product replacement hassles

Oh ho boys and girls. It's gift buying time and I would like to help you avoid some trouble in the future.

Think twice before shelling out for product replacement plans at Walmart and other places.

Take this into consideration.

I bought a digital camera from Walmart in may this year. Nice little Kodak digital camera. Worked great until recently. Yep, paid for the product replacement plan, "just in case" Everything covered, no hassles.

WRONG!

Later this year, after using said camera for my business. A lot. Some glitches started coming up. Pretty odd. this camera has never been dropped or treated poorly in any way. let's call Walmart and get this fixed or whatever, after all, I bought the product replacement plan.

Well, it turns out that the product replacement plan only kicks in after the manufacturer warranty runs out. Kodak had warranty for a year. Sorry fella, go bother Kodak.

I call Kodak. They tell me I need to pay to ship the camera to a service center (in Ohio or Illinois or somewhere) They will then take 4 to 6 weeks or so after they receive it, to fix the problem.

Well, what do I do for my picture taking needs for the next two months I ask.

I dunno, she says.

Not good enough, I respond.

So then she tells me that they will send me 3 disposable cameras to use while my camera is being fixed. Of course, I will have to pay to have the film developed and then transfer to digital myself (because I bought a digital camera so I can post pics and video on my business web site).

This is getting to be a worse deal by the minute. Whatever happened to "no hassle"?

To make a long story short, I will use this camera as long as I can get use out of it but...

I will NEVER buy another Kodak camera again and I will NEVER pay for Walmarts product replacement ever again.

Be careful of these products and product replacement/insurance type plans. They are just another way to get more money out of you for little to no benefit to you.