Bought a brand new Polaroid 37" LCD HD DUAL TUNER TV (FLM-373B) on Jan 28 at Wal-Mart. The problem started around the 1st week of May when the TV failed to turn on. We determined you had to unplug it and then try again. This worked for about a week or two, then you had to unplug it twice to get it to turn on. Then twice turned into 17-20 times and now it will not turn on at
all. It died completely on May 20, just short of 1 year 4 months.
I called Polaroid at the Customer service number listed on the warranty, 1866-289-5168 about the fact that my $1000 TV that I purchased only 15 months ago does not turn on. The first customer service person I spoke too, (name withheld) told me my TV was out of warranty and nothing they could do. He gave me two phone numbers where the part could be obtained, but he could not tell me what the part was, that he was not a technician. That i should call a TV repair company and give them the
numbers so they could compare prices. He also told me that I had available to me a "out of warranty exchange" where I could return the TV to them at my cost and get another, refurbished TV for $310. I voiced my displeasure with the product, but he said there was nothing he could do.
After I hung up and not being satisfied, I called back.
This time I spoke to a woman (name withheld). She had the lowdown on the whole situation. She told me that the part was called a "control box". She said she had heard of people calling a TV repair service only to be told it would cost $800 to repair, and of course - - - the best option would be to buy the refurbished TV from them for $310 plus my cost to ship the broke one. She also told me that if you purchased the refurbished TV from them, you would get a 90 day warranty. So I asked, 'and what happens if the control box goes out on that one?' and she said, 'well if it's within
90 days, they will send you a part and have a repair person come out to fix it. If it was outside 90 days, they might give you a break for 15 days after the initial 90 days, but nothing more'. She then told me
that they do not sell the "control boxes", but ironically had two prices to share with me, $251 & $360 for the control box, from some unknown source. Of course she said, "you would also have to pay labor on top of that". (She was trying to push me into agreeing to the refurbished TV for $310)
A call to one of the two companies (that the previous agent gave me) revealed the part cost $477.91 plus a $65.00 'core charge', which they would refund if you sent the old part! It seems I have no choice to buy the 'out of warranty refurbished' P.O. S from them for $310 plus shipping, so around $400, which will mean i will then have $1400 invested in a TV that surely won't last 2 years! We since decided to just buy a new TV from a reputable company. I will continue to hound Polaroid over this injustice.
BTW, A call to a TV Repair shop in Jacksonville, FL gave us a quote to repair of $200-$300 labor plus parts! If a new car broke down and the cost to repair it was 90% of the value, it would be considered a lemon and consumers are protected by law for that - - - not so with TV's unfortunately.
The complaints on Polaroids failing Tv's are all over the internet. I am thinking about starting a website just for this purpose. We work too hard for our money to be taken like this by a company with offices worldwide. $1000 TV's should last longer than 15-16 months period.
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