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Last post Author Topic: Kodak (Complaint)  (Read 37375 times)

Deozaan

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Re: Kodak (Complaint)
« Reply #25 on: March 28, 2008, 03:58 PM »
Thanks again Phil!

Deozaan

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Re: Kodak (Complaint)
« Reply #26 on: March 31, 2008, 12:34 PM »
So when I was trying to find names and addresses of people I decided to use Kodak's contact form to ask. I was a little misleading in my request, but it got some information. The response is funny as well. Both are below:

My Request
I would like to have the name and corresponding address to the
President/CEO of Kodak so that I may write him or her a letter
expressing my gratitude for services provided and comment on the quality
of the products.

I would love to write similar letters to all of the heads of the company
as possible as a token of thanks, so the more names and addresses you
can provide me, the better. Thank you very much.


The Response
Greetings,

We received your e-mail and are happy to hear of your complete
satisfaction.

You may write to our CEO, Mr. Antonio M. Perez, at:

Eastman Kodak Company
343 State Street
Rochester, NY  14650

Thank you for visiting the Kodak Web site.  If you should have future
questions on Kodak products or services, please be sure to revisit our
Web site as we are continually adding information to enhance our
service.

Sincerely,

Kodak Information and Technical Support


cranioscopical

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Re: Kodak (Complaint)
« Reply #27 on: March 31, 2008, 01:48 PM »
Don't forget to mark the envelope  "Private and Confidential" so that it gets through at least the first defensive line of underlings' mail screening.

Cloq

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Re: Kodak (Complaint)
« Reply #28 on: April 20, 2008, 09:38 PM »
This seems like it would be a great case for PC World Magazine's "On Your Side".

It wouldn't hurt to email them and see if they can take the case for you.

E-Mail: [email protected]

Deozaan

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I officially hate Kodak!
« Reply #29 on: May 09, 2008, 02:57 AM »
Okay this just gets worse as time goes by.

I was just going to drop it and let things go, but today I finally discovered two straws that broke the camel's back, chainsawed it into little pieces, and displayed the corpse around the country on pikes to be a lesson to anyone who would dare purchase anything from Kodak.

Since the weather warmed up today, my wife and I took a walk with our camera. We took a few photos and she even filmed a couple short videos. Then when we got home she excitedly told me to get the pictures and videos off the camera so she could see them. So I opened up Picasa and went to the import screen and waited for everything to load up. For some reason it was taking a very long time for all the pictures and videos to display on the import screen (can't get them off until all files have been loaded) so as they would load one by one I'd look at them.

That's when I noticed that many of the videos my wife had taken over the past several months had strange purple lines through them. After watching several of them, the pattern seems to be that any video taken where there is any possibility of a sunlight glare results in big purple/pink discoloration across most of the image. So the videos are still broken after all!

I never noticed this before because I don't use the camera except an occasional photo. The odd thing is that photos all look fine, but videos have the discoloration with sunlight.

That made me mad enough to consider the camel's back broken, but in the meantime, and quite coincidentally, I've been backing up my wife's laptop so I can format it and get all the crap off of it that slows it down. She told me I'd better not delete her "Kodak" photos, to which I merely gave her a look with the accompanying thought of "Why would I do that? I'm sure they'll all be in the My Pictures folder anyway."

So I backed up her music and files and other documents. I looked through her Program Files directories, specifically with the intent of finding any photos that got saved into the Kodak folder. There were no photos to be found, so I was about to call it good and start copying the files over to another computer so I could format when I noticed her desktop picture (a nice, handsome photo of yours truly :P ) and I wanted to make sure I had that one backed up, too. So I went into the directories of photos I backed up and selected View as Thumbnails, looking for it. That's when I noticed that all of her "Kodak" photos were actually shortcuts to the real images.

The problem is, the shortcuts didn't take me to the real images. They couldn't be found. I looked in My Pictures, I looked in Documents and Settings folders for every user on the machine. I looked everywhere I could think of. I couldn't find them anywhere. I was wondering, if they weren't on the computer anymore, why would the shortcuts show the actual photos when in thumbnail mode.

As a last resort I opened up the Kodak EasyShare software, and I saw tons and tons of photos and photo albums. None of which I had backed up. But where were they hiding? The stupid program wouldn't let me find their directory. Finally, the horror of the mistake that almost was dawned on me: Hidden folders.

I'm a power user, so I always have it so I can see hidden folders, but I thought it best if my wife didn't see the contents of hidden folders, the Program Files and Windows directories. I enabled them and of all the unhidden folders in the Program Files\Kodak directory, the only one that was hidden was the one which contained the original photos! And it was actually hidden inside the innocent looking "bin" directory, where no average user would think to look anyway!

As a result, we almost lost 170 original family photos spanning more than the entire length of our life together, including our wedding photos! I'm not even sure how the wedding photos (or others) got in there since they were taken before we even got this camera. I guess Kodak software decided to assimilate any photo it found on the system.

My experience with Kodak has just been one nightmare after another.
« Last Edit: June 09, 2009, 12:22 PM by Deozaan »

Carol Haynes

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Re: Kodak (Complaint)
« Reply #30 on: May 09, 2008, 03:56 AM »
Sounds like BLOG time to me ... let us know when it is posted I am sure others here would happily DIGG it and spread the word!

