On May 22nd I decided that it was time to buy a digital camera for my personal use. I went out to two different stores and looked at many different makers of cameras and their capabilities. I chose the PC-Cam 300 for its features and its price. But the price I paid that day was only the beginning.

I chose the PC-CAM 300 by Creative Labs for the reasons below (as taken off the side of the box):

When used as a desktop PC camera
Captures live video in 16.7 million colors at up to 640x480
Capture still images at up to 1024x768
High quality focus-free glass lens with range of two feet to infinity
Acts as a security camera with motion detection feature
Connects to your PC's USB port or a powered USB hub. A 6' USB cable is included.

When used on the go
8MB of built-in memory stores 128 snapshots at 640x480 or 255 snapshots at 320x240
Mini-movie mode captures up to 75 seconds of video with sound
Digital voice recorder records up to 34 minutes of audio
Optical viewfinder
Flash operates in manual or automatic mode
Red-eye reduction flash mode

Not XP Friendly

After falling in love with this camera and purchasing it for $70 (although it did have a mail in rebate for $30), I forgot to notice that it came out before Windows XP did and the CD with it had no drivers for it. I went to the maker’s web site (www.creativelabs.com) where they had ones available for XP. When I got it set up for the first time it would crash XP because even though the web site says the driver is completely compatible with XP, no one told XP that! It took me 3 tries to get it set up so that XP and the camera worked correctly.

Father’s Day Blues

On Fathers day I grabbed my camera to take photos of the family trip we were taking my father on. I pressed the on button on the back and the button slipped down and stuck. I was shocked I had had this camera less than a month and it was broken. My sister and I tried to pop the button back into place, but it was no use. Every time I turned the camera on it would turn its self back off. It wouldn’t take pictures (because it wouldn’t stay on). I went to the paperwork that said it had a 90 day warrantee on it. So I was going to call them Monday. But I wasn’t happy I had missed out on all those great memories that day.

37 Minutes for Customer Service

I called them up on their customer service line, which by the way is a 405 area code that belongs to Oklahoma. Being I live in Washington State that would be long-distance for me. So I grabbed my Cellular Phone (in which all my minutes are the same long distance or local) to save myself the ten cents a minute on my home phone. It took their prompt automated service 4 minutes to determine that it couldn’t help me and I needed a “specialist” and place me in the queue with all the other unhappy customers. I waited 33 minutes until a gentleman picked up. He told me that getting it fixed would be no problem and gave me the address and took down my information. He told me at that time it would be 10 business days (2 weeks) for them to fix it and get it back to me. I was unhappy about this because in exactly 2 weeks I was going camping and wanted my camera. But off to staples I went to ups them the damaged goods.

Three Weeks Later…

I had come back from camping (in which I had to use a regular camera and spend a fortune on film and processing on.) and there was no camera waiting for me on the door step. Being it was a Saturday, I had to wait until the next business day to contact them.

I decided that maybe I would be able to get some answers from the web site. I was able to see that the received my camera on 6/28/2002 and that “Product Not Yet Tested”. This made me angry. Why hadn’t they even tested my camera? All that was wrong was a jammed button.

I called Later on Tuesday night. I waited an ungodly 43 minutes this time. The person I talked to say he didn’t know and that it was “out of warrantee”. I asked Why, he said he didn’t know. He said call back tomorrow and we’ll find out. I told him I had waited 43 minutes for him and I wasn’t going to let him go until I spoke to his supervisor or he gave me an answer to what was wrong. So I spoke to his supervisor, who was even less helpful than he was. Being I was over an hour speaking to them at my expense I finally gave up on supervisor and let him go.

I was so tried of this I gave up. And that was in August.

10/01/2002

I got a letter on 10/08/02 dated for the first from this company. An actual piece of correspondence from this company! Finally what I had wanted even if it was many months late. I opened it up to find a threatening note saying either to call them or they’d throw away my camera! The nerve of these people! I was so angry I knew that I couldn’t call them then because whoever I spoke to was not going to have a pleasant experience.
Today (10/15/02) I decided to get some paperwork dealt wit and ran across the document again. So I called them, my blood boiling once again remembering how this whole ordeal started. I turned on some music and braced myself for a 30+ minute wait. I was amazed that someone picked up immediately. I told the rep I wanted my camera back. She tried to guilt me about all theses times and dates they contacted me. I told her “You NEVER contacted me. Not by Phone, Not by E-mail. All I ever got was this threatening letter.” She said that she’d mail out my camera today. I told her that as soon as I get it I’d tell everyone I knew about this whole poor customer service and how they didn’t back their products as they promised. She asked if there was anything she could do to make it up to me (A little late). I Said “No, I want it back so I can start telling my story”. Then I hung up on her.

I just hope I get it back so I can carry it with me to tell the story.

Thanks for reading!


Recommended: No