[ale] Iomega warranty - customer complaint

Thu May 27 05:12:42 EDT 1999

May 27, 1999
letterstoeditor at iomega.com

Dear Iomega rep(s):

The following attachment was of interest to myself. I hope it will be taken
under strong advisement by Iomega, Inc. Word of 'mouth' works, both pro AND
con; obviously the power of the Internet to influence is not to be taken
lightly. As a Linux user (and, I will add, a Microsoft OS user, also), and,
a result of the following attachment, and, as a result of my own experience
with the Iomega 100mb Zip drive, I do NOT plan to buy ANY Iomega products
from hereforth on because of Iomega's poor product and customer support.

In my own experience with the Iomega 100mb Zip drive (mostly under Microsoft
OS's), I have personally found the failure rate of Zip disks to be
unacceptable, in my estimate, at about 20%. One in five, just awful!! My
attempts to contact Iomega over the phone about replacing these "lifetime
warrantied" disks have been met with hopelessly long hold times, bringing me
to the point of giving up and cutting my losses. I have MUCH better things
to do with my valued time than to wait on the phone! This experience, and
particularly that as attached below, as strengthened my resolve to avoid all
Iomega products in the future.

Former customer,
Frank Zamenski
fzamenski at voyager.net

cc: ale at ale.org

-------------------------- attachment -------------------------

Got this off the redhat-announce mailing list. Thought it might be of
interest
to the ALE folks since many of us have Iomega products.

--V

 From: Dominic Mitchell <dominic at cedep.net>
Subject: Iomega products and Linux
Date: 24 May 1999 21:53:20 -0400
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Dear Fellow Linux Users,

This is to inform you that according to the discussion I have had
with Iomega today regarding the warranty they provide for their
product sold to Linux users.  I was using successfully a Iomega
Ditto easy3200 insider for close to two years.  The drive failed
last night.  I was very frustrated to found out that since I could not
test the drive under one of Microsoft operating system Iomega could
not do anything about the warranty --- read they won't even consider
my claim!

Thus I advise any Linux users of Iomega products to manifest themselves
to Iomega (letterstoeditors at iomega.com) that if this is the policy
they want to adopt then the Linux community will have to consider
products from a friendlier company.

Linux users that are considering to buy a Iomega product should also
contact Iomega and let them know that adopting such a policy is
going to influence the sales in the Linux market.

Here is a copy of the letter I have sent to Iomega

To whom it concerns,

I have been very deceived by the customer supports that Iomega
provides to their customers.  I have purchased two years ago a tape
backup from Iomega, a Ditto easy3200 insider.  Last night the drive
failed, it is still under warranty as the warranty expires on July 27
1999.

Calling Iomega I have been told that if I do not run a Microsoft
Operating system, then Iomega cannot do nothing about the drive.
Basically I need to be able to test the drive under Microsoft.
Since I do not have Microsoft installed, then it is like having no
warranty at all.

Since the unit is (was) working under Linux, I find that Iomega has
a very strange commercial policy.  As it occurred to Iomega that
Linux is the fastest growing operating system on the market now?
Maybe those that decide the commercial policy of Iomega should get
some number straight?  Getting officials number of Linux users is a
difficult task since the operating system,  even though it can be
purchased from many distributors (like Redhat, Caldera, Suse,
Mandrake, etc. ), can simply be downloaded free of charge from ftp
sites all over the world.  A reasonable estimates would be in
between 8 to 9 Million users and growing very rapidly.

Many important companies have backed Linux recently:

- IBM is building server with Linux running as the OS
- Intel and Netscape have invested in a Linux distribution Redhat
  Software
- Oracle as ported its database software to Linux.
- Sybase
- Informix
- Dell is shipping computers with Linux preinstalled on it
- Corel as ported Wordperfect 8 on Linux and should release their
  office suite for Linux this summer.  Moreover they will be
  releasing their Linux distribution by next Fall.
- Compaq (Digital)
- Silicon Graphics

I do not ask customer support from Iomega to have the drive working
under that alternative Operating System (Linux).  *Unfortunately*
the Linux community has been doing a good job at this level.  But
the least we can expect from Iomega is that they recognize when
their drives fail and this under any Operating System.

What is shocking is that Iomega would not even consider an advance
shipment, where you give them your credit card number and they ship
you a replacement drive and you send them back your broken drive or
any other form of customer support.  By any such method they could
then easily check that the drive is broken.  This is what is totally
unacceptable.

I have no other choice but to spread the word around in the Linux
community that:

 1)  if they have a current Iomega product running under Linux then
     they cannot count on their warranty

 2)  If they are considering to buy Iomega product to run on Linux
     then they should consider a competitor of Iomega who's
     commercial practices are more supportive of their favorite
     Operating System.

Dominic Mitchell

Deceived customer.

--
==============================================================
Dominic Mitchell           Email: mitcheld at qed.econ.queensu.ca
Department of Economics    mailto:dominic at cedep.net
Queen's University
Kingston, Ontario
Canada, K7L 3N6            Running Linux Redhat 5.2
==============================================================

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---
Vernard Martin (vernard at cc.gatech.edu)  http://www.cc.gatech.edu/~vernard/
"Luck is just one of my many skills." - Isamu from Macross Plus