Synopsis

Jump down to Leave a Comment at the bottom of this page!

As you've guessed, this is yet another report directly from the consumer about how poor customer service is attempting to service a faulty product. So, let's begin!

Shortly before my birthday last year (and landing a great job) I decided to splurge on an HDTV. I really wanted to finally get into the HD market, but I didn't want to make too much of a blundering splash, so I tried to do a bit of research first.

While doing some article browsing on several sites and message boards, I came (and was shoved) to a general consensus; go into the store and just look at the sets and see which one you like the most! Fair enough!

I took a trip to our local Future Shop and had a look around. My choices at first were constrained by size, picture quality (in my eyes) and of course price. I personally wanted to stay under $3,000 CAD after taxes and such.

One such set caught my eye which was at that time a decent blend of price, size and quality. It was none other than the Hitachi 50VS69A 50" 720p LCD Projection HDTV, obviously. Right?

After some research after coming home, I couldn't really find anything negative about the TV, nor much good, either. This scared me. But, onward I went.

After a few visits to the store and a bit more searching around, I caved and just bought the TV (with extended warranty, which I'm questioning...) and fancy surge protector/current cleaner... A touch above $3,000 USD.

 

About two days after when I bought the set (September 4th, 2006) I got my new toy!

I plugged it in as soon as my shaking hands would let me and started playing video games and watching movies to my heart's content! Here we go...

---

A few days after I got the set I noticed, very randomly and hardly at all that the screen would flicker or pulse with a quick flash of white (I overlooked it often because I was still in elation)!

In the beginning I thought it might have been just the lamp getting warm or coming into its own, hoping that it would subside after the first few days.

Wrong.

So lets get right to the timeline, which I'll keep very up-to-date.

---

Timeline

Sept. 4th 2006
HDTV purchased - Woot!

 

Sept. 7th 2006
HDTV Received - Climax! (pretty early, eh?)

 

Sept. 8th 2006
Began secretly crapping myself in fear of the "blinking screen" getting worse and hurting my baby.

 

Sept 10th 2006 - May 17th 2007
I was far too busy with life during this time to address the blatantly flickering screen, but still well within my year of warranty. At this point I was wearing adult diapers, however.

 

May 18th 2007
Sick and tired and seeing the looming first year manufacturers warranty deadline looming, I decided to phone Hitachi to get some help.

Hitachi instructed me to phone a local authorized service provider (Qtel Services - Someone needs a web developer!), which I did post-haste.

 

[Thursday] May 24th 2007
I was greeted by a serviceman at my door in the morning. I promptly showed him the set (on a variety of modes: HDMI, VGA, Cable) and he noticed the flickering screen immediately.

He was just as quick to diagnose the issue was due to a faulty "optical block", which when described made perfect sense: The optical block controls the three different light colors, but when it fails, it opens all channels spilling out all lights which equals a white colored flash.

He then told me he would have the set picked up when the optical block came in, which happened to be on back-order. I wonder why.

 

[Friday] June 29th 2007
The set was picked up by two technicians early in the morning. One of the techs told me it should be back early next week. Woot! Right?

 

[Monday] July 16th 2007
It's been a couple of weeks now... No word. Wtf. I call.

After bypassing the cheery receptionist I get a technician on the line that seems to know his game.

"We replaced the optical block, but it didn't do a thing. We tried the lamp next and that didn't do anything either! We also replaced (I think it was called a "gauge bar" or something like that), but it didn't fix it, either!" He told me.

I leveled with him, letting him know I used to repair IBM laptops and used to work in a similar service role as he did. I didn't want to bust his balls as he's just the middle man, swapping parts that ultimately came from Hitachi.

"Sometimes we can just replace everything and it doesn't seem to fix it. It's like sometimes they're possessed by a ghost! (wtf) However, we do have a mainboard on order." He added.

I was played it chill and said I'd wait...

