Not the “Best Buy” My Dad Ever Made - HDTV Purchase Horror Story - Pasadena, Ca
Saturday, February 17th, 2007
This article is regarding a purchase made at :
Best Buy/Magnolia Store - 3415 E Foothill Blvd, Pasadena, 91107 - (626) 351-9367
Update: A potential Lawsuit has been filed. Click here to find more details.
Yes, the title is a bit too dramatic. Maybe it should be called, “My Dad Didn’t Get the HDTV Features That He Requested.
My family’s nightmare HDTV purchase experience. Please read if you plan on buying an HDTV from an electronics superstore in Pasadena, Ca. Â This story has generated over 33,000 page views since it was first posted.
The shortened version of the story if you don’t have time to read the entire post:
My dad was looking for an HDTV that was capable of accepting a 1080P video source from a Blu ray or HD DVD player. He did some research online, but he still had questions. He decided to go to the store and ask the sales representative a few questions. The sales rep assured him that the television that he was purchasing was capable of accepting a 1080p video source via the HDMI port. It was later found out that this television will NEVER be able to accept a 1080p. The native resolution of the television is 1080p, but it offers no way to input any video source at a 1080p resolution without converting it to 1080i and then upconverting it to 1080p. The store says that it is Sony’s problem and not the store’s problem. I feel that my dad didn’t get the features that he requested.
Summary of the comments:
A. It is the buyer’s problem and you should have done more research online.
B. It is the store’s issue and they should make things right.
Read the full post below if you don’t mind the a very long story with tons of whining.
An HDTV is a must for all home theater enthusiasts, so it was no surprise that my father wanted to get one. He wanted to purchase a next gen DVD player and he knew it was time to start looking for a new television. He works long hours and saved for many years in order to be able to afford an LCD rear projection HDTV. He shopped around for several months trying to find a good deal. He knew the features that he wanted, but he noticed that the salespeople didn’t always know what they were talking about. One store told him one thing and another store told him something else, so it was tough finding a TV that had all of the features that he was looking for.
Ken Crane is a store that specializes in home theater, televisions, and audio equipment. He decided that a place like Ken Crane would offer the most knowledgeable sales people to answer his questions. The only problem with Ken Crane is that you often find yourself paying a little extra because they can’t always match the electronic superstore prices. After a few visits to Ken Cranes and other specialty stores over a several month span, the televisions were still too expensive. My dad decided that he had to move his search for an HDTV to the more affordable electronic superstores. Things would have been much better if he would have just spent a few hundred dollars more�and purchased a TV from this store.
You have to shop ALL of the major electronic stores for televisions because not all models are carried by all stores. The major stores in the Pasadena, California area are Best Buy, Circuit City, and the Good Guys. Many of these stores have salespeople who appear to be regular people. They don’t seem to have any real expertise in any one area of sales. I am not putting them down, I understand that most of them do a great job and it would be impossible to specialize in all 10,000 items in the store. My father decided to shop at the electronics superstore that offered the best buy that he could find. They had just expanded and added a new home theater department that offered “an exceptional experience from the moment you walk through our doors. After reading their website that claimed to offer knowledgeable consultants, my father decided to purchase his new HDTV from them. With their upgraded home theatre department that ran under a different name, these people at least came off as people who specialized in home theater equipment.
I want to point out that he would have purchased the television from the specialty store, but the televisions were out of his price range. Specialty stores rarely have sales, so you can’t get a television that retails for $4000 for $3600. I assume it is because the volume of sales is much less and they have to keep more profit from items to pay employee and leasing costs.
My dad had done some basic searching for HDTV’s online and he read about HD-DVD and Blu Ray, so he knew that he wanted a TV that supported a 1080p input on the video side. This was something that he expressed to the kind salesperson. For privacy sakes, let’s call the sales professional Frank. My dad looked around the sales floor and found a Sony TV that looked great. It was one of the 10-15 HDTV’s that he had done general research on. He called over Frank to ask him a few questions about the television. My dad explained to Frank that he planned on getting the Sony Playstation 3 to take advantage of the Blu Ray player, so he wanted to know if the Sony HDTV was capable of accepting the 1080p signal via the HDMI port. My dad had been reading about HD televisions that only displayed maximum resolutions of 720p and 1080i. Frank assured him that “yes” and further explained that the TV was capable of accepting 1080p resolution via the HDMI input location at the rear of the TV. When my dad asked if the salesperson could write on that the TV was capable of accepting a 1080p input via HDMI. It was even pointed out that the sales receipt would state 1080p as part of the description. My dad had a few other questions about the extended warranty and was ready to make the deal. Frank was kind enough to throw in a TV stand at a discounted price. My father later purchased an extended warranty directly from Sony.
