Fresh from his non-disclosure agreement expiring, an anonymous tipster writes in some dirt about 3000 series HP printers.

He advises not buying any of them because you could be way screwed if it breaks down. The parts department is beefing with the tech CSRs and is telling the CSRs no spare parts are available, even though the inventory screen shows several are.

If you have a broke HP printer, our tipster advises waiting a month for a “new to you” printer (i.e. refurb), or participating in the “trade in/trade up” program.

More of his letter, inside.

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“If your [3000 series] model breaks down, there are NO replacement parts. For some models, it could be 6 months or more before the parts will be available. Some are only back ordered by two months, others by a year or more. One part in particular is not expected until 2008! HP doesn’t want to admit this but it has been a nightmare, especially for the CSRs dealing with irate customers.

As for the irate customers, the Parts Department is specifically refusing to take calls from the CSRs doing tech support because of the fubar over the parts with the 3000 series. So the CSRs heard from their supervisors to simply hand out the number to Parts and have the customers yell specifically at them. Doesn’t help the situation at all and all it really does it just frustrate the customers even more. The CSRs can see that the parts are available on their screens so they know that Parts is just bullshavicking, but a customer doesn’t have access to that information.

One conversation one of my informants had with parts went something like this:
Parts: The reason why the customer didn’t get their part on July 14th is because its backordered
CSR: Then why does it say that you have 12 in stock?
Parts: Oh. Um. Let me get back to you on that.”

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