 

[Monday] July 23rd 2007
I've been almost a month without a tv, and well over a month since I started this process... I phone again, hoping to get some kind of update.

Again I ask to speak to the same technician: He assures me he's sorry but is still waiting on the board they ordered. He did mention that maybe I should phone Hitachi directly to put pressure on them. Good idea.

Turns out Customer Service (1-800-Hitachi) didn't even know who I was! They didn't have me by my last name, postal code, phone number or even product serial number. Hmm.

I phoned Qtel back and pressed a bit harder, so they gave me the name of someone at Head Office (1-905-821-4545) to talk to. A certain Zahid at ext. 662X was my man.

I was also told that he was very slow (as in close to never) to reply to emails, until within minutes of my technician at Qtel emailing him that I was phoning around at Head Office, Zahid magically replied back that they were sending the board ASAP.

On top of that, I was let in on a scoop about how Hitachi is getting rammed in the anus because of faulty sets breaking down (mainly their RP LCDs). I wondered if I could get ALL my money back, but he said I might be able to extend my warranty, or up sell to a better unit, maybe.

After trying to call Zahid three times over three hours, I didn't get through, so I left a friendly message.

I'll call back tomorrow, with a stern tone - Let's see where this takes me...

 

[Tuesday] July 24th 2007
Surprise! I was called by Zahid this morning.

He played it off like he was still gathering some details of the call (he should know all the details), as he tried to shun Qtel for not having a reference number, or shun me for not getting one (which I tried).

He then asked me what part I was waiting for, if any. I thought he knew! Someone is lying here. Qtel told me he was sending a digital board. Zahid then prattled on about that this has to be the final part as there isn't much else to replace.

He's really painted himself into a corner with that, because if it doesn't fix anything, then he will be in a bit of trouble. He assured he would send off the optical board today (wasn't it supposed to be in transit already?), give me a call tomorrow with an update and Qtel should hopefully get it on about Thursday.

This could be interesting.

 

[Wednesday] July 25th 2007
The call I was hoping to get from Zahid, as promised, did not come... Perhaps the so-called mystery part that was on order (or was it in transit), will make it's appearance tomorrow.

Ho-hum.

 

[Thursday] July 26th 2007
Hey, I'm a pretty calm and patient guy, and I say that because I'm not freaking out because I still haven't received a call from Zahid or Qtel.

But that's okay! Things don't always move so quickly in these situations, so I'll sit tight for one more day, however bummed out I might be.

 

[Friday] July 27th 2007
Well, out of nowhere as I'm on my way home from work, I get a call, but fail to get to it as I'm looking for parking, as I'm about to go for drinks... I listen to the voicemail and hear a distraught sounding serviceman blithering about how they can drop off the TV... But in 15 minutes.

Uh... Huh?

I wanted the TV back badly, so I told them to go to my house and I meet them there: As highly odd as this call was, it was nice to get the TV back before the weekend. Lucky me.

 

[Monday] July 30th 2007
Thought the story would be over, eh? Ha!

I phoned back today... Sigh. Everything has been working perfectly other than the fact that the screen needs to be calibrated, as the top and bottom inch of the screen is "off-screen."

As I told the technician over the phone to haul ass to my house to fix this issue (it's only an in-house fix, I reassured him (who's wearing the pants now?)), he got very disgruntled and kurt, as if this was my fault. Sigh, again.

Hopefully this will be over soon...

 

 

 

Warning: require(comments/comments.php) [function.require]: failed to open stream: No such file or directory in /hermes/bosweb/web286/b2869/ipw.uberpages/public_html/hitachi-poor-customer-service-bad-prodcuts-hdtv.php on line 249

Fatal error: require() [function.require]: Failed opening required 'comments/comments.php' (include_path='.:/usr/local/lib/php-5.2.17/lib/php') in /hermes/bosweb/web286/b2869/ipw.uberpages/public_html/hitachi-poor-customer-service-bad-prodcuts-hdtv.php on line 249