Some People

I went to Office Depot on Monday afternoon to make copies, and while I was there, I bought a 3 pack of HP refill printer cartridges for our printer that we now use only as a copier. Today I was copying a few things, and I changed out the black cartridge. My first clue something was wrong was when I opened the box and took out the first cartridge--and noticed that the HP plastic bag thing around it was all ripped. And upon closer examination of the cartridge, it had a Costco sticker on the side, where someone had written in pen "foiled". But, I gamely stuck it in the printer, where of course it was dry as a bone. So I took out the other 2 cartridges, which were also used ones. One of them wasn't even for my printer! So someone had bought new cartridges, put their 3 old cartridges back in the packaging, carefully glued the box back up, and returned the used ones to Office Depot, where they got a nice $85 refund.

I was so upset. I knew there was no way to prove that I hadn't done that myself, but I wanted Office Depot to know what had happened, so I called them up. I told my tale of woe to the clerk, and then to the manager. He was very nice and told me to come in so they could replace it. I leaped up and drove over right then! When I got there, the manager was talking with a man by the checkout counter. After the box was exchanged, he came over to talk to me. He said he had been talking with the HP sales rep, and he had told the guy what had happened. The HP guy said they were thinking about redesigning the box so that there was some kind of cardboard pull-thing, where it would be really obvious if it had been opened. Brilliant idea! In the meantime, you should open the packaging for printer cartridges while in the parking lot, just to make sure you are getting new ones!