Another week, another episode in the continuing saga of me trying to get a working monitor from Viewsonic's warranty program.
In my last update on this, I mentioned that Viewsonic told me as soon as they got my damaged monitor back, they would ship out a replacement. That didn't happen. Viewsonic received the monitor on the morning of Friday, August 4th. When I didn't receive a tracking number by the following Tuesday evening, I called back...
The customer service rep I spoke with first tells me that replacement units don't ship out for 10-14 business days. I inform him of my previous conversation with a customer service supervisor, and he puts me on hold to "check the notes". The rep comes back on the line a minute or so later and tells me he didn't see the comment from the supervisor at first, but it is there.
He then tells me that he'll put a note on the ticket asking a supervisor to expedite the shipping and that a replacement unit should go out in 2-3 business days... so.... the comment about sending one out immediately was there but no one listened to it? I don't know about you, but I smell BS.
I then ask if they can at least e-mail me with the tracking number when the monitor goes out - and I'm told while they'll write it on the ticket, I should probably call back in 3 days if no one has gotten back to me yet. Given their recent history with reading the comments on tickets, I accept that fact that I'm just going to have to call.
Fast forward to today - the monitor arrives. It comes in a unmarked brown box which looks intact (a good sign), but when I open the box the contents of the pack in items are strewn all over the bottom, the 2 back plates that cover the input jacks are also loose and there's no protective sheet over the LCD display. Not a good sign.
I take the monitor out of the box and place it on my desk - now I see the two big problems. First off, it wobbles. It wobbles bad. The entire base of the monitor seems extremely loose. Secondly, it's pitched forward as if it's about to fall on me. I'd say by about 10 degrees no less. Unacceptable.
I call Viewsonic warranty service and try to keep myself from utterly freaking out on them. When I get through, I explain the situation to the service rep, who proceeds not to be able to bring up my information. Since the weeble monitor is on my desk, I now have to run cables across to the 17" CRT I put back in a corner to fit the LCD on my desk and bring up my info. I give them the previous ticket number.
The rep got pretty apologetic at that point, which I'd also like to add was the first time anyone at Viewsonic actually sounded like they actually gave a crap about the situation. After checking with a supervisor, here was what I was told would happen.
- They would be sending out a replacement monitor asap - most likely within 2-3 days. No having to send my monitor back first this time.
- They would put in a request for a "house pickup" label for when the time comes to ship Weeble back to them.
- They would see what they can do about starting my warranty from the day the new one gets to me due to my concerns about the fact that the monitor failed a few months after I got it and that I was losing a lot of time with this whole warranty replacement process.
- I was told a supervisor should be e-mailing me with specifics by friday, but that if I hadn't heard anything by then to call them Saturday morning for an update.
After hanging up with them, I checked the bottom of the monitor on a hunch. Sure enough, the screws connecting the base to the monitor were all loose. I'd have seen about tightening them up, but in tilting the monitor back slightly, I also found out that there's something loose in the case (when I picked up the monitor, you could hear it rattle around) - absolutely pathetic. It almost confirms my thoughts that their warranty department accidentally didn't seal the bottom of the box to the previous replacement unit. I packed up the monitor, and then proceeded to put everything back on my desk. Looks like it'll be another week at least before I can even hope to have my monitor back - probably two knowing them.
Once again, allow me to advise everyone to STAY THE HELL AWAY FROM VIEWSONIC PRODUCTS. The money you save in buying one nowhere near equals the headaches you'll get from owning one.
You can check out the earlier stories regarding this situation at these links - Start, Second, Third, Fourth and Fifth - and may God have mercy on my soul.