Well done finding all your photos.

I must admit this is one of the reasons I really don't like software that 'organises' anything in any sort of automated way. Unfortunately huge numbers of photo organisers do this and at best you end up with a disc full of confusing multiple copies. Yours is the worst case scenario!

Deozaan

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Re: Kodak (Complaint)
« Reply #31 on: May 09, 2008, 05:31 AM »
Sounds like BLOG time to me ... let us know when it is posted I am sure others here would happily DIGG it and spread the word!
-Carol Haynes (May 09, 2008, 03:56 AM)

But what part to blog about? I've already written in fairly great detail the many technical, hardware, and customer service problems I've had with Kodak in this thread. I could go into more detail about the software, for instance how all the shortcuts linked to Documents and Settings/All Users/Documents/My Pictures/Kodak/randomnumber.jpg but there wasn't even an All Users/Documents folder, much less the pictures where it said they were.

And besides that, I don't really have an established blog.

Carol Haynes

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Re: Kodak (Complaint)
« Reply #32 on: May 09, 2008, 05:53 AM »
Takes less than 2 minutes to set up a blog at www.blogger.com

What you have experienced with Kodak needs a campaign to combat their complacency and stupidity. Seems to me a campaign needs a focus point.

I am not sure a thread on a forum dedicated to coding is the place to wage the campaign (much as I think you are right). By all means recruit people here and elsewhere to support your cause. I will certainly add my name to a campaign against such shoddy treatment and crap software (EasyShare stayed on my system for about 2 hours before I uninstalled it).

What do others think?

cranioscopical

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Re: Kodak (Complaint)
« Reply #33 on: May 09, 2008, 05:31 PM »
What you have experienced with Kodak needs a campaign to combat their complacency and stupidity. Seems to me a campaign needs a focus point.

What do others think?
-Carol Haynes (May 09, 2008, 05:53 AM)

I think Deozaan needs to find others who've had problems with Kodak, in order to add weight to his complaint. A blog is probably a good starting point for that.


Deozaan

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Re: Kodak (Complaint)
« Reply #34 on: May 09, 2008, 06:20 PM »

Carol Haynes

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Re: Kodak (Complaint)
« Reply #35 on: May 09, 2008, 06:27 PM »
Looks like a great place to start ...

Personally I wouldn't touch Kodak crap ever again (having myself been left with a camera that doesn't turn on even after sending it away for repair in the UK - any one notice a theme on that website?).

I have put it down to experience and now only use Canon products.

steeladept

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Re: Kodak (Complaint)
« Reply #36 on: May 25, 2008, 02:36 AM »
I am REALLY sorry I didn't see this sooner.  I am really surprised no one mentioned the Better Business Bureau. If they are not a member, then it doesn't do much good, but they are the premier consumer advocacy group in the U.S.  I used them when I got so frustrated with the runaround at NewEgg (which I still will never use if I can help it). They didn't really help me, but they pretty much guarantee a response within 7 days from the company (and it isn't customer service) if the company is a member.

It may not help, but it gives Kodak a black mark with the BBB (if it is not resolved) and you a more direct line to someone who can help.  It is kind of like arbitration with the company management.

Deozaan

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Re: Kodak (Complaint)
« Reply #37 on: June 18, 2008, 07:12 PM »
Kodak could learn a thing or two from NewEgg. It's not that hard!

jenforgod

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Re: Kodak (Complaint)
« Reply #38 on: June 09, 2009, 11:38 AM »
OKAY, so what actually happened in the end?  Is there a blog, did you finally get taken care of?  I don't have the money to get another camera and I can't return mine.  It takes FABULOUS pictures as long as there isn't a bright light around (like the sun during baseball season!!! :mad:

I am right where this post ended in my battle that I've decided to fight.

Deozaan

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Re: Kodak (Complaint)
« Reply #39 on: June 09, 2009, 12:24 PM »
What actually happened in the end is that Kodak never fixed the problems and I will never buy anything Kodak again and I will strongly discourage anybody I know from buying anything Kodak again.

Innuendo

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Re: Kodak (Complaint)
« Reply #40 on: June 10, 2009, 01:46 PM »
I just skimmed this thread so this may have been said before & I missed it. If so, I apologize but this bears repeating in case anyone does not know:

Today's Kodak is NOT the Kodak we knew growing up. The real Kodak went bankrupt years ago & today's Kodak cameras are just the product of a no-name, shoddy conglomerate that licensed the Kodak name to sell pieces of crap under. They have no real relation to the real Kodak company other than being bottom-feeders trying to live off of the good name of an old recognizable brand name.

Deozaan, what new camera did you get?

Deozaan

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Re: Kodak (Complaint)
« Reply #41 on: June 10, 2009, 02:29 PM »
Deozaan, what new camera did you get?

None. I still have that Kodak camera. It still takes pictures just fine. Just the video is bad. Also these days having a dedicated camera isn't necessary unless you specifically want to do some photography. There are cameras built into laptops, phones, PDAs, and even portable gaming consoles.

Right now I just mostly use my phone camera for pictures and videos, even though it doesn't take pictures with as many megapixels as the Kodak camera, it still suits my needs.