Defects Our Specialty

Funny, right? Actually, it was a good slogan, since there was a high incidence of defective replacement auto parts, and my Dad in particular knew how to get the warehouses and manufacturers to honor their warranties and exchange the defective parts.

Fast forward to 2007. My 14-year-old daughter (#3) has been hinting, whining, and nagging about wanting a digital camera for years, almost as persistently as she has been hinting, whining, and nagging about wanting a cell phone. When the Kodak EasyShare model at left went on sale at Quill for $89 just before Thanksgiving, I ordered one, and a 2 GB SD card to go with it.

It never occurred to me that the camera might be defective, in this day and age. I left it sealed in its box, smuggled it into the house when my daughter was at school, and got my wife to wrap and hide it.

We open presents on Christmas Eve, in the German tradition. (My wife is German-born, and Catholic.) When daughter #3 opened her camera, she was visibly excited, and went tearing around taking pictures.

Unfortunately, the pictures all came out dark and red. Not once did we see the flash go off, even when the camera was set to flash always.

Quill generally accepts returns within 90 days, so I went to Quill.com and requested a return and exchange for the same item because of the defect. On Boxing Day, I got the following email:

Thank you for writing Quill.com.

We apologize, since the camera mentioned in your email is over our 30 day return policy, we are unable to authorize your return.

The fine print on the back of the packing slip confirmed that Quill’s return policy for electronics is 30 days. I gave daughter #3 the number for Kodak service, and she entered the nightmare world of voice response menus, Muzak on hold, and technicians with thick Bangalore accents. With the help of her older sisters, she eventually got a return authorization from Kodak, although she would have to pay shipping both ways, which would come out to about a third of the cost of the camera.

I was not happy. I fired off a return email to Quill:

It’s not very friendly of Quill to enforce the 30-day return rule for a gift bought in a pre-Thanksgiving sale, kept sealed, and opened on Christmas.

Later that evening, I got another reply:

Martin, I have issued a pickup request with UPS for your defective camera as this item was purchased on November 19th which is only a few days over our 30 day return policy….

Customer Service lives. I’m not quite sure about Quality Control, however.