Furious with my overall experience with Circuit City and your advantage protection plan

I'm also going thru the same situation.

My TV went out of order CC came to my home 5 days later order the part
that was not functional and it took 10 days but when it came in it was
the incorrect part. They reorder the part took another 10 days and
also it was the wrong part. They try again it also was the wrong part.
I ahve called Customer Service several times and they keep saying that
they cannot do anything I have to wait until the TV is fix and if they
deemed that they cannot repair then I will get my credit for a new TV.


Almost 60 days has passed and I do not have a TV. I no longer am
interested in buying anything from CC or will be recomending them. Im
so frustrated I feel like seating one Saturday in front of store and
tell everyone that comes to the store my story.

I spoke to Customer Service and they stated that there was no limit
until they can repair the TV. I must wait until they can repair it.

DV Michigan

I am just wondering if anything has been resolved. I am so furious
with circuit city too. What has happened to your tv? Did they make it
right?

I am astounded to read your situation with Circuit City and the repair
of your tv because while you were going through these problems in
South Jersey, I was going through the SAME EXACT situation in
Manhattan and Queens...

I purchased a television from Circuit City July 20, 2006 and on Dec
12, 2006 the sound stopped working. I called the protection plan
which I had also paid extra for and they told me they don't service
Manhattan and contracted with an outside vendor, AID Audio & TV
Service Corp located in Flushing, NY. AID was a problem from day 1,
they were only willing to come 5 days later and were inflexible about
a day to come out. They picked up the tv and promised to have it back
in 8-10 business days. I called and called to get an update on the
service of the tv, got no answers and on January 2 they finally said
they had ordered a necessary part but didn't know when the order was
placed. I called back a week later and still no part and no update.
It was now 1 month later and no news, which is the point at which I
got Circuit City involved.

I also got transferred from one service rep to another with no real
progress. Circuit City was unwilling to take responsibility for this
company that they contracted with. I actually did have some success
in the beginning with my "case manager" whose name was Melvin. After
5 weeks, he decided that it was time for me to get an exchange since
the repair company was making no progress and was totally
unresponsive. The problem was that I needed the old (unrepaired)
television back before I could do the exchange. The earliest the
repair company could return the tv was 1 week later (week 6 of no tv),
which I agreed to. Since I live in a building with a doorman, I asked
my doorman if he could accept the delivery so I could go to work for
the day. The repair company called me at 8:30 at which point I was on
the subway and had no cell phone service to schedule the window of
time they would return the tv during. I called back at 8:46 when I
got off the subway and they told me it was too late, my tv wouldn't be
delivered because they couldn't reach me even though we had agreed
upon this delivery date. The next delivery date was 10 days later!!
I called Circuit City to complain and got nowhere, in fact, they took
the side of the vendor. After another week, Circuit City allowed me
to get a new tv without having the old one back and they would work
with the vendor to return the tv to the store.

In the end, after 7 weeks, I was able to get a new tv. However, now,
I have a $177 phone bill from dealing with this and Circuit City will
only refund the cost of my protection plan less the cost of the
service company. I feel that they should refund the full cost of the
plan, since the service company did nothing in this case. They simply
picked up the tv and eventually (7 weeks later) brought it back.
Plus, I would like Circuit City to refund my $177 from my phone bill
since it is their warranty, which is supposed to be "hassle-free" that
caused this charge.

I will NEVER buy another product from Circuit City again.

"We scheduled the appointment for after Christmas, so that it would be
fixed before our protection plan expired and this way we could see if
we were happy with the service and then renew the plan."

I searched high and low but could not find a Circuit City protection
plan that was for one year. I saw 2 and 4 year plans but none that
were for only one year with the ability to renew it if you liked it.
Maybe it's different in your part of the country but I don't see it.
Are you sure you are not under the one year manaufactures warranty??
Anyway - best of luck - this kind of letter makes me glad I never
threw out my 20 plus year old Zienth in my basement. Good Luck!

I can't believe that no one has picked up on the request for a full
refund of the TV's purchas price.

Not sure if it was just a misunderstanding due to the wording of the
sentence, but you might want to re-write the last paragraph.

It's probably not reasonable to ask for the TV back and the purchase
price of the TV. I'm not really sure what fair would be in the
situation, but making demands like that makes it less likely that you
will get a response - companies are not going to be motivated to
resolve an issue if the consumer is making demands like that. You have
a valid complaint, and deserve to get the situation resolved, but the
demands you are making will hurt that.

Also the demand for 'extra' freebies makes the CSRs wary as the cost
to the company adds up - you're much more likely to get what you want
if you ask them to fulfill the terms of their contract by replacing
the tv, and then just suggesting that it would be nice if they could
extend your existing warranty another year as a way of standing by the
new product.

Please remember that there as a person on the other end of the
phone/letter, and they are hearing this story for the first time. If
someone walked up to you and started accusing you of stealing parts
from a TV, your motivation to listen to them fairly is completely
gone.

I can appreciate your frustration. When someone makes a commitment to
return a phone call, they should do so. Not following up is just bad
customer service any way you look at it.

One thing I would suggest is to leave them a cell phone number. It
will make their job of contacting you a lot easier.

The major issue here in communication (although, I'm sure you'd rather
have your TV!). The repair shop nor several CC folks have done a
minimally acceptable job of following up with you.

That's unacceptable.

Sadly, this is all-too common. Too many customer service centers, it
seems, have a no-call-out policy. Even supervisors and managers
"can't" call out. I've had several "supervisors" tell me this.
"You'll just need to keep calling back because we have no way of
calling out."

Hogwash!

It sounds like CC isn't standing behind their warranty. They need to
take responsibility for South Jersey TV. While it may be true that
it's take a long time to get the part, the way that this has been
handled is unacceptable.

My only quibble with your letter is your insinuation that South Jersey
TV stripped your TV for parts. Unless you have proof of such criminal
activity, it doesn't help you to make this charge. In fact, it could
come back to bite you. Yes, you're mad (and understandably so). But
that's not an excuse for throwing charges of theft at this business.

Anyway, good luck! I hope you get your TV back soon.

Your complaint is certainly a valid one. I would be livid too by now.
Unfortunately, If I were you I would keep on trying to contact
Circuit City. This is a huge problem that someone over there needs to
deal with. Maybe call back and specifically ask for Samantha. (I
know that she may not be the only CSR by that name, but it would be
worth a try.) Remind her of your situation and explain to her that
you've received no responses back whatsoever. Hopefully since she was
so helpful initially, she will be able to help you this time. Next
time I would proof-read your letter, as there are paragraphs that
could have been left out and proper grammer/spelling that should have
been used. It just lends more credibility to the complaint. Good
luck, I hope things are resolved soon!

Your letter was a little long, but all I can say is WOW!

So this is now the 3rd week of January, so your TV has been gone for
almost a month now and you essentially have NO IDEA where it is or if
its been worked on. That blows. More incredibly is that you had a
warranty as well!

I think its good that you contacted Circuit City corporate, but I
would try contacting the district manager too. You might also want to
look into contacting your state attorney general's office and the
Better Business Bureau because this doesn't just seem like poor
customer service, I'd consider it theft.

They took your TV, haven't returned it and aren't reachable. That is
shady as all get out to me.

Good luck, you need to at least get your TV back in working order or a
new one after going through this.