Registered: 01-09-2013
01-09-2013 12:29 PM
I purchased a TV from Best Buy in Ottawa in December 2009 (Samsung UN55B600 55" LED/LCD – paid over $2,100.00 for just the TV), I finally caved in and spent over $400.00 on a 4-year extended warranty plan. The pushy salesperson (funny, Best Buy TV ads say the exact opposite about their sales staff) said that it was worry-free, in-house warranty: “If we can’t fix it in 5 weeks, you get a new TV, sir!”.
Recently, I noticed a disturbing trend: I get "spotlighting" on my TV whenever there are dark scenes. And when it's dark out (low ambient lighting), the problem is multiplied.
When the technician finally came out, he did nothing: he asked me to show him the problem, and I did. I even covered up the windows some dark sheets and blankets, and the problem revealed itself even more. I told him that at night, it gets even worse. His ONLY diagnostic tool that he had was his blackberry phone that he used to take pictures. He didn't even load up a test pattern - or test colours to see create a baseline image for comparison.
He told me to send him pictures of the problem because his camera phone doesn't take good pictures (note: just who are these "technicians" that show up with no tools?). I assumed the tools would have been a test picture with a screen-mounted sensor that is used for calibration. He had nothing with him.
His advice: take pictures that evening, and send them to his yahoo e-mail (very professional...) because his boss would reject any recommendation to repair this TV, and that the pictures would help me in convincing him to actually allow my TV to be repaired - you have no idea how this made me feel as a business man that has customers that have extended warranty plans with him.
I took the pictures that evening, and then I duplicated each one so that they had the image, and then the same image with arrows pointing to the problem areas. I sent them the next morning at 7:00 AM - he told me that if he didn't receive the pictures within 48 hours, the case would be closed. I have not received any undeliverable messages since then, so I must conclude that he received the e-mails.
Note: there was a snow storm coming in that afternoon, and he was very interested in getting back to the office – seamed more interested in that than doing any actual work.
This was last week: I called this morning to find out what the status was. After being on hold for a few minutes, I got to speak to a person from Geeksquad. After a few more minutes, I the person tells me the technician’s notes says there was no problem with the television! I then asked to speak to a manager (I was hoping SOMEONE from Bestbuy), and after 15 -20 minutes of being on hold, I ended up with someone from Assurant Solutions, the underwriters of this extended warranty plan. After being on the phone for a total of 55 minutes, we now have another technician that will be sent here to look at the problem.
After I called Best Buy to complain, and they made another appointment with another company. After not hearing from them for 3 days (they claim Best Buy never sent them an e-mail - maybe it's true and Best Buy is doing this on purpose), I called Best Buy again to see what is going on. They transferred the call to another local repair company. After talking with the woman, we agreed that to make things happen faster, I sent them the pictures I took (like the one linked above). Later on I got this e-mail: "
1) this is getting worse, and your subcontractor is basically calling me a liar! It was imperceptible when I purchased the TV in 2009, and it just got very bad lately.
2) I would NEVER have paid $2600.00 plus 13% taxes for a TV that looked like that. To claim that I would purchase a TV that looked as bad as this is ludicrous!
