Manufacturer Warranties and Protection Plans

[ckelly861]

Help please:

I noticed a prior forum on a 40 inch Panasonic issue and humming noise that we are currently experiencing and wanted to voice my opinion on our Warranty support .  We bought our Panasonic 50 inch Plasma TV in April 2007 and had our first service call/repair in April 2008.  Our TV has had a constant humming noise that has become increasingly annoying.  On our first two visits in April/May 2008 the technician heard the noise and ordered the part to fix this noise.  Apparently, this is an issue these TVs have all the time and supposedly knew this would fix the issue.  This time it only took two visits. 

We again called Best Buy out on May/July/August 2009 for the very same issue.  I compare the noise to scraping your finger nails on the chalkboard.  The first technician came out and stated that he could not hear the noise and that if I could tell which side the noise came from to give him a call and he would order the part again that we had done initially in April 2008.  In addition, every time we make a service call we tell them it is a wall mounted TV and will need two Service technicians in order to take the TV off the wall.  THEY NEVER LISTEN and always send out one tech.  As everyone knows, you are given a 4 hour window to wait for the repairmen to show up. This is time that we’ve taken off from work to sit and wait at our house only to be frustrated to have one technician arrive at our house. This has occurred 2 of the last 3 visits. We filed a complaint and asked that a manager respond to our complaint to rectify the situation. To this date we have never received a return call -  Instead we had to make another call to re-schedule another technician to visit. Of course, we were scheduled another week out (no preferential treatment even though twice we took time off work for errors Best Buy committed in scheduling one technician). We had best buy install our entire Entertainment system so we would never have to mess with installing/taking the TV off the wall. 

We called customer support again due to the unacceptable results and again we were told this noise is normal.  THIS IS NOT NORMAL they just don't know how to fix it.  So we called again and had another tech come out and he was also not able to hear the noise/fix the problem.  I am extremely frustrated as each time they tell us to alternate shutting off/on the TV and the cable box on/off.  The noise is only a factor when the TV is turned on, regardless if the cable box is on or off.  IT is CLEARLY THE TV that has an issue.  We are completely frustrated and now would like to LET EVERYONE KNOW that warranty support does not help in situations such as this.   

[Dorothy-BBY Community Supervisor]

Hello ckelly861 -

Allan, from our Community Connector team, will be reaching out to you in the next few business days.  More than likely this will occur on Tuesday, since we are out of the office until then due to the holiday.  I appreciate your patience until then. 

Thanks!

[Allan-BBY Community Connector]

Hi ckelly861,

This sounds like a very upsetting experience, and I can completely understand expecting us to resolve the issue with your TV since you did purchase a Performance Service Plan (PSP) to cover your TV beyond the manufacturer’s warranty.

I did look through your repair history and I do show that we replaced parts on two of the work orders, which means that the technician must have heard the noise when diagnosing the problem in those two work orders. I also see that the technician was unable to verify that the TV was having a problem in the other two work orders we have for this TV, and it is true that we would require the technician to physically verify the problem with your TV before they could order any parts needed to repair your TV.

I would like to look into this, and see if there is something I can do to get you resolution in this matter. I am sending you a private message, and to check your messages you should log into the forum and then click on the letter icon in the upper right-hand corner of the page.

Thanks for posting,

[mfleytlikh]

Like the post above I have experienced the same issue. I bought my tv in 2007 and recently it started to make a clicking noise at various interludes while I’m watching TV. The repair person came and in the 20 minutes that he was there the TV made the noise but he was on his cell and couldn’t hear it. I did my research before he came out and Panasonic owners dating back to 2007 have had this issue – which would imply that this is a known issue with the TV. The repair man made it seem otherwise and said that since he didn’t hear the noise nothing was wrong and he tightened the screws around the TV to make the back tighter. He shook my tv to try to replicate the noise and kept asking if I heard it now when it creaked almost implying that I was crazy and was hearing regular tv noises. I told him that the noise was distinct and that was not the noise. That night as I watched tv it happened again. I bought the warranty for a reason and my tv to try to replicate the noise and kept asking if I heard it now when it creaked almost implying that I was crazy and was hearing regular tv noisesI thought this process would be more rudimentary – take the back off, inspect, run some tests, etc. none of which was done and I’m out a ½ at work. My parent have the smaller version of this tv, had an issues with it, and returned it to C-o-s-t-c-o no questions asked for a new one without any additional service plan. So what did I pay best buy for? How was the issue resolved above? What was done there tv or situation to fix it?

[Allan-BBY Community Connector]

Hi mfleytlikh,

I’m sure it was very upsetting to be told there is nothing wrong with your TV, and I can completely understand you expecting a different resolution when our technician came out to your home.

I am not personally aware of a known noise issue with your TV, but I don’t think it would be unreasonable to expect an authorized service technician to be aware of this. I do show that the technician determined that there is nothing wrong with your TV, and until we have a diagnosis from an authorized service technician we would not be able to repair your TV.

I would like to personally look into this, and try and get your issue resolved. I am sending you a private message to start that conversation. To check your messages you should log into the forum, and then click on the letter icon in the upper right-hand corner of the page.

Thanks for posting,