Regional ink doesn't work!

Question

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Why oh why do companies like HP regionalise their products?
I 'inherited' an HP Photosmart 3310 from my sister's partner who's now passed on. Compared with the budget printers I've been using up to now, it's wonderful. However, warnings that the printer ink age have been issued since I got the printer. So, some time ago I bit the bullet and bought a multi-pack, as it happens from Asda (Walmart). It wasn't the cheapest but I reckoned the printer is getting on and I needed backup ink just in case. It was nearly £50 (~$75) for a '363' pack comprising a complete set of ink plus 150 sheets of 6" x 4" photo paper. It's double what I could have bought it for on-line but it was there, in store, only 1/4 mile from where I live. So I got it.
I wish I hadn't.
The printer said the ink wasn't intended for use in it and the printer was configured to use 02 ink. I wasn't best pleased let me tell you. It now transpires Peter (the original owner) bought the printer in the USA and brought it back with him to the UK.
Now, you dear friend may suggest purchasing the right regionalised ink (or regionalized for American ink) but I say I've just spent £50 on ink I can't use and can no longer return to Asda. Throwing £50 away is not to be sneezed at. That's lunch for two at the Daffodil in Cheltenham!
What I could do with is a method which either provides a fix for these particular inks, or preferably configures the printer to use ink from the European Union (I have already set the printer preferences to be 'UK' but to no joy.
I cannot afford to buy a newer printer of this quality and need a solution to my question.
Many thanks in advance.
Peter

Answer 1

I'm sorry Bob, in theory your solution sounds fine but in practice it was a complete failure and I'm now left with an unusable printer.
I liaised with HP Support and a representative popped onto my PC using an applet for remote control purposes. He was not ai-fait with this printer (OK it is getting old) and kept on having to refer to his supervisor. He also explained the procedure may not work because of the age of the machine - this was a disclaimer I'd not heard about before.
For a living, I program industrial devices like PLCs and if these logic devices performed differently when they aged then companies like Allen Bradley/Rockwell, Schneider and Siemens wouldn't be the multi-billion £/$ companies they are now.
So this guy had me pressing key combinations to access hidden menus and changing the ink for the current region and he ran a program which should change the region. I then had to swap the inks for the home region (England/EU) but the printer complained, it now wanted 177 inks not the 363 I'd just bought.
He made an error and had changed the printer region to Africa. I think he realised what he'd done and fell back on the earlier disclaimer. He advised me to take the new EU inks back to the shop where I bought it saying they didn't work and could they give me a discount on a new HP printer.
Well, I hope he made a mistake, as the number of times he said HP could advise me of what printer could replace it, made me think it was deliberate!
By the way Bob, I can't even use the scanner on this 'all-in-one' printer now. Who designs software so if an ink isn't the right region takes down the whole machine?
I'm now going to fill out a survey for my 'HP Support Experience'. I won't be holding back. Perhaps you can tell I'm not best pleased.
So I'm sorry I can't tick any boxes right now. Perhaps if HP decide to help me further I'll come back and do the business.
Peter W.