CEI

Service Negligence and FraudI called [redacted] regarding a problem that I was having a [redacted] 50 inch Plasma TV and explained to them in detail the nature of the problem (three new light-colored vertical lines on the TV that appeared about 2-3 days prior that were more obvious on a dark background). They referred me to a 3rd party repair company named [redacted] located in Raleigh, NC. I then called the referenced company and reported to them the same problem. They told me that they would send someone to help with the repair and that this visit would cost $150 not including materials. I agreed. The technician from [redacted] showed up on time to my residence. On the way to place, he asked me what the problem was on the TV. I told him the exact same thing described above. Before we even arrived to the elevator in the apartment complex, he clearly indicated that he would not be able to repair the problem and the TV's panel would need to be replaced at a cost that often rivals that of replacing the entire TV. Despite not being able to do anything to repair the TV and despite the fact that they could have just as easily told me what the problem was over the phone without dispatching a technician to my home, I was still charged $150 for essentially nothing. When attempting to speak to the manager of [redacted] regarding this issue, he hung up on me after telling me that the technician needed to see the TV to make the diagnosis. This is clearly incorrect since the technician knew what the problem was before he walked into the building. This is negligence in the sense that the company could have easily indicated to me (the customer) what the problem was without taking my money and wasting my time. This is fraud because the company charged me $150 in exchange for no service. Desired SettlementI want a refund for $150. Business Response We regret that the display panel on the TV is defective, however if either us or [redacted] knew exactly what the problem was from the phone conversation, we would have provided a quote without making a trip to evaluate the unit. We do this on a daily basis when we are able to 100% identify the issue based on the symptom description. However, there are a lot of different parts that can cause lines in the video, which is the description that we had on this television. In this model, it can be the display panel, logic board, main board, Y Main, Y upper buffer, Y lower buffer, or even the source device connected to the television. In many cases, the customer description of the problem is slightly different than what the technician finds on the visit. The only way for us to correctly and accurately troubleshoot the television was to look at it and run test patterns and diagnostics. Unfortunately, the display panel was defective and does cost as much, if not more, to replace than a new TV costs to buy. We did not know that with any degree of certainty before we troubleshot the unit.When the customer requested service, he was given a quote to troubleshoot the unit, which is documented in his service request from [redacted], which reads "We can send a tech to evaluate the unit for a non-refundable trip charge of $149, which will be taken off the final repair cost should the customer decide to repair the product." The customer agreed to the troubleshooting and evaluation. We sent a technician to price in-home diagnostics and we evaluated the unit. While it is possible that the tech assumed the display panel may be defective before working on it, we could never say with any certainty what was defective before an evaluation. Just last week we had a unit with distorted video which appeared to be a display panel but instead, after the tech ran the test patterns and diagnostics, wound up being the main processor board. Had we told the customer over the phone that the panel was bad, we would have been wrong and misinformed the customer. The customer would have probably thrown away a perfectly fixable television set. So, while it is regrettable that the display panel is defective, we were only able to determine this with 100% certainty by performing the in-home evaluation at the price that the customer agreed to. Consumer Response If the technician diagnosed the problem without ever seeing the TV and before even entering my apartment complex, I'm pretty sure that more steps could be made by your company to correctly make the diagnosis over the phone in this specific situation. If nothing else, your representative could have indicated that this would have been a possibility. Instead, nothing at all was mentioned. This is a quick way for your company to make $150. Period. This is fraud. Plain and simple. I would also add that I was attempting to discuss this issue with your manager when he hung up on me. Final Business Response The technician may have been able to guess that the panel was defective, but it is impossible that he would know with 100% accuracy that the panel was defective without looking at it. We sincerely apologize if the technician said anything that implied that he knew that the panel was defective before he looked at it. He should not have done so, and we will use this example as a training opportunity so that technicians will not possibly mislead customers in the future. It would have been entirely possible that the technician assumed the panel was defective before looking at the TV, but it would obviously only have been an assumption. There could have been multiple other parts that caused the video defect. We only know for sure that the display panel is defective now, after the technician has examined the unit. As far as the phone conversation with the office manager, I apologize if he hung up on the customer. That was certainly unprofessional and will be dealt with. We never want a customer to feel less than welcome with talking to anybody at our office.We do not believe the accusation of fraud to be accurate. We did nothing deliberate or deceptive. We fully advised of the cost to evaluate the unit, and we advised that the charge was non-refundable. The customer agreed for this service, which we then provided. Would this be an issue if the repair cost would have been for a small, cheap part? Just because the part that failed is very expensive does not mean that we can work for free. Every time we send a technician out for in-home service, we incur costs of which we have to recoup. Another example: If an out of warranty car will not crank up, and it is taken to a repair shop, the customer would pay an evaluation fee. If the shop finds that the engine has a catastrophic failure and would be very expensive to repair, does the customer get the evaluation fee refunded? The customer would have know that there is always a possibility of an expensive repair, but the only way to know for certain is to have the shop examine it.We are certainly willing to help the customer with the repair of this television though. The normal cost to replace the display panel out of warranty is $805. We will be happy to replace the panel at no additional labor or trip charge, and we will absorb the freight shipping cost of the part, and can offer the panel replacement at a cost to the customer of $548. We hope this will help show that we are not trying to be deceptive by any means.

