Quick Update

I called customer service yesterday to check on my television. Actually, I tried to call the day before and was kept on hold for 15 minutes listening to the encouraging message that my call was important then I was hung up on. Yesterday though, I got to speak to someone and they found out that my television was zipping right along in a UPS truck headed for my house and should be here on Friday.

I’ll let you know if it works through the weekend.

A Phone Call from Walmart

Last night as I was sitting here in front of my computer I received a phone call. It was from a young lady from Wal-Mart asking to speak with me. I told her that she was in fact speaking with me and that she could now consider her quest fulfilled, she seemed unimpressed, but that is her lookout.

She told me she was calling in reference to the letter I had sent to the President’s office in Bentonville. What?! Something in regard to my television problem? She wanted me to go over the details with her about the entire situation. I told her the story of the HDTV in 4 part harmony complete with details of the emailed call-tag that was never emailed, and their promise to replace the television the second time followed by their claim that they never did that in their response to my Better Business Bureau complaint.

She was evidently looking at some type of warranty on her end that said that ILO provides in-home service on their televisions which their customer service department contradicted when they told me that the only way to get a television serviced was to ship it back to them. I thought this was fairly interesting and was wishing at this point that I hadn’t shipped the TV back the second time.

She was very nice and told me that if she could help in any way that she would be available. She also gave me the watts line number for the in-home service at ILO. Hopefully, I will never have to use it, but I am certainly disgusted with the quality of products being offered for sale these days.

 

A Better Business Bureau Response

Just to update you on my Television Saga. After having complained to the Better Business Bureau for not doing anything substantial to facilitate a settlement on the claim I made, they sent me a brief letter which basically said that it’s not their fault. They don’t have any teeth and if the company says the matter is settled, it is; at least so far as they are concerned. They promised to put this on the company’s file for 36 months to serve as a warning to others.

That is actually a pretty lame punishment, as few people check on a company’s repair center web site before they do business with the parent. Walmart is the one who needs to take some action on this and I haven’t heard nary a peep from them on this matter yet. I may call on MasterCard to see if they can offer some support on this situation. They have purse string power over all retailers.

Walmart, Televisions, and the BBB

It was back in March, the year was ‘07 our television set was shot, we had purchased it in 1983. I remember when we moved into our current house the cable guy just snickered as he hooked up our cable box. The TV was older I think than he was. We knew it was going out, the color had faded and we were watching black and white pictures now, but you don’t just chunk it because it is getting old.

We finally broke down and headed to Walmart to look at new television sets. Well, I take that back, they don’t call them sets any more, they are tuners. At any rate we went looking for a new screen to show us pretty pictures while we sat sipping a cool beverage.

We found one. It was a 32″ HDTV from ILO, which happens to be Walmart’s store brand. Compared to the other tuners we looked at there didn’t seem to be a major difference in picture quality. Bear in mind we were coming from a 24 year old set that had given up the ghost on color, so we were probably not the best couple to discern the finer points of picture quality.

The price was pretty good we thought comparatively so I said let’s wrap it up and take it home. It ended up costing us just under $600 with tax license and dealer prep, ooops that was my first car, but the cost is still just shy of $600. We got it home and I managed to get it hooked up and everything working and we sat back and watched as the pretty pictures scampered across the screen.

Being in Nirvana, we barely noticed as the calendar changed from March to April, May and then July. We were busy staring at the pretty pictures when all of a sudden, without any warning, the picture went blank. I checked with cable and they were good. Nothing, it seemed made any difference to our picture, the power was on, but we had nothing but a black screen.

I called Walmart and asked to speak to the manager. He dutifully answered the phone and I explained to him that we had purchased the television on March 25th and it was the first weekend in July when it died. I wanted to bring it back and swap it out for a new one. Not so quick there buckeroo! That television is 105 days old (thereabouts) the in-store replacement warranty only goes through 90 days. My television had to go back to the manufacturer.

Well RATSPIT! I started making phone calls and getting the information to send the thing back to the manufacturer in California. They don’t make them there, they just fix them there. I had to purchase a box to ship it in and that cost me $10. Other than that, smooth sailing. Except for the fact that we were now without a television and it looked like we would be for another fortnight.

