My mother-in-law was visiting this past week and she was happily shooting pictures with her Canon Powershot SD30 and then the barrel decided to not retract and the camera gave the E18 error.

The Infamous e18 Error

katie looks up this E18 error and it has it’s own web page and I found out there’s a wikipedia entry.

Seriously?

Apparently this is just one of those known things. In fact, yesterday Engadget made a joke of the prevalence of this issue.

This was annoying and we thought there was really no hope. The camera was bought in Christmas 2006. It was out of warranty.

Extended Warranty through American Express

I remembered American Express automatically adds a year to your warranty. This is common with some other cards too. I called them, expecting a long drawn out process and after hearing my troubles with the camera they filed the claim for me, had it approved and today I saw that the full amount I paid for the camera was returned to me.

I had loaned my Panasonic Lumix FX33 to my mother-in-law and she had liked using it. So I bought her the same model. Hopefully this camera will cause less troubles for her. Also, I’ve learned that buying the same (or similar) devices for my family as I would for myself makes troubleshooting all the easier.