The OEM’s Anti Counterfeiting and Fraud (ACF) programme for the EMEA noted that it helped seize over 1.9 million counterfeit cartridges and products between May and October 2016.
The ACF update for “corporate customers” was the second update for last year, with the first coming in April, and in the second half of the year the OEM noted that “in just six months” its experts “supported law enforcement officials in seizing the impressive total of about 1.9 million counterfeit products”.
In turn, the OEM noted that “thousands of grey market toners about to enter the European Economic Area (EEA) have recently been stopped by local officials, thus protecting numerous customers from risks associated with grey market trade”. The company’s product experts also “responded to numerous customers” across the EMEA for “expert inspections of suspicious cartridge deliveries following low-priced tender bids”.
These customer delivery inspections (CDIs) numbered around 90 in the six month period, with inspectors finding around 5,1000 fake or “fraudulent items”. The OEM also undertook 530 new channel partner protection audits (CPPAs) in six months, with experts going “above and beyond to ensure that HP’s sales channel stays clean and to safeguard our valud customers against counterfeiting and fraud”.
These audits saw 450 partners pass “surprise stock checks”, showing that “the authorised channel is a reliable place for customers to purchase”. Additionally, HP Inc also noted that the “security labelling of HP printing supplies is being updated”, with a new “unique” bar code on toner security labels; an ink security label on PageWide cartridges “on the right-hand side of the box”; and “updates on when to expect a security label on ink cartridges”.
In this case, the OEM stated that “only selected ink cartridges in EMEA carry a label”, and a “missing security label might indicate counterfeiting”. Finally, HP Inc added that it has “just introduced new regionalisation messages on the packaging of selected toner cartridges in order to curtail grey marketing and fraud”, so customers should “watch out for toners that are not designated for EMEA markets and report suspicious products immediately”.
It concluded that “purchasing grey market cartridges can come with severe risks and customers might in fact end up getting counterfeits instead”, as fraudsters “might use grey marketing as a pretext for selling fakes, as it conveniently explains lower price”. The OEM recommends that customers “only purchase from trusted vendors such as HP Channel Partners and to always specify that you want original HP products intended for sale in your region”.