HP Belgium will not do a Regional Reset of my HP Photosmart

Question

The HP Techical Support Line in Belgium refuses to do a Regional Reset for my printer.
I have an HP Photosmart C4480 from Singapore.  I moved to Belgium this year.  I knew that the ink cartridges were not the same and that printers had regional settings, so I researched HP On-line Support about how to proceed.
I found the inforation on HP Consumer Support in a page called "Finding and Installing Cartridges after Moving to Another Country" http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?lc=en&dlc=en&cc=us&lang=en&docname=c02558798
This seemed to be the exact answer to my problem, so I was very pleased.  I purchased the new cartriges and got everything set up to call HP Support in Belgium.  This is when the problems started...
I called and explained my situation to the Belgium HP Support for "Printing Systems for Personal Use" [phone].  The techitian told me that HP Support cannot reset the regional settings.  I told him that I had already researched it and the HP On-Line Support said that they could.  I gave him all the information about the HP On-Line Support page and read the key parts out to him.  He insisted that HP Support is NOT ALLOWED to do the changes (not that they technically can't do it, but that they are not allowed to do it).  I requested that he speak to the supervisor because I was only following what HP On-Line said.  He said he'd go check with his supervisor and came back a few minutes later to say that NO, they are not allowed to do it!  He said that he had the same request from another person last week (from the Neitherlands because Belgium and Neitherlands share the same support line) and that he gave that person the same answer.  I asked what my other options were, and he said maybe try Singapore or US support.
So next I called US support (Singapore support was closed at that time).  After about 30 minutes waiting on hold, I got connected with a Technician.   I told him what I needed to do, and was told "no problem, we can do the regional reset".  Then we went through all his questions (product number, serial number, contact information, etc, etc, etc).  Next he said my printer was out of warranty (which is true) but I told him the On-Line Support page clearly says that the printer OR the cartriges should be in warranty, and my new cartridges are. He took a few minutes to check this and came back to say ok.  Then after a bit more discussion, he said "HP US Support cannot do the reset for a Europe country, you need to call HP Support Belgium."  I told him again and again that I already talked to HP Support Belgium and they woud not do the reset.  He gave me a different number to call that he said was HP Belgium and they would help.  Since it was a different number, I said I'd try it and thought maybe it would work.  But when I dialed the number, the phone didn't work because he'd given me the phone number for GREECE not BELGIUM!
So next I called HP Customer Service to explain what was happening.  The person there (Angel) was very pleasent and offered to try and help.  After explaining the story, she put me on hold while she contacted HP Technical Support.  But eventually, she came back with the same answer - the regional reset needed to be done in Belgium!  She gave me yet another number to try (which looked like an HP Belgium number) but I can only get a busy signal when I've tried to call the past two days.
So now I'm stuck with a printer that doesn't work and new cartriges that I can't use.  HP On-Line Support says HP will reset my printer region.  HP US Support saying the regional reset needs to happen in Belgium.  And HP Belgium Support says that they can't do it!
HP seemingly can't get there act together between On-Line Support and Country Support.  I guess I just need to write off my losses and go buy a new printer and new cartriges, but THEY WILL NOT BE HP!

Answer 1

I will ask HP if they can help you.
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