Tom normally doesn’t bother to buy extended warranties. Now he knows why. He did happen to purchase one for the Vizio TV that he bought from Dell last year, but the third-party warranty provider seems determined to ignore him at all costs.

I purchased a Vizio 37 VA370M TV from Dell on 2/22/10 and purchased an extended warranty at that time as well.

More than 3 weeks ago my TV started experiencing the “Black screen of Death” and at the time I thought I was going to be out of luck with getting it repaired because it was outside of the warranty period. Then it dawned on me, I purchased the extended warranty (which I usually don’t) and thought I would go ahead and give Dell a call. I found out that the extended warranty was not through Dell but a company called “Service Net Solutions”.

I called Service Net Solutions on 5/26/11 and found that I needed to fax or email my Dell invoice showing the purchase price of my TV because they didn’t have a value for it and would have to wait 2 business days for a call back to set up service while they research the replacement cost.

On the 3rd business day (June 1st) I called back and the rep explained that the information was sent over to “IT” and they were sorry that no one called me to set up my claim and would let his manager know of the problem and someone from the claim department would be calling me on June 2nd (Thursday).

Thursday came and received no call from Service Net so I decided to call. I spoke with a rep named [M] who was rude and condescending and she explained the claim was already setup and someone from Audiovisual Corp would be calling me on Friday or Monday at the latest. I asked to speak with a manager but she stated that no manager was on duty but asked for a manager to call me back the next day, no call came. She gave me the claim number [redacted].

Friday and Monday came and no call was received from Audiovisual Corp. On Tuesday I called Service Net again and they confirmed that they faxed the information over and I will be getting a call on Wednesday. No call came and decided to just call Audiovisual Corp myself and they said that they have not received any warranty clam for my Vizio TV but that the person who handles these claims is out of the office but will have [C] in the service department take a look for me.

I call Service Net back again and explain that Audiovisual Corp has not received anything. [S] asked me to hold while she faxes the paperwork over again. After a minute she came back on the line and stated she faxed the claim over and confirmed that they received it.

At the end of the day I called Audiovisual Corp to find out if they received the paperwork and the response was “Nope”.

It’s been over 3 weeks now with my TV not working and feel like I am getting the run around. Should I just keep calling?

Well, if it makes you feel any better, Dell’s in-house warranty service for computers isn’t all that helpful in the end. Feeling better isn’t the point here, though: having a working TV is. Maybe an executive e-mail carpet bomb to Dell to let them know how helpful their warranty provider is being would help.

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