink.
• The printing is not done over the internet.  Your computer sends information to your printer through your router.  The stuff you print is not transmitted over the internet.  The printer does communicate pages printed and ink levels over the internet.
• It is true that the Instant Ink cartridges will only work with an active subscription, and if the plan is cancelled the cartridges are required to be returned to HP.  See the fine print here, sections five and six.  I do wish this part was made more clear to users before they sign up.  
• The free plan does not have any rollover for unused pages.  The paid plans do allow rollover of unused pages, up to one months of rollover.  For example, for the fifty page per month plan you could roll over up to fifty unused pages.
• The free plan is only available as the initial selection.  If a paid plan is initially selected, or if the free plan is selected but later cancelled it cannot be reinstated later.

[Kage9862]

Hi Bob,

Thanks for the response. After reading it, I was wondering if you could clarify a few things.

You said the the shipments are not monthly and HP aims to give you enough ink for approximately two months worth of printing. I am a bit confused because I have cartridges in my printer, one black(approx 120 pg yield) & one color(approx 100 pg yield). Why was I already sent more ink cartridges? Are the ones in my printer different? That just seems to me a lot more than two months worth if I am on a 15 page a month plan. Part of the reason I canceled was because I was already sent more cartridges when I really have no need for them and it just seemed wasteful to me. Maybe I am misunderstanding something.

I stated printing is connected over the internet, maybe I didn't state that clearly but I want to make sure I am understanding it right. When you have any old printer(not using the Instant Ink service), you do not need to have an internet connection what so ever to use it. One could print endlessly, provided they had enough ink and paper, without ever having an internet connection. With Instant Ink, you need to be connected to the internet at some point(every month I'd guess) so the printer can keep your monthly page usage up to date and then transmit the data back to HP. Is this correct? If you do not connect to the internet there is no way of recording this and you will run out of ink. I'm also not aware that there is any service where you'd send your documents to a printer through the internet to be printer, but maybe I'm wrong. I guess my whole internet point was your data, whatever personal information that exactly consists of, is transmitted through the internet to HP. Like any phone or other data we've recently seen being leaked from a big name company or app. I have no idea what the Instant Ink data consists of, or if it's anywhere near as personal as the data in the leaks. I just wanted people to know that personal data from your printer is being sent to HP, therefore leaves you at risk for a leak.

Thanks for the quick response and I hope you can clarifiy these new questions for me. Like you mentioned some of this isn't as clear as it could be when signing up and the hope for this post was it make it more clear. Had I known as much as I do now, I probaly wouldn't have signed up to being with.

I also wanted to mention I guess to HP, it would be nice if there was some kind of review section. When purchasing or signing up for new products I often cross reference my research with reviews to help be get a clear understanding of what I am getting into.

[Bob_Headrick]

For most plans there is an initial "welcome kit" shipment for Instant Ink that includes the initial Instant Ink cartridges as well as some information.  Subsequent shipments would only happen as needed.  In general the Instant Ink cartridges hold more ink than standard cartridges, and would last longer.

You are correct about the internet usage - there is communication between your printer nad the servers over the internet.  I would expect this to happen in an encrypted fashion.  There is a different service called ePrint that actually provides an email address for your printer and allows you to send text and documents to your printer from anywhere with an internet connection.  See here for information on that program , which does transmit your print data over the internet: https://support.hp.com/us-en/document/c03721293.

As for reviews, I agree they can be helpful.  I do not recall anywhere to enter reviews for Instant Ink as a standalone product, but you can go to the HP shopping pages, search for your printer model and write a review for the printer which could include comments for Instant Ink.

[FLDanno]

I agree huge scam stole my credit card now holds my printer hostage state always stay far far away