Charity begins in Nepal with HP cartridges

We are a small Lancashire-based charity that operates in Nepal helping people affected by last year’s terrible earthquakes. To save local villagers a six-hour bus ride to get papers and ID scanned, we bought a HP printer and ink cartridges in Malaysia for use in Nepal. It proved a big hit.

When we needed more ink cartridges I bought £200-worth at our local Tesco. The only problem is that UK-bought cartridges won’t work in a Malaysian printer. So we sent the unused ones to HP and asked it to exchange or refund them. However, despite several letters and phone calls, HP refuses to respond. We can’t afford to lose the £160. Can you help? JPH, Farnworth, Lancs

The prudent thing to have done would have been to take the cartridges back to Tesco rather than send them to HP, but it’s easy to be wise after the event. Happily, we were able to get HP’s head office to take up your plea and it has agreed to send you £160. It has apologised for the delay, which it says was due to a misunderstanding. We suggested HP might like to send you a few more cartridges to help with the good work, but have not heard anything since.

We welcome letters but cannot answer individually. Email us at consumer.champions@theguardian.com or write to Consumer Champions, Money, the Guardian, 90 York Way, London N1 9GU. Please include a daytime phone number