Samsung TVs and their customer service - a tale of caution

We bought an LCD TV about 2 1/2 years ago, in November of 2008. It was a Samsung LN40A650. We figured it would be worth spending a little extra for something that should last us a good while and will be used almost daily, and thought it was really awesome. Christina's parents bought a similar model because of our recommendation, and her grandmother also has a Samsung TV now.

We did buy an extended warranty for the TV, which we did not end up using, and I later read that it's not recommended to get them for LCD TVs. Well, we should have gotten an even longer one, because a few months ago, the TV started to have some serious picture issues. The left 3/4 of the screen were very dark and blurry, and it looked like each image was retained for 20 seconds, and all the images overlayed, causing the blur and dark picture. After a few minutes it would simply go away in a blink, but over time it started to take longer and longer, until about 3 weeks ago it just would not snap out of it anymore, and the thing was just unwatchable altogether.

Around the same time, Christina's parents' TV, a very similar model bought around the same time as ours, as mentioned above, had the same exact problem. Lucky for them, it was still protected by an extended warranty, and they were able to fix it in two attempts. I think they ended up having to replace the panels, which is a repair that usually costs more than buying a brand-new set. We were told our TV would require an equally expensive repair.

So crap, this can't just be a coincidence we thought. I looked up reviews and forum posts about ours and other Samsung TVs, and there seem to be quite a few problems with Samsung TVs, though our problem wasn't the most common. Of course searching for issues with any brand will yield a lot of bad reviews, given people's tendency to leave more negative than positive feedback, and this post only confirms that. But! I found many more complaints about Samsung than any of the other major brands, and even some describing our exact problem. One person even seemed to have found a homemade fix, which I will not dare to try myself. On consumeraffairs.com there are plenty of negative accounts about any brand, but Samsung is the only one that made it necessary for them to not just have the regular complaints page, but also two separate articles on the problems people are facing with these TVs. I also noticed that there were significantly more Samsung TV complaints added for the current year than for Sony or LG. In other words, they seem to be selling junk TVs at premium prices.

So at this point, I was pretty upset. Christina and I both have Samsung phones as well, she has a Samsung laptop, and her Granny even has a washer and dryer from them. My brother bought a TV from them some years ago, and we have several friends who also have Samsung TVs. So I was hoping that maybe their customer service department would be able to provide some information or help. Everybody else seemed to chuckle at the idea, but I thought it was worth a shot. I mean, aren't corporations supposed to care about loyal, long-term customers who recommend electronics to their friends and family? Even though the customer service agent and her manager were friendly and knowledgeable, Samsung's policies did not allow them to make any efforts whatsoever to try to keep me as a customer or alleviate my problem with their product. Nothing at all. This wasn't even bad customer service technically, since nothing was done at all. And offering to schedule an appointment for service does not count. They could have offered to help me with the cost of the repair, offered a discount for purchasing a new Samsung TV or any kind of other little gesture just to show that they understand I was a good customer of theirs, and they regret my bad experience. But their lack of effort is just laughable. So not only do they sell sub-par products, they also refuse to stand behind their products. Which actually confirms their lack of faith in their products. I guess I should not have expected the TV to last much beyond the manufacturer's warranty, let alone 10 years, which I thought was the minimum it would be with us.

I realize that I'm making sweeping generalizations about Samsung products based on my one bad experience. Some of the things I found on the internet confirm my opinion, but of course I was looking at it with a strong bias. And I wouldn't be so upset about this had their customer service at least made some sort of effort, but the bottom line is that they couldn't care less whether or not I ever bought another product of theirs again in my life (and I can assure you that I will not), and that they don't seem to be very confident in the quality of their TVs. Where are those one million Twitter followers when you need them?