A few days later the television arrived and looked great. It was a $3,600 television, so it had better look great. My father upgraded his cable package and was watching HDTV. Over the air broadcast are only 720P and 1080i, so he couldn’t really try out the full resolution of 1080p until the he purchased a Sony Playstation 3 or the Xbox 360 HD-DVD add on. Several months later I had read that Microsoft was releasing a firmware upgrade that would allow the HD-DVD drive to output full 1080p resolution. My dad rushed to Target to buy the external drive for $199. I had chipped in some Target gift cards that I had received for Christmas. The picture clarity looked great, but the television would only display the HD-DVD’s in the 1080i resolution. I read that my dad’s particular HDTV didn’t accept a 1080p signal via the component video input. My dad was out of luck and would have to wait for a Sony Playstation 3 to be available. The Playstation 3 is a Sony product and the HDTV is Sony, so we figured the television should have no problem displaying in the 1080p full resolution. Guess what? No luck after attempting several hook ups and even trying a new HDMI cable.
This had us both confused as to why this wasn’t working. We had double and triple checked our cables and set up. We even checked the settings on the Sony Playstation and television. Not a thing that we tried made any difference. It was time to research this issue online.
I immediately searched the model number online: Sony 60 inch�SXRD Projection HDTV KDS-R60XBR1
I eventually found an interesting article on the SonyStyle.com eSupport website.
http://www.iq.sony.com/srvs/autoresponsev4.asp?id=427127
The text below comes directly from the Sony eSupport site.
Does the television support a 1080p signal from a connected video source? No. None of the input jacks on the television have the capability of receiving a 1080p signal; trying to input a 1080p signal into the TV will result in a blank or distorted picture on the screen. If you are connecting a video device that is outputting a 1080p signal, the video device will need to be reconfigured to output at a different resolution, such as 480i, 480p, 720p or 1080i.The television display, however, does have a native resolution of 1080p. This means that any supported signal (480i, 480p, 720p or 1080i) that is input to the TV will be up-converted from its original resolution and displayed in 1080p.
That was all the explanation that I thought that we needed, so we emailed the electronic store’s customer feedback department. I included all of my research and the note above that came directly from SonyStyle’s website. I also included a screenshot of the official manual that makes no mention of 1080p in the entire manual. We were contacted within a week of our initial email. This all sounds good so far, right? At this point we really didn’t have much to complain about. They were addressing the issue. My dad received a call from one of the floor managers and was told that they were researching the issue and they would be contacting us shortly. After several days we decided to contact the floor manager again and we were told that they would need to send over a technician to look at the problem. They stated that this television could display 1080p, but they had to check the settings. They scheduled a technician to come over a few days later. My dad got out of work early to meet the technician who was supposed to arrive between 2 and 3:00 PM. When 4PM came around and we hadn’t been notified that the technician was running late, we called the manager’s telephone number and were told that he was out of the office. My dad was then told that he would be transferred to someone who would let him know when the technician was going to arrive. After being put on hold once for five minutes and another time for 30 minutes, we called back from another line in the house and were told that the technician was out sick. My dad asked why they put him on hold if the technician wasn’t even available. He was told that they would have to reschedule. He explained to them that he had already taken time off from work to meet the technician, so he wouldn’t be able to reschedule. They said that they would need to speak to someone and then call us back. They called back 30 minutes later to say that they were sending over installers/delivery people.
Two nice gentlemen came over and basically found out the same thing that we had already informed them of in our initial email complaint. We were told that they would explain the situation to the manager and that he would contact us shortly. After several days without a response, my dad contacted the manager via email. The manager stated that he attempted to call several times, but he must have dialed the wrong number. In our second email complaint, we pointed out that the installers verified the information that we had initially pointed out in our complaint. It was our thought that the consumer should not be responsible for incorrect information that was provided by a sales professional. My dad pointed out that he specifically asked the sales professional if the HDTV was capable of receiving a 1080p video signal via the HDMI cable and he was told YES by a person who he considered a PROFESSIONAL. He pointed out that this was not something that was mentioned in passing, he specifically pointed out that he wanted a television capable of accepting a 1080p video signal via the HDMI port and he was specifically told that the television would accept the 1080p signal.
