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An Anonymous Coward writes:

Canon USA is being sued for not allowing owners of certain printers to use the scanner or faxing functions if they run out of ink.

David Leacraft, a customer of Canon, filed the class action lawsuit on Tuesday alleging deceptive marketing and unjust enrichment by the printer manufacturer.
Refusing to scan when out of ink

While using his Pixma MG6320 printer from Canon, the plaintiff was surprised to discover that the "all-in-one" machine would refuse to scan or fax documents if the printer ran out of ink.

As ink is not necessary to perform scans or faxes, the argument is that the printer features should continue to work even if there is no ink in the device.

"Plaintiff Leacraft would not have purchased the device or would not have paid as much for it had he known that he would have to maintain ink in the device in order to scan documents," reads the complaint for the class action lawsuit.

Since at least 2016, other customers have contacted Canon about this exact problem and were told by support agents that ink cartridges must be installed and contain ink to use the printer's features, as shown by the agent's response below."

https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/legal/canon-sued-for-disabling-scanner-when-printers-run-out-of-ink/ [bleepingcomputer.com]

- Archived:
https://web.archive.org/web/20211017132757/https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/legal/canon-sued-for-disabling-scanner-when-printers-run-out-of-ink/ [archive.org]

- Discussion:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28888214 [ycombinator.com]

Original Submission