Circuit City

Oh what fun I had with Circuit City this year. Some of you know the story some of you do not. For those of you who don't here is the letter I wrote to them after it was over. I wrote to their customer service department who promised in big letters across the web page all inquiries will be responded to in 48 hours.

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I ran into problems with my 23 inch Zenith HD LCD TV. Video2 was not processing 480I or 1080i. The following is the service I received from Circuit City.

Every phone conversation started with “Thank you for calling Circuit City how may I provide you with excellent customer service! ”

Dec 19^th

I called Circuit City about a problem with my Zenith 23 inch TV. I had purchased the extended warranty. I was told in-home repairs were backed up and no-one could be at my house until Jan 3^rd. This was not a problem but I asked how long it would be if I took it into the store since it was such a small TV and I was leaving town. The nice lady on the phone said about 1 week. I took the TV in that night.

8 days later.

I had not been contacted by Circuit City so I started to call. I was put on hold several times over the next few days and at one point told I would be called back. Never was.

10 days later.

I finally got a hold of someone who could help and I am told the TV was mailed to California the day before. I obviously got very angry because I was told the repair would take 7 days and the Lynnwood store had taken 9 days just to mail it. This individual then informed me it would take 4-6 weeks to get the TV repaired. Angry but with at least what I thought was an honest answer I moved on.

6 weeks later.

Having still not heard from Circuit City I called again. The individual said they were having trouble with the repairs and the TV would be delayed. He also informed me that I was called about this a week ago and a message was left. I informed him I wasn't and asked to verify my phone number so we wouldn't run into this problem again. He said he did not have access to this information.

7 weeks later

I called the store again not having heard anything and was informed the TV had returned, but was sent out for additional repairs. Again I asked to have my phone updated. Again it was not able to be updated.

8 weeks later

My wife called to check on the TV. The individual that answered the phone said the TV was inbound and was able to access the phone number to confirm it was wrong. She wasn't however able to change it. In fact to this date the phone number is wrong on the claim.

Feb 19^th

Two months to the day I got my TV back. The receipt said they were unable to identify the problem.

The problem still exists. I have luckily found a work around for the time being.

All told I was without my HDTV for 2 months. 2 MONTHS it took for Circuit City to return a TV it couldn't find a problem with.

Had I known it would be two months I certainly would not have taken it to the store and probably would have canceled my cable package, instead I paid for 2 months of a package I could not use.