"Invincible Incompetence"

9/5/07
Purchased the Samsung upconverting DVD/VCR in late Nov 2006. To date, Samsung has had the unit almost longer than I have. Worst product I have ever owned. Worst customer service organization at Samsung I've ever had to deal with! Seems more like "invincible incompetence!"

Unit did not work right out of the box. So much for Samsung's QC and testing of units prior to shipping them! The VCR ate the first two tapes we tried to play. I called Samsung and they had me send it back to them for repair, to an outfit called CVE. BEWARE!!!

My unit stayed weeks in their facility for "attempted" repair. CVE FINALLY shipped it back. Only one problem, STILL DID NOT WORK!!! Again, for the second time, no one at Samsung/CVE seemed to have bothered to test the unit to see if it worked after "repairing". Again, so much for Samsung QC & customer care!

Samsung now instructs me to send unit back to CVE, the SECOND time, since CVE failed to fix it the first time. I had to pay almost $13 to ship it back to them. This second time, Samsung/CVE has now had my unit for almost two months and they still haven't even started repairs.

Best of all, Samsung/CVE never bothered to tell anyone that my unit was just sitting there at CVE collecting dust. Apparantly, it would have sat there indefinitly had I not been again forced to follow up after this second repair was to have already been completed and the unit returned to me, but wasn't. Are these people Brain Dead?!

I've been on hold with Samsung for up to 45 minutes far to many times. Samsung Regular Customer Relations (RCR) @ 1-800-Samsung is seemingly worthless---could not make any decision without Samsung Executive Customer Relations (ECR). Even when a supervisor at RCR finally said he had resolved, I was eventually (after almost two hours on the phone and yet another follow-up) told by ECR that he did it wrong and nothing was still happening! But, again, ONLY after I had to follow up for the second and third times to see why my unit wasn't returned yet as Samsung had promised!

Just today, this last of the many prior follow-ups, I had to make 4 phone calls to Samsung RCR, was transferred twice to ECR, was told once to call back since RCR couldn't reach CVE, was disconnected once and tried, myself, to call CVE three time but could reach no one at CVE either. Total time for only this last attempt approx. one hour and forty five minutes!!!

RCS continuously needs to transfer calls to ECR for help, but RCS doesn't have a direct phone number for ECS, only an extension. Problem is ECS didn't return my phone messages and you should be prepared to wait 20 to 50 mins for them to answer regardless of time of day or night called. I finally asked for the person the ECR rep worked for to try to get some results, she (the ECR rep) told me that she did not know who she worked for or how to get in touch with them! She even told me to look in Samsung's Annual Report for a contact! Is this the type of company, Samsung or CVE, that you want to do business with?

So far I have filed two VOC (voice of customer) complaints one with Samsung RCR and one with Samsung ECR, requesting a call back from an accountable decision maker at Samsung who is empowered to make decisions and/or in charge of customer relations. To date, NO ONE at Samsung seems to care as to how they treat customers. or how to improve that treatment or their products---NO CALL BACKS YET!

If you EVER buy a Samsung product, just remember: BUYER BEWARE!!! YOU'VE BEEN WARNED!!!