When I heard this, my immediate response was the usual, “I don’t know; what did you do to it?” He had been using it nonstop with his Xbox for the past several days; and I was certain that he had done something to damage it.
I rose from my chair in my office, walked into the living room, and was met by a “clicking” sound emanating from my 52” Samsung LCD TV.
“No … way,” I thought. Well, that’s not exactly what I thought… There were other choice expletives racing through my mind. This was a $2500 television and it was not even two years old! There is no way this could happen.
I pulled the power plug. “It probably just needs to be reset,” I reasoned. I plugged it back in…click… click…click. I did this multiple times hoping for a different outcome. This was insane. Nothing changed. Click…click…click…
“You have got to be kidding me. This is just grrreeeaaat!” This was Samsung’s retaliation against me for calling the Omnia cellphone, mediocre. Either that or the Fates frowned upon my neglect of my once prized TV and this was their doing.
And now it was dead. Coincidence you say? Hmmm…perhaps, but the conspiracy angle makes for a much better story.
Now what? Television repairs were notoriously expensive. So what were my options?
I already knew the manufacturer’s warranty would not cover it. After all, they are designed to expire prior to any significant problems. That left me with the warranty coverage from my credit card. I placed a call to Chase and found out that, yes indeed, it was still under warranty. This was good. Unfortunately they also had a long convoluted process associated with processing the claim. No surprise there--nothing is ever simple. I would need to get estimates, which of course I could not get without a visit from a repairman. Not only did I need an estimate for the repair, but I also needed an estimate for the estimate. Paper pushers have veracious appetites.
I then went to Samsung’s website and found the name of their local service provider. I placed a call and scheduled an appointment to get the estimate. While describing the symptoms to the receptionist, she remarked, “You know…that sounds like a capacitor…if so, Samsung has acknowledged that they were defective in your model TV.”
“Defective…does that mean it is still covered by Samsung?”
“Assuming that’s the problem, yes.”
A glimmer of hope--perhaps Samsung didn’t have my number. Maybe the Fates care nothing for the neglect of my television.
Three days later my hope was realized. It was the capacitor. I had avoided the red tape of processing the claim with the bank. And best of all, in 10 minutes my TV was up and running, and I paid no out of pocket costs!
Thank you, Samsung for acknowledging the defect and repairing the problem.
Oh…and by the way, I still don’t like my Omnia. But you know what…I don’t think it’s the hardware. In fact I’m certain. It’s the software. It’s that old, archaic Windows Mobile.
Microsoft is to blame!
