Hp India's Pre Sales Glitters

[Abhishek]

I almost purchased an inkjet on 16th November 2006, HP Office Jet Pro K500, after extensive queries from dealers as well as online reviews. Unfortunately, I faced a number of problems:1)The power and the paper feed tray icon kept on blinking and the troubleshooting guides online or with the manual refused to solve my problem. 2)There was no mention about the way to load up the printer in Linux. Whythe linux users should be penalised for no fault of theirs? Mind you, notevery Linux user is a geek. I was lucky to find the support in forums forHP Printers, as well as the drivers needed for the same.Despite repeated emails, none of the "representatives" bothered even to acknowledge the mails. I returned back the printer to the dealer who refused to give me the whole package anew. He said that it would only be possible after getting the "clearance" from the service centre. This is for a brand new printer that I haven't been lucky to own. He insisted that I should reuse the cartridges from the old one. This is the kind of service that HP gives BEFORE a sale has been made!I would want to highlight this from every channel possible in order to force them to acknowledge this lapse. The call centre sucks and I wonder as to what the after sales would be. Before buying a printer, make sure that the guy gives a proper working demo and that it should be alright in every respect. Once the whole thing is settled, then only the payment should be made. Or else, you are on your own trip trying to get the things sorted out.