What HP doesn’t understand about the Officejet Pro L7780
Here’s the problem:
HP knows that the L7780 does not work with the Linksys WRT54G.
BUT, they don’t tell you this before you purchase — there’s nothing on their website warning you about the incompatibility.
Further, AFTER you buy, you have to go through HOURS AND HOURS of time dealing with Tech Support people who have not been told about this problem… so they make you do stupid things like “move the printer to another room to make sure you have good electricity.”
EVENTUALLY, you may find a senior support person who knows about the problem. They’ll tell you that it’s a known issue and that HP will provide a fix in the near future.
That fix never comes.
Then, here’s the kicker, HP says the only “solution” is to go spend money to get a new router.
See, what they don’t understand is: Had they provided the information that they KNEW, I wouldn’t need a new router… because I would have returned the piece of crap printer and not been forced to spend almost a week dealing with their low-level tech support people… who COULD HAVE BEEN informed about this issue (how hard is it to build into their scripts: “Oh, you’re having wireless networking problems… do you have the WRT54G router?”)
December 1st, 2008 at 7:26 pm
I purchased the HP L7780 in January 2008. I’m on my third one and ready to call it quits! It’s junk…
My latest 4 1/2 hour experience with the tech in India ended unsuccessfully, so he referred me to the “Level II” folks on the east coast where I thought I was going to get help solving the issues, but I was told, “I don’t know much about the technical side”. She intended to send be back to India for another, potentially hours long, exercise.
When I declined to jump through those hoops again, after losing hours and days of my life already, she offered to review my receipt for a buy-back. She was to get back to me by 11:00 am last Friday. I called back after 2:00 when I had heard nothing, but she had checked out for the day and wouldn’t return until Monday. I didn’t receive a call this morning either, so when I reached her there were lots of excuses and a generous offer of around $100 to buy this nighmare back. I declined, as the time to box it all up and haul it to the shipper again and wait for compensation, if it ever comes, isn’t worth it.
Next step is to Staples where I bought it for $425, plus the three year warranty and all the ink and hired them to do the original install. I figure I’m in to this over $700 and hours of stress and lost work time.
Any ideas about what to buy that DOES work and has customer service that really is customer service?
L.
December 1st, 2008 at 8:57 pm
After SEVEN L7780’s that HP sent me (even though I assured them that a new machine would NOT solve a firmware problem), I never found a solution with them.
I ended up buying a Brother MFC-9840CDW (color, laser, all-in-one, duplex) which, btw, is on sale at Costco soon (I think the end of December).
January 1st, 2009 at 10:14 am
why dont you all stop whining and try to solve your problem with this easy step.
HP L7780 freezes when connecting to wireless Linksys router Fixed!
January 1st, 2009 at 3:48 pm
Ummm… because:
a) The firmware fix didn’t exist during the YEAR that I had the p.o.c printer
b) That “fix” is actually a “workaround”
c) That workaround breaks if you have to make changes to your router, or sometimes if you have power outages
d) That’s only ONE of the problems I had with the 7780
All that said, thanks for the link.