Saturday, November 20, 2010

Samsung is selling Defective Plasma TVs in India


I purchased 42 inch Plasma TV of brand Samsung model PS42A4501MXL(s/n 07903ZES00073-Image copy enclosed) from Home Town , Noida on 27th April 2009( Cash memo copy enclosed).


1)      After a day of purchase of the plasma I noticed a defect in picture display and contacted Samsung customer case. A complaint was filed and about a month later the plasma TV was replaced with a new one. I was told by the engineer that this particular model was unsuccessful and Samsung has discontinued it.

2)      About 2 months after the replacement happened I noticed a vertical line on the left hand corner on the plasma display. I promptly called Samsung customer care and filed my complaint. On follow up I was told that such small aberrations are normal for the 42 inch display and It just has to be ignored. Since the line was on the left most corner and not hindering the view in any way I kept ignoring it.

3)      In April 2010 I noticed that another vertical line had appeared on the display on the left half slightly aside the first vertical line. I called Samsung again filed the complaint. I received no response from Samsung and had to call the customer care repeatedly to get an engineer to visit and inspect the TV.

4)      Finally an engineer visited in June 2010 and declared that the plasma display screen has gone bad. The engineer also informed me that the replacement plasma itself would have been defective and the customer care misled me into ignoring the defect.

5)      Since the plasma was in warranty at the time the display started to deteriorate I filed a requested Samsung customer care to honor their commitments towards warranty and replace the unit. More and more vertical lines started appearing. By September first week there were about 8 vertical lined all over the screen.

6)      My ordeal with the dishonest Samsung customer-care started at this point. I had to call almost daily to inquire about the status of replacements.

Following is the list of calls made to Samsung customer care


05April2010           Customer Care                                                 1800110011  

15April2010           Customer Care                                                 1800110011  

22July2010            Service Center              Mr. Kishore                 9910014646  

                                                                  Mr Vijay                      9810998432

                                                                  Mr Fazil                       9560786614


09Aug2010            Customer Care             Mr. Ashish Srivastava   1800110011

Ms. Sonali Thakre (Mgr customer care) (She promised that a replacement case was filed and the service center was instructed to replace the unit. She said she had written an email to service center with the instructions to replace.)


12Aug2010            Customer Care             Ms. Shipra Nagpal     


24Aug2010            Customer Care             Mr. Shantanu Vadera


26Aug2010            Customer Care             Mr. Harish


30Aug2010            Customer Care             Mr. Deepak Dahal


13Sep2010            Customer Care             Mr. Arnab Bose Manager Customer Care

                                                                  Mr. Bose informed me that the case has been taken up for replacement of the plasma TV unit with a brand new one


02Nov2010           Customer Care             Mr. Kapil Batra (informed me that someone from Samsung will get back to me, I did not get a call back)                     

    

7) In October first week the entire plasma screen went dead. We could only hear audio and the screen was blank.


It is very disappointing after having spent a huge sum on the purchase; the TV has gone bad immediately after purchase and I was misled by Samsung customer care to ignore the blemish. This is not first time I have found the Samsung product failing too soon. I had purchased DVD Writers for my PC and successively two of the DVD writers failed in a short span of less than an year. I have also enclosed the Bills in support of purchase of the DVD Writers for your information. This proves that the Samsung products are unreliable and the customer is trapped to go for expensive repair or trash the product. In this case of Plasma TV which being a very expensive product, Samsung must replace the defective TV and honor the warranty. Samsung is aware of the dwindling consumer rights prevalent in India and they take full advantage of this weakness. I am severely depressed due to this and feel betrayed and cheated.


I advise strongly against buying any samsung products and certainly not any samsung plasma TVs.