Failure to honor repair service appointments.Failure to honor warranty.Failure to return calls.Ignoring customer.I initially opened an in-warranty repair request with this company in August 2012. I was refered to this company through [redacted] Support. It took many phone calls to the company in order to finally shedule the repair. The messages I left were never returned, and navigating to the appropriate department was always a hassle, especially since the technician I was assigned was only avalable 20% of the times I called and absolutely no one else was allowed to help me. I was able to schedule the repair for 4pm September 23rd (2 days before I deployed, and they knew this). I spent this evening at my home awaiting the tech to arrive (when I could've been elsewhere with my family), but the techician never arrived. I NEVER got a phone call, no email, nothing to indicate that the tech would not be doing the repair. Additionally, the case number I was provided did not return any results on the companies web site, as if it had never existed. All attempts to contact the company for answers were unsucsessful after this until eventually I was deployed and no longer able to process requests. While in my deployed location, I checked my personal email and dicovered this on Oct 29th:Thank you for contacting [redacted] Service recently. We are committed to providing "Best-in-Class" service to you. To help ensure that we are providing the best possible support to you, please take a few moments to share your opinion on the service you received. Details of your most recent interaction are below: Model: TCP60U50-2 Date of Repair: 10/15/2013 Work Order #: [redacted] Your candid feedback is critical to our focus on continuous improvement and will help us meet your needs and requirements now and in the future. This questionnaire will only take a few moments to complete. Please click on the link below or copy and paste the URL into your browser window.https://www.customersat3.com/e.asp?IID=9D01F0FXXXXXXF71F60CXXXXXEA4A265 Thank you! [redacted] Service (Administered on behalf of [redacted] Customer Experience Group)This indicated to me that the company had reported the repair as completed to [redacted] in order to comply with the warranty request that they had never honored. This is fraud.Since leaving the country on my official duties my brother [redacted] has been attempting to re-process the request, but he has faced the same situation. (No returned calls, difficulty scheduling service, and once again no technician showed up at the scheduled appointment) They again provided no feedback of thier own so my brother had to call them in order to find out why the service was not performed. This time they simply told him that the order did not fall under thier "Guidelines", note: this is all AFTER they led him to believe that they were going to perform to service, scheduled the appointment, and then just didn't show up. (Even though he had to miss college classes in order to be at the house for the repair to take place.)The games this company has played with me are completely unprofessional, inconvenient, dishonest, and beyond frustrating. At the rate this is going to tv will be out of it's warranty by the time I get someone to work on it.Desired SettlementI would like the company to replace the tv altogether with a comparable product or replace the parts that will fix my problem. I would also like the warranty to be extended so that is the repair/replacement is faulty, I will have enough time to hopefully schedule future services in a timeframe that won't allow this company to procrastinate thier way out of having to perform a request. Business Response We certainly do not want any of our customers to be less than 100% happy with the service we provide on their products, so we have investigated this issue detailed to us by this complaint. The first issue is that there was some delay in the initial service request as we did not receive any warranty service request from the manufacturer until 9/16, and the customer requested service in August with the manufacturer. At that point, the manufacturer should have sent the service request directly to us. We cannot say why there was a delay as we did not get any notification from the manufacturer until 9/16. This was the first delay.Another possible issue could be confusion between the customer and the manufacturer of the product and us, the servicer, as we have no record of scheduling an appointment with the customer ourselves. Looking back at our dispatch and our system notes, it appears that the manufacturer scheduled the appointment for 9/23, not us. We can say this as the initial dispatch sent to us shows that it already had a scheduled date of 9/23. Regardless, we still had to order parts based on the symptom and error codes the set was displaying in order to be able to repair the set on-site. Once the service request is received and parts ordered, we call the customer to verify the address and the appointment date and time. We were unable to reach the customer to verify the appointment, and did not want to send a tech out 120 miles round-trip not knowing if the customer was going to be available. The parts order did not come in until 9/25, and at that time we had not been able to reach the customer to let him know of the delay.At this point, the parts went to the tech, and his notes show repeated attempts to reach the customer:9/25: Busy signal9/25: Left voice message to schedule9/30: Busy signal10/1: Busy signal - sent email10/4: Busy signal10/7: Busy signal10/8: Busy signal - sent emailBy this time we had the ticket for nearly 3 weeks, and had to send the parts back due to the manufacturer terms. We completed the ticket to get reimbursed for the time and parts handling - not for a completed repair. If the customer is still having a problem with the set, we ask him to contact [redacted] Service. If the customer does not want us to work on the unit we completely understand, and [redacted] will be able to help. We do ask the customer to verify his information with [redacted], as it seems that the phone number may be incorrect or need updating.