Robot Claw

Yesterday, we briefly owned a new TV. I say briefly because… well I’ll get to the details later.

For some reason, we went out and spent over 7 hours shopping yesterday. Neither of us have any idea why it lasted so long, especially since we had no firm plan on why we had gone out beyond “Let’s have lunch at Chipotle!” or what we wanted to buy. Except for a furnace filter, but since we didn’t write down the size we didn’t even get that.

At any rate we went to a whole bunch of stores and bought this here and that there. We were pleased with a new toaster oven, and I found series 8 of the Lego mini figs as well. I also decided I needed pants, and after trying on (no exaggeration) twenty-one pairs finally found (and purchased) one I didn’t hate.

Anyway a few weeks ago, after seeing (and telling KLS about) SFL and BFS’s TV’s on my trip, we had more or less decided we needed a new one. Our current TV is still very good, but it’s ‘too small’ these days and after 6 years probably time to replace with a nice big smart TV. We did the research and settled on a replacement model from Sony, and yesterday, when we ended up at Sears about 5.5 hours into our shopping trip, saw it in person for the first time.

Deliberation followed. Can we afford it after just paying off a mortgage with a many-thousands-of-dollar school tax bill at home? More to the point, would it be irresponsible to buy it given our current model still worked perfectly? Whatever the real answers, we decided ‘yes’, and I approached the sales attendant. Here’s where the fiasco began.

Unknown to me at the time, the first guy I approached was in the ‘vacuum department’. But he went to see if they actually had the TV in stock. It took him a while, but they did. I specifically asked “Is it new and in good condition?” to which he replied in the affirmative.

At this point another sales guy walked past, and the first guy just passed us over to the other. This was communicated very poorly to us though; and it seemed like the first guy just left and the second just wandered off. This continued for a few minutes until I voiced my displeasure at being ignored, at which point it was explained to us the new guy was looking for promotional information.

And so it continued. The new salesman was woefully inept, and seemed to have no concept of customer service. He wouldn’t look at us, he didn’t know anything about the TV (he started describing the Samsung service plan). He couldn’t find the keys to unlock a case to give us the free PS3 that came with the TV, and he insulted me when I declined to open a Sears credit card.

I hated him and his company, and just wanted to get out of their ASAP.

So then we ended up waiting a bit more for the TV to be brought out to us (after paying in full and walking out with the free PS3). I was riled up a lot at this point – I just couldn’t believe how bad the customer service had been. And when I noticed the state of the box the TV was in, I flipped.

It was open almost all the way down one side, and had been visibly (and shoddily) re-taped. You could see the styrofoam broken in the box, and could even see the TV itself. In addition, a large gash was visible on the underside. Either the box had been dropped or mangled in delivery, or the TV had been purchased and returned. My money was on the latter, and since it actually was my money, I immediately said “I’m not buying this. Give me a refund.”

Understand I’m the sort of guy that wouldn’t buy a box of cereal with a ding in the corner. A $2500 TV in worse shape is absolutely out of the question.

I was so mad, and I never get mad! I was railing against Sears, vowing (and this is likely true) that I’ll never ever buy anything there ever again. I was even saying unpleasant things like “piece of human dirt”. We’d spent a whole hour in that store for nothing, suffering zero-level customer service from employees that cared less. It was a very frustrating experience.

So we got a refund and walked out. We would not own a brand new 55 inch smart TV on which to watch Asylum Of The Daleks. And after such a debacle, I’m guessing it will be a while before we do.

All was not lost yesterday though. I did find the following item on deep-discount clearance at Toys’R’Us. I only wish I had purchased 2 though, because then I would have finished my brothers Christmas shopping early 🙂