We got the television packaged and over to the UPS store to ship it back and then we sat back and waited. That was all we could do since we didn’t have a television anymore. They were absolutely correct when they told me it would take about 2 weeks to get the television back, and we did the happy happy joy joy dance when UPS brought it to us. A little more careful this time to make sure I didn’t throw away any of the packaging, I got it out and plugged it in.

Yea! We had pretty pictures dancing in our living room again! The excitement was somewhat short lived however, when about 10 minutes later the screen went blank again. I sat there with the remote pressing buttons and trying to get something to appear back on the screen. My wife pointed out that it seemed to her that this was the same problem that caused us to send it in for repair in the first place. Actually I knew that, I just wasn’t ready to admit it yet.

I got on the phone with customer service in California. Now I use the term “customer service” because that is how they answer the phone not from any real service experience that I had had. I was quite angry when I called and wanted them to fly a technician to Memphis that night to fix my set, and this would not have been the best time to point out that it was a tuner, not a set. Long story short, I made a general pain of myself on the phone.

The customer service person I was speaking to assured me that they would email me a new call tag, and that our television would be replaced, not repaired. Well, that calmed me down a bit, but not a lot. I checked my email off and on all night and into the next day looking for my call tag. It never showed up. That afternoon, I called customer service again and asked where my call tag was. I was informed that it would be coming in the US Mail. Well, strangely enough, I do not take well to being lied to by customer service people so I asked whether she was lying to me or whether it was the young man I spoke with yesterday who was lying.

We finally arrived at the truth of the matter which was that they didn’t email call tags. I was a little confused, these were the very people who were supposed to be taking care of customer problems, not the ones creating new problems. I told them that this was not satisfactory and that I would be filing a complaint with the Better Business Bureau.

After getting off the phone with customer service, I went to the BBB to file a complaint. This was not the easiest thing to do either as there seemed a maze of different options to navigate and none of the descriptions really seemed to fit my problem. Anyway, I filled out the forms and said that I wanted a written apology for their people lying to me ( or not knowing their job well enough to avoid this situation ), and I wanted $75 to cover the cost of my wasted 2 months of cable service.

Here is their response:

I am not sure what this customer is asking for. We are a repair center and can offer to repair the tv again; we cannot and we don’t make promises to replace anyone’s tv. I can assure you that when his tv was sent in for repair, it was also QC’d before it was returned to him. We would not send it back without checking to see if it was working or not. Unfortunately, we deal with electronics were consistent rough handling can cause minute damage during transit. As for emailing a shipping label,we do not offer that anymore.We tried this route before & each time it failed so we removed this service a few weeks ago. I humbly apologize if a rep said he would and we did not. I apologize if the postal service took too long to get the shipping label to him, this is a courtesy that we offer to the customers so they do not have to send their tv to us for repair at their cost. The shipping label allows UPS, once they are in possession of the unit, to deliver it to us within 5 business days. Once we have it in for repair, we try to repair and QC within 3 business days. Once it is ready to be returned to the customer, it takes UPS another 5 business days. In all, once we have it in our facility, it takes approximately 7-10 business days for the unit to be returned to the customer. If we can be of further assistance, please have the customer contact us. Thank you.

Initial Response Summary

Customer claims we promised him a new tv.We are a repair center,we can only offer to repair the unit.We don’t email call tags because that service doesn’t work

I would like to point out the bolded line above, here they state that they can’t seem to get a television out without damage. Maybe it’s just me, but it seems to me that if they can’t get a television delivered to a customer without damage, they might look into a new career, maybe anvil repair.
I told them in my response that it wasn’t my job to educate their telephone staff in their company policies, and that this explanation did not do anything to rectify the problem.

I finally got the second call tag and got the television boxed back up and to the UPS store. Now I am waiting for the television to be returned, note the second lie that they do not replace televisions only repair them.

Meanwhile, I get a letter of closure from the BBB. They seem to be happy as a lark that this situation has been successfully solved. I wrote them back to let them know that the problem has not been solved in my opinion.

Next, an email to Walmart’s corporate offices in Bentonville, to complain about the service I have received first from the store manager and then from the repair center. They are the biggest retailer in the world, they have the most clout with vendors of any customer in the world and they can’t seem to take care of a small little television that won’t work. I find this ludicrous.

I’ll update this when I either get my original television back or a new one, and see what Walmart has to say, if anything.