07-20-2004, 04:00 PM
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Editor Emeritus
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 2,968
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Circuit City - Never Again!
Last week Jason posted on his tale of woe regarding his Fujitsu laptop and I wrote a short excerpt of my problem with my Sony TV but I figured it would be a good idea to explain the whole situation, maybe saving some of you out there from making mistakes like I did.
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So I needed to buy a DVD player on New Years Eve 2000 (going onto 2001) because I wanted to watch a couple of movies and happened to go to Circuit City (the 14th Street Union Square store). At that time they had a promotion that if one bought a 26" TV or bigger, you would get a free DVD player. This I felt was the perfect opportunity to upgrade my crappy 20" TV so I purchased a Sony Wega 32" on Dec. 31st 2000 - the biggest mistake of my life.
I basically spent a largish chunk from my savings, putting down over $1500 to buy the TV, the DVD player (free), NY State tax, the Circuit City Extended Warranty and shipping. I used to live on Roosevelt Island at the time (small island between Manhattan and Queens, the island where Spiderman had his final showdown with the Green Lantern in Spiderman I). The TV arrived the next day and I was very happy. I hooked it up to my speakers, making it the center of my living room. I lived in this apartment for 1.5 years more (no problems at all) and then moved to my current apartment - Manhattan, 32nd Street and 5th ave - right next to the Empire State Building. TV continued to work fine for four-five months and I often wondered if it was ever worth paying for the extended warranty. (I will refer to Circuit City as CC from now, also, if you want to download the high res version of all the images that you are going to see in this rant instead of clicking on the link, click here).
The problem
My question was soon answered when in late December 2002 (two years after I bought the TV) the problems started. At first there was occassional clicking in the set with a slight fuzziness/snowy screen, perhaps once a day or two. It was so rare that I did not pay attention thinking that it was just something random. But by the time January rolled around, the reception was awful, the picture was snowy all the time and all vertical lines in the TV were wavy. [Note that now the problem is continuous and every there are funky colored large vertical color bars that will appear on the screen every few minutes]. So I called Time Warner Cable thinking it was a cable problem but over the course of a couple of months, they replaced almost every single part of cabling and equipment in my apartment and the problem continued. After removing every other variable (in fact we plugged the DVD player directly to the TV, and did the same with the VCR, removing all other equipment from the equation, and the problem persisted), they narrowed it down to the TV. Since then, by the way, I have isolated the TV with only the DVD player, the VCR, my Playstation, Nintendo 64 and Xbox and have been able to replicate the same exact problem - fuzziness, snow, wavy lines. I have also tried moving the TV into separate rooms in my apartment and plugging it into different power outlets just to rule out the possibility of it being a power fluctuation problem. Anyways, I called CC tech support.
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Tech Visit 1:
They sent over a certified Sony tech, who did not speak any English. He came and thought the problem was with some settings. Using the TV remote, he messed with the settings for several minutes but after he couldn't fix it, he basically said that there was nothing wrong with the TV. Ultimately he said that he couldn't see anything wrong with the picture quality. I was a bit surprised but I asked if I could get the TV replaced if the problem persisted and he said he would see what he could do but I would have to ultimately call up CC. I was very confused by this visit but I signed the receipt that he presented acknoledging that he had indeed come and looked at the TV. This was in March.
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Tech Visit 2:
Since I was completely dissatisfied with this tech and did not hear from either him or CC for about 2 weeks, I called CC tech support again. They said that the previous tech reported that there was nothing wrong with the TV (which I found to be a blatant lie) but since I claimed that the problem still existed, they decided to send someone else. Note also that everytime a tech needs to be sent, I call CC, who then takes about 5 days to schedule a call back from a tech shop who then take at least 2 weeks to show up. Anyways, they sent over a second tech company who immediately acknowledged that there was a problem with the TV and after looking at it for a few minutes decided that it needed to be taken to the shop.
