Joe got Kodak to agree to send him a replacement printer when his kept showing “replace the cartridge” error messages, even after installing several completely new cartridges. There was just one problem. Joe lives in Mexico. Kodak, based in the US, doesn’t ship internationally. How to get around this cartridge conundrum? Deb in Kodak’s executive customer service had an ingenious idea…

Joe writes:

Greetings from sunny and hot Monterrey, Nuevo Leon, Mexico. Your blog helped successfully resolve an international problem.

Here’s the scoop. I purchased a Kodak printer here in Monterrey, Nevo Leon where I reside. (This is not the Monterey located in California with just one “r” in its name.) The printer worked great. It worked great until the color ink cartridge ran dry. Upon installation of a new cartridge, the printer displayed an error message to replace the cartridge. I installed another new original cartridge and received the same error message. I went and bought a third cartridge and received the same error message.

I took the printer back to the store, Coppel, and they exchanged it for the same model without any hassle. This second printer worked fine, just like the the first one. Then, the color cartridge ran dry and the same problem popped up. What to do now.

I called Kodak customer support in Mexico. (Yes, I’m fluent in Spanish.) Let’s just say it was worse than having a tooth pulled.

The next move was Kodak’s customer support via their website. The support person was as helpful as their script allowed him to be. He kept offering to send me new cartridges. Finally, he agreed the printer was defective. He offered to send a new one. Great! He took all my shipping information and then told me that Kodak can’t ship internationally. UGH!

While chatting, I visited the Consumerist and found contact information for Kodak. I called the executive office and they transferred to Deb, the big kahuna world-wide customer support. After explaining the situation to her, she offered a real solution: ship a different model printer to my mother’s address in the States.

Just as Deb promised, the printer arrived a few days later along with a plethora of ink cartridges. Meanwhile, the defective printer has been sent to a recycling center. I’ll pick up the new printer when I visit at the end of August.

Thanks Consumerist!

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