Brandy’s Kodak digital camera comes with several pre-set modes, one of which is “beach.” However, when her camera stopped working after a trip to the beach, she reports that Kodak’s mystifying response to her service request was that just because a digital camera has a setting for taking photos at the beach, that doesn’t mean that you should actually take it to the beach.

She writes:

I purchased a Kodak camera model M863 which came with a beach mode built into the camera for taking pictures. After going on a beach and taking picture the next time I used my camera I found that sand had been blown into my camera. This caused the camera to only allow me to zoom in so far before shutting off for a while. Now the camera turns on and shuts back off immediately.

I called Kodak customer support on 2 separate occasions and received the same response from 2 different customer service representatives. “Just because we put a beach mode on your camera does not mean we expect you to take your camera on a beach exposing it to the elements.” The first call was placed on 10/25/2009 and the second call placed 11/19/2009. Both representative also told me I would either have to pay $60 to send the camera in for repairs or would have to purchase a new camera with 25% off. I just purchased my current camera on 2/4/2008, I should have to purchase a new camera or pay half of the price I paid for the camera in repairs.

Unfortunately, just because a camera has a “beach” mode, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t take extra-special care not to get sand in it while taking photographs at the beach. That’s what the customer service reps should have said.

Brandy doesn’t have much of a case to get Kodak to cover her repairs, but her story should serve as a cautionary tale to other would-be beach photographers.

(Photo: joxur223)

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