I was fine with this as it was at least progress from my point of view that the problem was being looked at. When I did not hear from them for a week, I called the shop up who said that the tech who came and looked at my TV (and had acknowledged the problem) only worked on the field and the in-store techs could not find anything wrong with the TV. I asked if I could come in and look at it and they had no problem with it. When I went over to the store I saw the same problem. First they claimed that there was nothing wrong, and then they claimed that the problem was with their own cable line and not the TV. I asked them how they repaired any TV at all with a faulty cable which they found very offensive because that was their trust cable connection that had lasted over (apparently) 25 years. They basically said they would do nothing further and that they would return my TV. I asked them if they could arrange for me to get a replacement TV and they said that it was out of the question since it worked fine. They returned the TV, again having me sign a receipt claiming that they had come and looked at my TV. I did this again and when I asked for a copy of the receipt, they said that it was only for internal purposes and if I wanted to get a final report of their work, I would have to contact CC directly. They also said, shockingly, that it was probably the Empire State Building's antenna intereference that was causing all this. This was in May.
I called up CC a week later to figure out the status of the problem and they said that they now had two techs who had told them that there was nothing wrong with the TV and that there was nothing they could do about it and that they were closing the case. I told them that the second tech store acknowledged the problem but CC said that I had signed a receipt accepting that there was nothing wrong with the TV. And this is when it dawned upon me that the receipts I was signing were not only acknowledgements of the work but also the report that was usually written in a blank note section that I had never really noticed before. So I was signing the receipts which were then filled in with data that was false and sent to CC. I explained all of this to them but they were extremely unsympathetic. I asked them if they could replace my TV and they said no. I asked if they would buy it back for the current market value (a loss of almost $700 for me) and I would buy a new TV and pay the difference in cost and they did not want to even listen to that suggestion. This was June.
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I was so frustrated that I called Sony directly and talked to their tech support and even though they found the problem to be very odd, they said that Sony had no way to help me since I had not bought Sony support. I did have the option of shipping the TV to and from Pennsylvania (shipping itself would costing a fortune) and having it looked at by the authorized US Sony center at a cost of $200 (I don't remember the exact amount but it was in that range) and that might help but the cost was too great for me. So according to Sony I was to call CC again.
Since I was so fed up with CC, I decided to call Time Warner Cable again hoping against hope that the problem was not my TV but the cable connection. They rapidly, over the course of three months, dispatched several technicians who once again replaced more or less all the cabling and equipment in my apartment but that did not help. When I told them of the CC tech's suggestion that it was intereference from the Empire State, they even checked for that and eliminated that as a source of the problem. Finally, they placed a call to the Time Warner people that work with cabling down in the sewers who checked signal strength and quality and reported that everything was fine. We cheked my neighbors' picture quality and no one else had a problem. I even found several of my neighbors to have Sony Wega (one of whom had the exact model as me) and no one else had any problems with reception. The final Time Warner tech that came to my apartment told me that he was a CC/Sony TV repairman some time ago and had quit because he did not generally like the way they treated their customers (no idea whether this is true), but he wrote a letter guaranteeing that there was nothing wrong with the cable equipment. He also told me that CC makes it very clear to their techs that they are not to, under any circumstances, tell the customers that the problem cannot be fixed because that would mean that CC was responsible for replacing the device. All this ended in Fall/October.
I was completely fed up and decided that I was screwed so I let the whole thing lie for about two months.
Tech Visit 3:
Then in December I remembered that my warranty was going to expire on January 1st 2004 and with pseudo renewed hope I called CC again. They really did not want to hear about reception problems but when I spoke to supervisors and managers, they decided to send over a third tech, and claimed that this was my last chance and after this tech they would consider the problem to be in my mind (wonderful). They also asked me to keep a TV diary to keep track of exactly when and how severe the problem was on each day which I dilligently did.
