Complaint Review: LG Electronics USA

On December 10, 2005, I purchased a 50" plasma television from Circuit City as a Christmas present for my husband (Model 50PX1D). I did not purchase the Circuit City extended warranty as the television has a 2 year warranty. On February 8, 2006, the picture stopped working on the television and we immediately called customer service.

On February 24, 2006 the 5th company that was supposed to come and service my television finally showed up (they are located 60 miles from my home). They took the television with them. On February 27, 2006 they called me and told me that it will take 10 business days to get the part for the television. This was totally unacceptable, so I called customer service and asked if they could please expedite in light of the fact the television has already been out of service for almost 3 weeks. They said they would do so.

On March 3rd, I called the service company and asked how the repair was going and was told that not only was the delivery of the part not expedited, they would now not have the part until sometime after March 10th. Needless to say, I am livid. I have been without a television for over a month and now it will be longer. I asked the repair company to return the broken television to me and on March 3rd I asked LG Customer Service Manager, Kathy Watson, to process the documents required for a refund.

On March 8th, I called LG customer service to find out how the return authorization was proceeding only to find out that it was not proceeding. It had not even been started and it has not been approved. I also found out that LG would not authorize the merchant to refund my money for this inferior product. I could only exchange it for another such product. Now, this is absolutely unacceptable and not what Ms. Watson told us on March 3rd.

I have absolutely no desire to own this television any longer. Had I known that there is no way to service this television locally if it breaks and that it would take 4 8 weeks to get it repaired if it breaks, I would have never purchased this product in the first place. This is a brand new television. It should be replaced, no questions asked. I was told that it takes 20 business days (a month, in other words) to process that document. Now let me see, 20 days to fill out a form and fax it to a local retailer. Do you realize how ridiculous that sounds.

I have called LG customer service department every day (sometimes several times a day) trying to resolve this and have been give the absolute worst service I have ever experienced. I have been lied to, passed off, and generally ignored. I paid a large amount of money for this television and though we did enjoy our first weeks with it and recommended it to all our friends, I have since relayed this experience to my friends and colleagues and told them that they would be extremely disappointed if they went through with their plans to purchase any LG product.

My only recourse thus far is to dispute the charge on my credit card, which is what I have done. Though this does not affect LG directly, it will affect the merchant I purchased the product through and they can directly affect LG. I have asked for a call back several times, only to receive none. We are in the middle of moving and I won't live in the area I am in now 2 weeks from now. Since it takes up to 20 business days to get the authorization needed, I will then have to travel 200 miles to exchange the television.

If there were some reasonable explanation for the time frames given to me, I may not be so upset, but there are no reasonable explanations, just blatant ignorance. I have today contacted a lawyer to assist me in filing a consumer complaint and to investigate any grounds for a lawsuit, though I doubt I have any, as warranties are always written is such a way that the consumer is always the one to take the loss. I was hoping I would not be pushed to this. It would be great if I could just get some satisfactory resolution of this issue. I realize I am just a small consumer in a big world, but if LG is treating me this way, I can only guess that there are many others getting the same dissatisfaction and that people need to be aware.

Mary
Stafford, Virginia
U.S.A.