Dan bought an Aquos LC-32D40U 32″ LCD TV’ and one month out of warranty it developed a thin black line on the right side of the screen. Sharp didn’t want to talk to him. Best Buy wanted to charge him $100 just to come out and look at it. Something had to be done. Dan writes:

“I called a bunch of Best Buy-recommended third-party repair places. The guy I found from G&D Electronics on Henry was great. But the part that was needed, a new LCD panel, was $1,500. So he gave that to me to pass on to SHARP and said, “The best thing you can do is take it back to them and stick the price and age of the TV in their faces.” Meaning that the TV is so new and the part is so expensive that it is unreasonable to expect that after one year of little usage that it will fail.”

The SHARP customer relations people said, “we would rather have you email us pictures of the problem, vs waiting weeks to send out a tech,” which seemed reasonable. So I snapped like 10 pics and emailed them off. About a week later I got on the phone with the “replacement department” who evaluated the images while I was on the phone. The replacement department gave the go ahead for the Return Authorization number. But first they insisted that I be the one that tell Best Buy I was returning the TV. After a couple of hours on the phone with Best Buy, the process started all over again with SHARP and Best Buy finally talking it out. After 2 days, they called me with an RA number valid for 30 days.

So Saturday I went back to the Best Buy in Long Island City, they give me a voucher, and I picked out a TV. They had an awesome 1080 p, 40 inch Samsung on sale for the price of my 32 inch SHARP. So I got a nice upgrade out of it, too. While I am sure that SHARP thought they were saving a customer by taking back the TV, I had no desire to get another one. I also bought the 4 year extended warranty for $179…I think I have justified the purchases at this point. Let all the commenters that said I had no recourse suck my butt!

LESSONS:

• Persevere
• When two different companies are fighting each other through you, put them in contact with each other so they can duke it out themselves.
• And best of all, sometimes pointing out how ridiculous the cost of the repair would be given the amount of time you’ve owned it can make it so they take back your TV and let you get a new one eve if you’re out of warranty.

PREVIOUSLY: Aquos LC-32D40U Develops Defect 1 Month Out Of Warranty

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