Moving To Another Country? Contact HP Customer Services First.

Planning to emigrate? Probably the last thing you're concerned about is making sure your Hewlett Packard printer works in your destination country. Yet a little known Hewlett Packard policy means this is one thing you should ensure before stowing your bags and catching that flight. HP region encode their printers to only work with ink cartridges bought in the same nation. Hence consumers who replenish their printer with cartridges bought in their new homeland will find them incompatible, and their printer useless.

HP encode their printers in order to guarantee consumers only pay locally dictated prices: an English consumer becomes unable to exploit a favourable exchange rate with the dollar to buy cheap ink, for example. This is perfectly within Hewlett Packard's rights as the manufacturer. Inadvertently however, the policy persecutes consumers who emigrate, unaware that their printers will be incomptible with locally encoded cartridges.

Fortunately, consumers in this situation need not shell out to buy a new HP printer: the region code can be easily reset over the phone. Simply call Hewlett Packard customer services, explain your situation and be persistent: HP may be initially reluctant to distribute the correct code, though ultimately should do so without charge. Calling HP will ensure your printer works once you've emigrated, and save you a major headache.

Happy moving!