Suppressing Complaints
Admission of a Defect
"...By countersigning this letter, you accept that this agreement is in full and complete settlement and release of all claims, charges, demands, obligations, and/or causes of action that the addressee may have against NECTECH, any parent companies, their divisions, subsidiaries, assignees, insurers, stockholders, directors, officers, attorneys, agents, employees, representatives, heirs, executors and administrators related to the addressee's issue with the above NEC equipment."
So ends a letter offering some unhappy users of NEC's SuperScript 870 printer a refund for a product that the company has all but admitted is based on a design so deeply flawed that the printer damages the photoconductor after a few weeks use.
Allegedly due to pressure from the company, the original page is no longer available on the Web. However, we found a cached copy at Google.com
Who Can You Trust?
The saddest part is the fact that the product received a glowing review by PC Computing, a great review by PC World and yet another good review by CNET. PC Buyers Guide strives to present honest, accurate product reviews. Indeed, as I noted in response to a question in a letter as to why a previous model, the NEC SuperScript 860, had not been included in my review, I noted that, as a general rule, all major manufacturers are invited to submit products for review. Products don't make it in for a number of reasons: the manufacturer may not have a unit available for examination at an opportune time, or may be in the middle of a model change and not have a new model available, or they may simply choose not to participate for reasons of their own. (I did, however, publish this user's comment that he had been "using one for a few months without any complaints whatsoever.")
Or they might have been smarting after my review of a SuperScript 610 printer, in which I chided the company that the "fonts included with the printer are of poor quality" and summed it up -- perhaps a bit harshly! -- with the observation that "frankly, they are awful." I also documented a problem with NEC's customer support in that article, noting that "NEC was unable to tell me the maker of the... software option."
Earlier, on The Computer Paper's site, one of the reviewers wrote about the SuperScript 660i, noting that its 600 dpi output "was not the very best we have seen."
In what is probably a related story, NEC subsequently cut 15,000 jobs, as a result of huge losses.
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