After purchasing a couple of thousand dollars worth of TVs, including a great 42 Sony LCD HDTV, some computer equipment, and other items at the Best Buys store in Jacksonville NC, I made the mistake of buying a small (15) Sharp LCD TV for use up on a high shelf in my kitchen. The set received very little use during the 7 months that Ive had it and was never handled at all, as the set was controlled exclusively through my DISH HD DVR remote control. Then one day when I turned it on it was simply dead. It would not power up at all.
About a week later, when I found the time to make the 45 minute trip to the Best Buys store where I bought it, I tried to turn it on again, and this time, it did come on, but all I got was a series of thin multi-colored vertical lines down the center of the screen, with another irregular shaped pattern of smaller lines at the bottom of the screen.
When I took it in to the customer service desk at Best Buys, I was told that I had to pay them $24.95, which I did for them to send it to Sharp for repair.
About 2 weeks later they called me & told me that the problem with the TV was a result of mistreatment or damage of some kind, and was not covered by the warranty. Needless to say, the TV was not damaged, dropped, struck, or even moved, from the day it was first turned on till the day it failed to work 7 months later.
When I picked the TV up at the store, I was told that I could take the matter up directly with Sharp if I wanted to. I thought I already had. It was then that I found out that I had paid Best Buys, not to ship the set to Sharp, but rather to their own Geek Squad which I suspect is probably located in a room, right behind the customer service counter in the store.
I also found out the truth about Sharps warranty. When I purchased the set, during the inevitable pitch from the salesperson to get me to buy an extended warranty, I asked my salesman if the set had the same basic manufacturers warranty as Sonys (one year parts & labor). He told me it did. When I read the fine print on the warranty however, I found out that the one year parts and labor warranty was only for Canadian buyers.in the USA, the warranty is one year for parts, but only 90 days for labor
This of course creates an opportunity for both the manufacturer and the store to turn warranty work into a separate profit center. They can easily afford to give you a 50 cent part for free and then charge you $50 to $100 for labor to put it in, and of course the consumer has no way of knowing if it took their technician any more than a few minutes to make the repair.
When I got the TV home I called Sharp. After waiting on hold for an interminable amount of time, I was told that I could send the TV in to Sharps repair department, but that it would cost me anywhere from $50 to $90 for them to diagnose the problem, and of course that fee did not include shipping costs, or the cost of the repair at all.
I told the representative that the set had not suffered any damage at all, but my comments fell on deaf ears. Either I would have to acquiesce to throwing more good money after bad, or I could just throw the TV in the trash.
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