Action against Kodak not recommended

9th January - 2002
By Ian Burley

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This week’s remarkable controversy over Kodak’s withdrawn ‘special offer’ of a DX3700 digital camera for just £100 continues, but there are signs that the many hundreds of people, perhaps thousands, who ordered the camera and received confirmation of their order, will end up empty-handed after all.

After pondering the evidence for 24 hours, Sutton Trading Standards officer, Tony Northcott admitted to us this afternoon that his team would not be recommending enquirers to take legal action against Kodak.

It boils down to the issue of damages

It seems to boil down to the issue of damages. Even if a court ruled in favour of a claimant, Northcott explains that it would be difficult to identify compensation for damages beyond, maybe, the Internet dial-up telephone time a buyer had wasted in placing the order.

As far as Northcott knows, nobody’s credit card account was debited by Kodak. We, too, asked for anyone to contact us if the had confirmed their account had been debited, but nobody has.

Noboday has materially lost out

Although it can be argued that Kodak has broken the law, in effect nobody has materially lost out. Kodak is protected under the law if it can prove the pricing error was a genuine mistake and that it took all reasonable precautions to put things right as soon as it was aware of the problem.

There may still be technical avenues down which lawyers could foray, but as there is no precedent, the potential legal costs involved could scupper this route.

Unfortunately, Monday evening’s almost terse statement by Kodak excusing itself from having to honour orders appeared simply to inflame customers. It’s likely that the press and media will continue to haul Kodak through the coals for some time. The fact is that Kodak raised the expectations of many and then dashed them.

Still time for Kodak to make amends

While Ryan Air, who were reprimanded by the Advertising Standards Authority this morning for using misleading adverts, skillfully turned the adverse publicity to their advantage later in the day, Kodak’s rigid defensive posturing has, in our opinion, achieved exactly the opposite.

Kodak, if you are reading this, there is still time to live up to the old adage that there is no such thing as bad publicity, but a time-limited offer of 10% off a future order as compensation is *not* the solution. Some far more creative thinking is required and the ball is in your court!

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