My father was basically told that it was not the stores problem. He said that it is a problem that we would have to address with Sony. He stated that they would be kind enough to contact Sony for us to see how they are dealing with these issues. It was the store that provided my dad with incorrect information, it was not Sony. If Sony provided the sales team with incorrect information, that is a problem that the store needs to take up with Sony. The store should make things right with the customer. The only reason the television was purchased was because of the incorrect information that was provided by the salesperson. If the salesperson would have just said that they were not sure or they would have to check…that would be one thing. Without question or hesitation the salesperson gave an answer to my dad and the salesperson made a sale. The manager said that the television is a 1080P television. It has a native resolution of 1080p, but it does not have the capability of accepting a 1080p video signal via the rear inputs. That is as good as having a Hemi powered muscle car that can’t go faster than 25 miles an hour.
The store manger was supposed to contact my father on Wednesday and today is already Saturday. I’ll keep you all updated on the status of this issue. I am hoping that they make things right. At this point, I think that my dad may even accept a refund, but then he loses his extended warranty that he purchased from Sony. We have asked the store to exchange the television for the updated model that accepts a 1080p video input via the HDMI input. When this television was purchased, the forums and Cnet reviews were fairly vague in their description of the TV. It received great reviews and I believe that it was voted as the best LCD television of the year. This issue of the 1080p native resolution was not something that was widely written about. You can find articles that discuss it now, but at the time it was difficult to find any information. The information from any Sony Publications seemed to vary. The casual consumer doesn’t know what native resolution refers to.
We normally get great service from this particular store. Several people in the comments are writing that we plan on suing the store. That was never mentioned in this blog posting. I was just curious if anyone had a similar situation at any of the major electronic superstores or with the specific model of television that I am writing about. I am not trying to come down on all sales associates at electronic super stores. I know that this is something that can easily be fixed by the store. This could have been the once piece of incorrect information that this particular sales person gave out all year. I just want my dad to get the features that he asked for. I don’t think that people understand that you can Google the model number for his particular HDTV and get much more information on it today than you could several months ago. The consumer gets hit with so many terms that it is often difficult to keep up to date with them all. I hear 1080p HD being described as TRUE HD, Full HD, and Full 1080p. The old school way of doing things was to go into the store and ask questions about a product. Not all consumers are DIGG users that have been raised online. I think that a majority of people do research online and go into stores to ask any questions that they cannot find answers to online.
The television actually looks great. I don’t think that anyone is complaining that he purchased a low quality television. The one complaint is that he asked for one thing and he didn’t get what he asked for. At the time of purchase, it was very difficult to find any 1080p source material. Months later he finally got a hold of the Playstation 3 and that is when he noticed something was wrong. If he would have had the PS3 on day one, he would have tested it and taken the television back the next day. It is not a matter of being stuck with a bad television because the television looks great. HD-DVD and Blu ray movies look wonderful, bright, and crisp in color when displayed on this television. At most this is a matter of wanting to get the features that my father asked for.
I fully understand why people comment that he should have done his research. He did do some research and some of the information was unclear, so he relied on a sales professional. I know how to check for this information online, but this was not a purchase that I made. My dad spends a very short portion of his week online. I would guess that he spends 10 minutes a week online and mostly to check the weather, movie showtimes, or upcoming DVD releases. It is easy to say that he should have done more research and the information is easily available. My dad isn’t a television manufacturer and isn’t in the television industry.
I researched online to see if anyone else had confusion or issues with this television. The third reviewer down had a similar problemAmazon.com Reviewer named D. Paik.Hidef forums user RadTuck also had questions.User Jerry Melton on HDGuru.com was also upset.Stephen C. was also unaware of this issue.
*****UPDATE****** 02/27/07 It has been almost two weeks since the manager at the Pasadena location has attempted to get in contact with us. He was supposed to get back to us last Wednesday, but he never did. Not even hitting the Digg frontpage with approximately 70,000 page views has gotten a reaction from the store. We are considering filing an official complaint with the BBB or calling their corporate offices. I would at least expect a response,but this shows that they really don’t care about our situation. It is time to get serious with this issue.
*****UPDATE**** 03/28/07 It has been another month since my last conversation with the Magnolia manager. No effort has been made to contact us. The initial response from the corporate office was great, but it appears to no longer matter. The “buzz” from this article being promoted to the Digg.com frontpage has died and we are currently looking for more solutions. Feel free to email or respond if you have any ideas.
*****UPATE*** 08/24/07 Still no word from the store. Things appear to be even worse because now the television is displaying a “greenish” color against white backgrounds.� We also found out that “Frank” no longer works for the store and wasn’t nice enough to let us know that.� The store has not done a thing to make things better.� This has been one of the most disappointing purchases that my father has ever made.
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