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New Twist to Printer Ink Refill Scam

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tooki:

--- Quote from: tszaboo on October 26, 2021, 09:44:36 pm ---
--- Quote from: richard.cs on October 26, 2021, 10:17:06 am ---
--- Quote from: tszaboo on October 26, 2021, 09:29:49 am ---Not just that. Color printers have been secretly printing yellow dots on B/W prints for some time now. Supposedly, so they can ID your printer if you send a letter with a bomb threat or something like that. So your color printer will not print B/W if your color cartridge is not there or empty.

--- End quote ---

I thought this was just laser printers? "Justified" by concerns about forged documents, money, etc.

--- End quote ---
Maybe the yellow dots is only for laser. For the inkjet, we may just lack the evidence, or widely available knowledge of it, I wouldn't be surprised there was still something printed on it.

--- End quote ---
No. In every source I’ve ever read about this, including databases of printer models and how to decode the yellow dots, it’s never shown up in an inkjet, and that’s by skilled people who were looking for them. Presumably because laser toner’s glossy appearance on matte paper is sort of essential to even a low-quality counterfeit.

Additionally, it’s easy to sneak those in on a page printer; on a moving-carriage printer, it would be very conspicuous if the printer moved the heads over blank areas of the page, too…

Zero999:

--- Quote from: cybermaus on October 27, 2021, 03:14:06 pm ---
--- Quote from: T3sl4co1l on October 27, 2021, 02:06:30 pm ---Nah, none so arbitrary.  They merely pre-underfill the cartridges for you, so you don't keep buying new printers for refills.

Tim

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Not even needed.
Just clean your head. Watch this (I put it on the relevant starting time)
Seriously, this is shocking, even if you know all of the stuff in this thread
https://youtu.be/DkuAg46-f7c?t=58

--- End quote ---
The printer is cleaning the printhead by passing a lot of ink through it. It isn't doing it just to waste ink.

Ranayna:

--- Quote from: duckduck on October 27, 2021, 02:42:24 am ---Yes, that is BS. I bought an HP inkjet for light home use. It actually stopped working because I refused to connect it to the internet. I returned it. I refuse to buy anything else HP (that isn't test equipment ;-P ).

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You likely ran afoul of one of their "Instant Ink" Printers. Those do require regular internet connection.
But lets be honest here. If you only print a couple of pages each month, Instant Ink can actually be a good deal. HP will automatically send you new print cartridges, as soon as the current ones are nearly empty. This includes ink used for regular cleaning cycles.
The major caveat is of course that the printer regularly needs to talk to the mothership.

cybermaus:

--- Quote from: Zero999 on October 28, 2021, 07:39:32 am ---The printer is cleaning the printhead by passing a lot of ink through it. It isn't doing it just to waste ink.

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Absolutely, and I did not meant to imply anything else. I even prefaced with "Just clean your head"

But once you realise that any cleansing cycle is flushing what is effectively liquid gold, and flushing it at this rate, you reconsider.

This actually happened to me once: brand new ink, but clogged nozzle, so I deep cleaned it twice....next up was the almost out of ink warning.

tooki:
And that’s why the “ink tank” inkjets (the models with built in bulk ink systems) are really the way to go for most people. The ink is dirt cheap. In return, you’re paying the true price of the printer, not the subsidized price.

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