Broken Monitor Still Under Warranty, But Samsung Won't Fix It, Because You Don't Live In Canada
from the blame-canada dept
A guy who bought a Samsung monitor at a Sam's Club in St. Louis, Missouri, had it stop working after a couple years. He found the model number, and saw that it was supposed to have a three year warranty, so he called Samsung. Samsung is refusing to fix it, claiming that the monitor is Canadian and the warranty only works in Canada, unless he has his receipt from two years ago as proof of purchase. It's not clear why Sam's Club was selling Canadian monitors, but should it really matter?
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Filed Under: canada, customer service, monitors, repairs
Companies: samsung
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Cross-border purchasing
I'm not sure if this is the way it works in US but in Canada if I bring a Samsung product I bought in Korea it still wouldn't be repaired on warranty because Samsung Electronics Canada Inc. did not issue said warranty.
On a related note: There is nothing legal that really barres the companies from servicing the equipment. They can easily announce that the products bought from a foreign subsidiary would be covered by the warranty. In fact, until not that long ago all car manufacturers would honour the warranty of new cars bought in US by Canadians for use in Canada. They stopped doing that when the $USD and $CDN became almost at par and many Canadians went to US to buy cars (they are waaaaay cheaper south of the border). About 2 years ago a fully loaded Subaru Outback was selling in Canada for $39K-$40K. A friend of mine bought the identical car from a dealer in upstate New York for $25K.
My guess is that those big companies set up local subsidiaries in part in order to protect local markets.
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Re: Cross-border purchasing
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The warranty in this case is provided by Samsung Electronics Canada Inc. The poor bastard needs to deal with them. Based on my personal experience - good effing luck.
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Re: Cross-border purchasing
Called the grey market. Happens all the time- with cars too. Used to happen with 35mm film cameras. He should go to Sam's Club and complain to them and have they pay for it. They refused to disclose the warranty was not valid.
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Good grief!
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Re: Good grief!
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All Samsungs are made in Korea. This one was sold in America. End of story.
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Re: Re: Re: Good grief!
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Just because it would be a nightmare to the legal department to have to honour claims all over the world.
Unless of course you are Rolls Royce and offer a warranty that covers the entire globe no matter where you are, of course if you are in a colony on Mars you may be out of luck.
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Re:
We make product. You buy product. If product break under warranty, we fix product.
"Oh, I'm sorry but according to our records you live on the left hand side of I-83 when facing north. Our warranty only covers people using the product on Tuesdays who live on the LEFT side of I-83 ... is there anything else I can do for you today?"
...
...
"Um, yeah, you can service my warranty."
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It also serves as a way to force people to pay higher prices by only buying via the approved importers. If one local company decides to do something different, it can't impact the other ones. In this case, perhaps Sam's Club got some sort of good deal because a Canadian company was forced to dump a lot of inventory?
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Still Bad Customer Service
If a company is going to use its brand, its technology, marketing, partner networks, etc. to its advantage in selling products/services, then it needs to treat customers with the same united face that it presented when selling them the product in the first place.
If I buy a Samsung product, I'm buying Samsung not Sony. I should be able to expect that Samsung will honor my purchase uniformly, wherever I am. I wouldn't expect Sony to honor it because Sony is obviously a different company--but Sumsung is Samsung.
This is an example of poor customer service.
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Is it just me?
This is the exact point where Marketing professionals and Customer Service professionals (like myself) disagree on how to handle the customer experience.
The short of it comes down to Marketing people get paid to attract new customers with huge budgets AND they get paid significantly more money than Customer Service people. Customer Service is all about helping the customer and KEEPING them as a customer. Well, if Customer Service is rock solid and the customer base is happy they tell their friends and actually attract more customers. Guess whose budget gets cut when you don't have to spend more marketing money?
And that is why you see and hear more complaints from more customers across the consumer markets, in general. Do you know what you don't see a shortage of? Advertising. Check your favorite website - you'll see it there too unless you installed software to filter them out which you probably found because of advertising in the first place.
Good quality products and solid customer service SHOULD be the cornerstone to any company but in this age of disposable products and engineered obsolescence the customer has also become disposable unfortunately.
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Sam’s Club’s policy
It is likely that Sam’s bought it gray market, and Samsung is not on the hook to repair an item sold in a country where the warranty doesn’t apply.
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Samsung sucks
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Yes, it's bad customer service for Samsung to deny service because of where the product was originally purchased. But it's also bad customer service for Samsung to sell a same product at different price points based on where the product was sold. It's a lack of transparency that the European Union has been working on doing away with by liberalizing its internal markets.
It is likely that the Samsung product was sold at a lower price in the US with a lesser value added service (1-2 year warranty) while it was sold at a higher price in Canada with a higher valued added service (3 years warranty). Consumers would all understand (and probably accept) this if it was clearly presented at the time of purchase instead of having to find out later when the product has broken down.
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Hummmm
So I don't see the problem here.
If he had his proof of purchase, his monitor would be fixed.
This is why I scan my receipts and keep the original in my file cabinet.
I now buy most of my stuff from online sources, it's easy to get the receipt as most companies keep it in your account info.
Keep that proof of purchase, some times you need it.
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Another Note
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IMHO it's all really backward. Though it does seem to work when the support is contracted, pay-per-incident or otherwise subscribed.
