Samsung.

I had bought a new Samsung TV from best buy and after getting it home and setting it up, I noticed that any time there was high/low contrast content moving across the screen, the image would just smear across. This made a lot of content completely unwatchable. In LCDs this is usually a result of horrendously bad response time but this was so bad that something seemed clearly wrong/malfunctioning with the unit, so I called samsung for warranty repair.

Over the next few months I had a tech come out to replace the main board on the TV, but it still had the same problem. I booked another repair appointment. The same tech came to my house a few weeks after that and replaced the entire screen. Still the same problem. There was a thread that I found by this time on AVSForum of people with the same TV all complaining of the same issue.

At this point, Samsung’s official response to me was “That’s just how the TV is”. I was really not happy about the idea of keeping the TV since I was outside the return period, so they gave me a phone number to call with a case number to escalate or hopefully resolve the issue. Its wild that they would ever even sell a TV like this.

Here’s where it gets bad:

The next day I call the number around 10AM. I sit on hold for 7 hours, then at 5PM there is a message “Our office is now closed, goodbye” then it hangs up on me. No voicemail, no callback options, nothing. There is no option to email this department, they will only take phone calls.

The day after I call the number a little earlier, around 9 AM. This time I sit on hold for 8 hours, then again there is a message at 5PM that they are now closed and hang up on me.

I wait 2 days and call back around 9AM again. at 4:45 PM I get in touch with a human, but they aren’t able to find any record of my case number and can’t help me. They’re about to close anyway, so I should just call back tomorrow. They hang up.

The next business day I got up at 7AM and called immediately when they opened, sat on hold for 8 hours and demanded to speak to someone who could actually help me. I sat on hold for another hour and eventually spoke to a manager who miraculously found my case number and acknowledged receipt that I called.

Samsung sent a company to come pick up the TV and gave me my money back about 2 months after that call. I had to spend 4 entire work days on hold with them to get them to acknowledge and take back their TV that was effectively useless garbage. I replaced it with a Sony and have been 100% happy ever since, its been working for several years now.

I have another one - Xfinity.

There was an issue in my neighborhood where an outage was reported that lasted months, only problem was that this was completely in error and there was no outage. Normally this isn’t an issue but Xfinity’s big-brain move is if there’s an outage detected in your area, you are 100% unable to get in touch with anyone. Not by phone, chat, email, or anything. As soon as you give your service address it says “An agent will not be able to help you. Goodbye” then hangs up on you or closes the chat.

During this time my modem died and I had to get and activate a new one. I had to look up a fake address outside of the “outage” and give them a fake number to talk to an actual human. When I explained the situation and gave them my actual address, the agent started the process of getting me off the phone because there was nothing she could do. Eventually after pleading they were able to activate my new modem in about a minute.

This whole process took over a day and I lost a whole day of work because of it. They gave me a $10 credit on my bill to say sorry.

I was rear ended a couple of months back on the freeway. 100% not at-fault and I have the dashcam video to prove it. Anyways, I submit a claim through my insurance and I specifically asked what I should do about a rental car while mine was in the shop. I was told over the phone that if I was able I could book a rental car on my own and just submit the receipt, they will reimburse me and recover damages from the other driver’s insurance.

So, that’s what I did. I booked the rental car and after I returned it I submitted the receipt. A few hours after uploading the receipt through the claims portal, They called to inform me they weren’t going to reimburse me for the rental, and that if I wanted it to be paid back I had to submit a claim directly through the other driver’s insurance. So, I gave them a call.

The other driver’s insurance told me they absolutely weren’t going to pay for my rental car since they were already way over the property damage minimums on the policy.

So… I guess now I have to file in court against the driver directly and probably wait years to get reimbursed from someone who probably has no money to pay me anyway, just racking up more and more in court fees compounding my losses. Any attempted conversation with my insurance about how they outright lied to me just goes to an echo chamber. Emails get no response, Voicemails go unanswered, I even let my agent know about this and he followed up on my behalf. Nothing, no communication or response at all. They’re just hoping I give up it seems.

State farm customer for 15 years, no claims, no tickets, always paid premiums on-time and in full. This was the first time I so much as called them. Right out the gate I get screwed over. Time to find another provider.