The third tech came in mid-December and again immediately saw the problem (how could they not), he did not even need the TV diary to see the problem, and immediately placed an order for parts they said would fix the problem. 2 weeks later, they installed the new chips but that did not fix it. So they decided to take the motherboard in the TV to the store. I was without a TV over Christmas and New Years. In early January, they came and plugged the 'fixed' motherboard but that did not solve the problem either. So they finally took the entire TV to the store to do some more stuff. 3 weeks later (late January and after my warranty had expired), they returned it but that didn't solve the problem either. They said that the TV worked fine in their store and that there was nothing wrong with it. When I asked them what they had been fixing all this while, there was no clear answer. They basically said that the problem has to be with the environment. This time they did not need for me to sign any receipt (surprising). I pretty much begged and pleaded them to write that the TV is broken in their report, but they said that they could not write that because there is no such thing as a problem in a TV that cannot be fixed.
So now I had a still broken TV, a warranty that had conveniently expired and no other options. When I called CC to ask if there was anything else I could do, they said that since my warranty had expired I could choose to buy another three years of extended warranty and they would re-issue three technicians to help solve it. When I asked them which three technicians they would send, they name the same three techs that had already been sent. I asked them if they did not find that answer a bit odd, i.e. that on the one hand they claimed that there was nothing wrong with the TV and yet they were willing to send out the three techs that had told them so in the fist place.
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Conclusion (sort of...)
Anyways, I went to the Sony store in Manhattan and explained my saga to them but to no avail. In desperation I wrote to the Sony President/CEO (yes, perhaps stupid move but I was desperate) and the next day I got a call from his people who then escalated the problem within Sony support. But the result was exactly the same as Sony support refused to do anything since I did not buy the TV or the extended support from Sony. So all in all, I was/am screwed. Note that this tale spans over 1.5 years, a lot of stress, inconcenience and despair and I have nothing to show for it. Ugh!
(800x533) (1600x1066) - Taped material played back from DVD player (everything else is disconnected).
(800x533) (1600x1066) - Taped material played back from DVD player (everything else is disconnected).
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Look at these pictures, am I really imagining it?
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07-20-2004, 04:10 PM
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Mystic
Join Date: Nov 2006
Posts: 1,887
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Do they have Small Claims court in NYC?
You could sue for the cost of the lemon and expenses.
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07-20-2004, 04:35 PM
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Mystic
Join Date: Feb 2004
Posts: 1,911
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Re: Circuit City - Never Again!
Quote:
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Originally Posted by Suhit Gupta
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Caption Time.
Oh. That would explain why I can't find my dog.
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07-20-2004, 05:08 PM
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Intellectual
Join Date: Mar 2004
Posts: 186
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I won't shop at Circuit City for a different reason... Every time I have gone in there the salespeople don't know anything about the products they are selling, and lie to try and cover their butts. They consistently steer me towards the products that they have the most markup in, not the ones that are best for my particular situation. It's very consistent, and very frustrating.
__________________
Doug Johnson, Photographer / Videographer / Director / whatever else
Limited Edition Technologies
www.limitededitiontech.com
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07-20-2004, 05:19 PM
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Neophyte
Join Date: Apr 2004
Posts: 8
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Hi Suhit,
Did you tell them either you would bring them to Small Claim court to settle the issue or bring their poor tech support issue to the public as this Forum? May be you can have a couple witnesses to witness your problem in case you need to take them to the court. May be if they realize that they have much to lose by not providing the proper support or service, they may do something right fast.
DL 7-21-2004
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07-20-2004, 05:20 PM
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Thinker
Join Date: Nov 2006
Posts: 340
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Its a shame what you have gone through Suhit. I too had an unexplainable problem with my 27" Sony Trinitron three years into my ownership. The screen would never settle, and it would get grainy.
