I just wanted to take a moment to pimp a product, or a company, or both. It is not a paid endorsement (who the hell would pay for my favorable opinion?) and just to make sure you believe that I'm going to use the word cunt several times in the post since nobody on earth would want their product associated with that word... exept makers of artificial anatomically correct masterbatory... well... let's just say nobody.
... cunt...
I don't like saying that word. Just typing it is a visceral thrill.
Anyhow. I bought a TV. I bought a Vizio TV. I knew of the Vizio brand but had considered them to be something of the Hyundai, Kia, or Daewoo of televisions. I've owned a Hyundai, though, and it was nice. My mom drives one now. They've only gotten better since I had one. This car shit (cunt) is pointless. The point is I thought of Vizio as a value brand I didn't take it seriously. However, in my price range, my options were quite limited. Sony had a 32 inch Bravia that wasn't even 1080p. Teh suck. The Vizio was 42 inches AND 1080p. Excellent. So I set about doing some research on this 42" Vizio Gallevia. I couldn't find any problems with it. I couldn't find a single bad review that said anything relevant. I remember reading one review that had a terrible score for quality, ease of use, value, and everything and then included 800 words about how Circuit City had screwed them and the salesperson was rude and on and on and on and on and cunt. Then one sentence at the end stating something like "The TV is great, though." That was the worst review I could find. I decided, based on that info, to buy this TV. It came, it worked, it conquered. It's relentless drive to annex my heart as part of its new and fantastic entertainment empire, however, was stopped during a weekend gaming session when I noticed a sparkly abberation on the screen that I will refer to as "Waterloo." It was like the Prussians of bad luck and the English (and the Irish and the... fuck it..) the Anglo alliance of bad timing had, led by the Duke of Wellington of ruining relaxing weekends and the Gebhard Von Blucher of paranoid feelings of oncoming doom, decided to take a crap in the electronic components of my new TV. If the TV was on for more than 5 minutes, with any source at all, it would begin to disply little sparlkles in horizontal lines accross the screen and also along the profiles of areas of sharp contrast transitions. It's hard to explain. That's why I took a picture.
Don't see it? Click on it to see the full rez version. You'll notice. Then imagine it on a 42 inch screen.
It was the weekend when the problem started so I couldn't call. No 24 hour tech support. This is a bad start. I'm angry. There is a tech support email address, though. I use it. No angry bitching. No hyperbole (not at all like anything from my blog... cunt). Just a list of facts, troubleshooting step tried, contact and registration information, and a couple of photos demonstrating the problem. I sent the email, not because I expected results, but because I was frustrated and figured that by sending it I could convince myself that I was doing something about it and subsequently relax a bit. We limped through the weekend without the TV. We had to *gasp* interact with each other... as a family... ... all weekend. I don't even want to talk about it. Even now when we pass each other in the hall we'll begin to try and say something but stop knowing that even though we want the memory of our common shame to go away speaking of it would only bring things to the surface that are best left buried (of course I'm not serious... *cunt). Monday finally came and we all went to work or daycare or whatever the hell the other 2/3 of my family does when I'm not around them. Somewhere around the middle of the day I got an email response stating (paraphrase) that "We think the problem is with the mainboard. We'll have someone out by the end of the week. Don't worry, there won't be any charges." I nearly fainted. I couldn't believe that I was going to get what I wanted without having to:
-wait on hold for 3 hours, talk to a dude with a heavy Indian accent but said his name is Edgar,
-go through every single troubleshooting step "Edgar" could read out of his giant "telephone troubleshooting for people who know nothing about the objects they are actually troubleshooting" flow-chart,
-be told the problem was actually my wireless router,
-transfer to a supervisor,
-get dropped,
-and repeat the previous steps 4 times until I attempt to kill myself and my sympathetic friends buy me a new TV.
-???
-Profit
We went a week without being able to use the TV for more than 30 minutes before it would become unwatchable and need to be turned off for a while. The problem was also getting steadily worse. Vizio was as good as its word. The dude came out. I didn't meet him but the wife said he was nice and courteous. He replaced the part, reassembled the TV, and was on his way out when it started happening again. MOTHERFUCK(cunt)!
I was still positive though. Before the problem had appeared the TV looked and functioned incredibly. And up until that part Vizio had done everything a company could reasonably do. They had done it quickly. There had been no hassles or troubles for me. I was still positive, but I could see Kilroy looking over the hill at me. I knew that every extra stem the likelyhood of catastrophic tech support failure became higher. In my head I was chanting "7s and 11s, baby!" but I secretly knew I was going to roll snake eyes.
The tech called Vizio and let them know the part replacement didn't work. That was a Friday night. The following Monday I got another email apologizing that the problem had not been remedied with the replacement parts and that someone would be calling me soon to arrange the delivery of my new TV. They would also be carting away the old one. I nearly fainted again. I wasn't going to have to box up the TV and ship it to Vizio on my own dime and then wait, without even crappy rainbow sparkle Waterloo TV until they ship one back? Seriously? No ridiculously bureaucratic RMA process? No repeating my whole ordeal to 75 people over the phone to find someone who cared enough to help(Dell, HP, Toshiba, U.S. Robotics, Comcast, Cingular, Direct TV, Charter, Microsoft, Lucasarts, Sony... I'm looking at YOU- -Vizio and Nintendo, I'm not looking at you)? I didn't even have an ordeal to bitch about if I'd found someone willing to listen to me explain my ordeal! How dare these assholes. They have taken away one of my greatest joys. Griping about bad customer service is like 1/7th of why I even exist!
There were so many conflicting emotions here. I don't think I'd ever been recipient of good customer service before. I didn't know how to feel. I still feel the problems with my TV had to be an isolated case. If such problems were endemic then there would have been reports of it out there on teh interwebs. There might be but I didn't find them. So I was just the unlucky dude that got the bunk unit. It happens. So when the guys came out, disconnected the defective TV, reconnected the new TV, and hauled the old one away with a smile, a handshake, and slap on the back It was like the first day with my new TV all over again. It was like losing my virginity all over again, only this time I knew where all the buttons and options were (oh god... a time machine.. I could go back and hand myself a note with some tips... maybe a little anatomical map... so many trips down south wasted... sigh).
So I bought a Vizio TV and it was AWESOME, and DOUBLE AWESOME for the money I paid, but after a month it broke. However, Vizio remedied the problem with the most impressive display of efficient and helpful customer service I have ever witnessed. That is not a lie. That is not an exageration. I typed a few words. Answered a few delivery/scheduling calls. Total time investment of less than 15 minutes on my part and the entire issue is resolved and I have a new, working, and absolutely fantastic looking TV (and the BONUS is that it was considerably less expensive than the 42" 1080p LCDs from other brands).
P.S. Cunt
