The story is lengthly so I'll just you my letter to the SVP:
Mr Brucehart,
I would like to first thank you for reading this email. I feel it very necessary to tell you about my recent experience with your store manager at the Cherry Lane Fort Worth Texas Store. After many purchases made at this store and receiving wonderful customer service each time, my husband and I decided to purchase an HD TV. On January 7th we went to the store and Jonathan Key was our salesman. He was a nice young man and we looked at several TVs but Jonathan pointed out that he had a TV on clearance that should be just fine for us. This was an AKIA 32" Flat screen HD TV. I told him that I felt unsure because I had not heard of this brand before but he assured me that it was a really good brand and your store had been carrying it for quite some time and never had any problems. So we purchased this TV for $499.99.
Well sometime in July 08' while watching TV it just turned off. After looking around and trying to plug it into a different outlet, I determined that it was the TV. I asked my husband to take it to Conn's and find out what we should do (we had purchased a service warranty). When my husband got to the store he approached a salesman and explained the problem. The man directed him to a phone, dialed customer service and handed my husband the phone and walked away. After waiting on hold for about 10 minutes my husband got frustrated, hung up and left. So then a few days later I went to the store myself and requested to speak to the store manager. This was Mr Van Woods and at the time he was busy so I patiently waited for him. When he approached me I pleasantly told him of my deli ma and requested he tell me what I need to do to fix the situation. Well this is where it gets good.
Mr Van Woods, in a VERY condescending way said: "Mrs. G, just as we probably explained to your husband, this TV is no longer carried in this store so there is nothing we can do to fix it. Now what we CAN do is sell you a more expensive TV as long as you are willing to pay the difference in cost.".. This confused me a little since I purchased a warranty so I said: "Can we not send the TV to get repaired?" and his response was this "Mrs. G, we could send it to our service department but MOST likely the problem will turn out to be customer abuse so it would be in your best interest to let me see what we have in stock and you can upgrade as I said before."
All of these things were said to me in a very condescending way with him standing over me as if I was some really stupid little girl. So I stood up and told him that there is no way it could be customer abuse because the TV has not been moved and then he says (I cant believe this one), he says: "Ma'am have you ever heard of a power surge!"... A
At this point I am so stunned by his tone with me and his inability to just simply say "Mrs. G, here at Conn's we try to make sure that every one of our customers have a wonderful experience with their purchases and I am very sorry that this has happened to you. I will be happy to refer you to our service department or you could upgrade your TV today its up to you." These are very easy and non confrontational words but Mr. Van Woods is VERY incapable of such. I ended up leaving very upset (to the point of tears) and calling the AKIA warranty department.
This of course brought me nothing because AKIA no longer exists (which may explain why the TV was on clearance and Jonathan was so eager to sell it to us and With a boss like Van Woods, who has no integrity, I would not be surprised that his employees are the same way.) Anyway the warranty company had some man come and pick up my TV and they kept it for 6 weeks before giving it back to me the same way he took it. AKIA is not shipping out power supplies and so any AKIA unit can not be repaired.
So here I am back to square one... Well the point of this email is really to let you know how horribly I have been treated by Van Woods at this store so I will get to it. My next trip to the store was Friday September 5th. I had been speaking to Cathy Brown in Beaumont, she said that she would call Mr Woods and tell him to get me a new TV. When I arrived at the store he said he had not talked to her and then he starts calling service. (this is of course after he made sure to condescend me some more by explaining that he couldn't possibly remember me since he deals with so many customers everyday)
Well this email is already to long and I am just going to say that he humiliated me in front of other customers and my husband and refused to satisfy me as a customer of Conn's. He had a Toshiba 32" Flat Screen HD TV for 569.99, which is only $70.00 more than what I paid but he refused to write off $70.00 and exchange my TV. As he and several other employees at your company explained to me, Conn's does not and will not ever write off $70.00 in order to keep a customers business. The funny thing is that all the times I was on hold with your customer service department, I get to hear a recording that says that Conn's has been doing everything in its power to make sure every customer is satisfied since 18 something. What a joke!
The interest that I have paid on this TV that does not work is $109.75 so why is it that I can not have the Toshiba for $70.00 more. That does not include the interest that I paid from purchasing a dishwasher, dryer, stove, 2 laptops, 3 I-Pods, a flat screen monitor, microwave, pots and pan set, freezer, sweeper and a futon. I think that my service to Conn's is well worth $70.00 and I am so very disappointed by the way that I have been treated that at this point it is all principle.
I will never ever purchase anything from Conn's again and I will definitely let everyone I talk to know how I was treated. Strangers and friends alike will hear my story since I plan to contact the local television station here who loves to catch businesses practicing unethically.
I am very sorry that you had to be bothered by this as I really did make GREAT attempts to reach Bill Ward who is the District manager in this area. However after being told by several of his managers at others stores that he would not help me anyway, I finally gave up. (I did leave many messages for him with no response) I would strongly advise that you remove Van Woods from contact with customers as I can not see how there would be any way he can manage this store that is in a very bad location without running it into the ground.
I appreciate your time,
Wendy G
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