I did not have an extended warranty, so I took it to two repair shops who could not see a hardware issue that would cause such a problem. They said it must be the environment, but the tv had not been moved from its spot since the day I had first installed it. :roll:
I tried one last shop, and I was lucky that I did. The repair man had just gotten his Sony certification, and had an idea what was going on.
He told me that Sony had been using a wire-mesh/plastic membrane to insulate the control parts from the power source. In some cases, heat from the power source and room temp. would erode the glue holding the plastic to the mesh. The plastic would wear away from the mesh and slight distortions would appear on the screen.
He opened my tv, pointed to the insulation (which looked like a cheese grater with candle wax on it). Went in the back storeroom and appeared with a new insulation piece, installed it and closed up the tv. The picture was now fine.
He said that I needed better ventulation for the set so it would not get so hot in the future. When I got the tv home, I made sure to get two cabinet fans placed in the back of the tv area to increase air circulation.
I've had that tv for ten years now.
I hope your problem is really that simple.
Good Luck!
Steve 8)
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07-20-2004, 05:38 PM
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Thinker
Join Date: Mar 2004
Posts: 337
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Seriously, Felix is right. Just drop down to your local small claims court and file a suit. As your complaint, just copy down exactly what you've said right here. Then take along all of your paperwork (receipts for original purchase, extended warranty, etc.), a log of all of your calls and results, the log you kept for CC on the third try, printed copies of the images you've shown here and printed copies of images from your neighbor's exact same model showing the difference in quality. Then if you can convince the cable technician who used to work for Sony to come along to verify what they did to rule out interference, you should have a pretty solid presentation. If he can't come, then see if he'll write a report or if you can get copies of the reports he filed to the cable company.
Also, I don't know about NY, but in some states corporations have to hire attorneys even for small claims (i.e. can't send a non-lawyer representative), and if that's the case it will cost them $3,000 - $5,000 just to defend your suit. Even if they have house counsel, that person would want to spend their time on more important things and there will still be a cost to them of defending the suit.
Your best result is that they might settle, recognizing that you are suing for less than it will cost to successfully defend the case, and the worst result is that you lose and go home no worse off than you are, but knowing that you cost them lots of money. And one final thing, be sure to include Sony as a defendent as well. That will double the costs of the defense.
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07-20-2004, 06:16 PM
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Editor Emeritus
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 2,968
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by Felix Torres
Do they have Small Claims court in NYC?
You could sue for the cost of the lemon and expenses.
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They do, but I can't really afford a lawyer. Seriously, I am just a student and I wonder whether it is worth it to actually go to court for this. Think also of the time commitment. Has any one of you been to small claims court?
Suhit
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07-20-2004, 06:20 PM
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Editor Emeritus
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 2,968
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by danlim
Hi Suhit,
Did you tell them either you would bring them to Small Claim court to settle the issue or bring their poor tech support issue to the public as this Forum? May be you can have a couple witnesses to witness your problem in case you need to take them to the court. May be if they realize that they have much to lose by not providing the proper support or service, they may do something right fast.
DL 7-21-2004
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I am but a lowly (and perhaps troublesome) customer from their point of view as far as I can tell. But no, I did not 'theaten' them. Hmm, I feel like they would just get very upset if I threatened to sue..
Suhit
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07-20-2004, 06:29 PM
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Sage
Join Date: Mar 2004
Posts: 735
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Better yet. Go to the CC site, go through their PR release, investor relationship, SEC filings, etc, find the e-mail address of the higest ranking person you can find, e-mail them and make them aware of your site. I have a feeling you will get a response ASAP with minimal loss to you.
I had a problem with a Logitech wireless KB. After countless calls and e-mails to tech support, I finally went up to someone in PR/marketing who got the issue resolved ASAP.
In my previous very large company, a customer issue that reaches the director level via whatever means usually get a lot of attention so that it gets addresses quick.
Nevertheless, the likes of CC, BestBuy, CompUSA, etc have been known to be hateful/hostile toward their customers. :roll:
Good luck and let us know your progress.
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