I have had the displeasure of buying 2 RC800 scanners from planon. This company sells these awful plastic toys for $299. They have so many problems with them that I'm CERTAIN other people are just as angry. I now know why these product never made it to store shelves. Keep this in mind when you buy anything online you've never seen in a store.
When I got the scanners, the first thing I noticed was that they scanned too slow to be useable. The package and the Planon website make up lies about 3 second scanning, but you'd be lucky if the scanner finished after 25 seconds. The resolution is also falsely claimed. "400DPI" on this toy doesn't compare to "100DPI" on a flatbed scanner. But these are the MINOR complaints.
The scanners take an external microSD card and they use a proprietary filesystem which means you are completely dependent upon their proprietary USB cable and the ridiculously slow transfer and processing speeds. The scanner doesn't really save images. It saves chucks of data that your computer has to spend time converting into images. You can't even use the scanner as a twain device. You have to spend time playing the memory card game, and it gets worse.
The thing is that this device doesn't like a lot of memory card. I noticed that Planon does not sell a 2GB card with their scanners, and when I tried one, it failed to write images to it, but acted in every other way like it was working normally. Planon refuses to acknowledge that the buggy, nonupgradable firmware on the devices can't use a standard 2 GB microSD card, and insists that the problem is my fault.
Planon support offered to "repair" (don't ask me how) the scanners for $150 each (yes we are talking about plastic penlike scanners that planon is collecting $900 for after purchases and repairs). There was no way I could agree with that. These cheapskates haven't changed a thing on their own company website in an entire year, have released no new products, and in no way maintained any of their past products. I did find out what they ARE good at though. Insulting paying customers. I sent a complaint to the Better Business Bureau about these creeps and this was the reply I got back from Planon, followed by my followup:
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On July 02, 2008, the business provided the following information:
Good Day
In response to Mr ****'s complaint, I will state the facts in hopes to resolve this issue as quickly and professionally as possible. We began dealing with Mr. **** back in Jan 2007 with some issues he was having at that time, with all problems resolved and him being very happy with the results, we never heard from him again until recently. Mr. **** called us complaining that the product is not working and he doesn't like it, we tried several different angles to accommodate him including trying to explain the reason his 2G scandisk may not be working (which was possibly exposure to static) we recommended he replace the 2G scandisk, he didn't agree to this and was insisting that it was our firmware that was not working, we send out thousands of these and never have a firmware issue. Therefore, in our defense, I believe we offered the best customer service advise, online and live person we could possibly offer. Seeing that the item is now well past our warranty time which 90 days he was given the opportunity to send back for repair in which we at that time offered a discounted repair price to try again to alleviate some of his stress. Again, Mr. **** refused our offers and insisted on contacting your organization. We have been more then courteous and are still willing to offer any assistance possible to help him within our guide lines
Best Regards,
Gwen Jones
Planon System Solutions Inc.
5155 Spectrum Way Unit 15
Mississauga, ON Canada L4W 5A1
Phone 1 905 507-3926 x239
Fax 1 905 624-6629
Email: [email protected]
website: www.planon.com
Skype: Planon-gwen
"Redefining The Way We Work"
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The number of mistakes in the above reply makes me think I am hearing back from a primary schooler. I think you are referring to a 2GB microSD card. I don't know what a "2G scandisk" is (by the way, the brand is "SanDisk"). "Dealing with" is no way to talk about a customer paying $600 for cheap plastic merchandise from a rip-off seller. Apparently they're also cheap in the human-resources department.
"... with all problems resolved and him being very happy with the results..." Don't make me laugh. They kicked me off to the pay-per-fix RMA department (and they did it again this time) back then when I told them I didn't buy the item directly from them. I NEVER told them I was happy with their product or their support and I NEVER told them the "results" were anywhere near satisfactory. I don't know what the word "results" refers to. Planon's support never helped me in the slightest. They knew less about the product than I did. This has been a terrible experience, and I didn't expect such a rude and monstrous reply back. I hope this issue gets taken care of before other people get burned.
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I must conclude that this was one of the worst decisions I've made yet. I hope this company falls into a hole in the ground. Never buy anything from incompetent nobodys without doing LOTS of research, and make sure the interesting looking computer peripherals are sold with firmware and driver upgrade potential. Don't become another sucker.
By the way, in case you were wondering what these little toys looked like:
M
Fairbanks, Alaska
U.S.A.
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