Once had HP support come out and replace a motherboard on a machine purchased in the US, while the machine was in Japan.
Same with Dell - they replaced a laptop motherboard for a US-purchased machine, while the machine was in the Netherlands.
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Re:
There are a number of reasons why this has to happen, not the least of which are compliance with local environmental laws and certification by government agencies like the FCC.
It is unrealistic to expect Samsung USA to service a gray market monitor. This is not Samsung's fault, this is Sam's Club's fault, and THEY need to take care of the customer!
The reason for this whole mess is that someone is trying to save a buck. If the person in question paid MSRP for the product he wanted at Best Buy or another authorized dealer, he would have zero problems getting his problem fixed. Personally, I hate stores that have practices like this! It devalues the product and makes it next to impossible for a dealer selling authorized "grade A" product to compete with gray market crap!
Lesson learned: Know what you are buying and from whom!
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Where are the Database Guru's?
So here we are in a world where companies buy and sell personal information, were virtually every piece of electronics has a serial number, were we have sophisticated just-in-time ordering systems, where GPS technology allows our every move to be tracked, were telemarketers (junk mailers) can track you down, and there is a record of every financial (credit card) transaction ever made; and Sam's club can't (won't) generate a duplicate receipt!
With today's technology there should be no need for any receipt to document proof of purcahse.
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Samsung Monitors & poor customer service
However, you might notice that I opened by saying that I "used" to buy Samsung LCDs... I stopped buying Samsung because when I did need monitors replaced (originally about three from a couple dozen), dealing with Samsung customer service is just a horrible and painful experience, even for monitors where the origin of purchase is not an issue.
And as a total aside, now that those monitors are starting to get beyond their three year warranty... Almost every one has failed with bad capacitors.. Fortunately I'm also handy with a soldering iron and can fix 'em for a few dollars in parts... Never buying Samsung again.
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KDS's warranty was 10 times better than the one the retail store sold me - I don't bother with those anymore. Why? Because if the manufacturer won't really back their product in a strong fashion - what does that say about the quality?
I'd certainly buy KDS again, ATI did the same. Their own serial number was all the info they needed.
Would seem in this type of business, return customers would be your life blood, but I guess some don't see it that way.
In any event, I'll continue to buy from companies who back their product regardless of the circumstance. This will further help me decide. It's as important to a consumer to know who WILL NOT back their product as anything.
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Subject
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Those International laws are wacky!
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Quality vs warranty?
In any case it's a good practice to keep your receipt e g if you resell it you'll probably want to guarantee the products authenticity to its new owner.
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Exchange rate
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i blame canada
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More recently, a friend in Canada wanted to buy me a gift and have NewEgg ship it directly to me. She was told that she couldn't do that. The Canadian version of NewEgg would only ship to Canadian addresses and the US version of NewEgg wouldn't accept payment from a Canadian credit card.
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Buyer Beware
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Re: Buyer Beware
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There is NO FRIGGING REASON why either or both of those subsidiaries should not honor the warranty.
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yeah
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Nintendo repairs foreign merchandise
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Considering that different countries have different laws and requirements on warranties, and that these laws affect the cost of selling the product in those countries, I can see how honoring warranties from a different country than the country of purchase could be a bad thing for a company.
Example:
I make a a product with an estimated life of 1 year. I can sell this product for $100 dollars in Country A, with a one year warranty.
I want to also sell the product in Country B. However, Country B has a law that says I must have a two year warranty on my product. Therefore, since my product is only expected to last one year, I must charge more for it to make up for the added cost of honoring a two year warranty. So in Country B, I end up charging $200 for the same product.
Now some enterprising individual realizes that the product is $200 in Country B, but only $100 in Country A, so they start buying my product in bulk in Country A and shipping it to Country B where they resell it for $150, making a tidy profit.
Not only are they hurting my sales by undercutting me on my own items, but if I was forced to honor the 2-year warranty on a product I only originally sold with a 1-year warranty, I'd actually be losing money. Not a good situation.
I can imagine there are several scenarios one could come up with to justify this, although it remains to be seen whether or not it will make up for the hit to their reputation.
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Re:
(best) Or...you could use better quality parts that cost "X" and will last two years so you don't have anything to make up for including: poor reputation, pissed off customers, additional support staff for the higher call volume, and marketing won't be required to find new customers after so many have left and you'd only have to charge $100 + "X". Assuming "X" is less than $100 you are now selling a higher quality product with a warranty twice as long as it used to be and you COULD honor your warranty globally without worrying about someone making money off of your efforts.
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Re:
Just my opinion, but if I'm buying a non-consumable product that costs $100, I damn well expect it to last more than a year.
Warranties are intended to cover repair/replacement of a product due to previously unknown defects in the design or manufacture of the item. They're not meant as some kind of a shield for companies to get away with making shoddy merchandise that has an unrealistically short life span.
My grandparents used to have an old console TV that was at least 20 years old when it died. Today, you're lucky if a TV lasts 5 years. A few years ago, I bought a beautiful 19" CRT monitor with a 3 year warranty. It died almost exactly 3 months after the warranty expired.
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Yet that is exactly how they are used! Put that along with engineered obsolescence and disposable customers and you have essentially created a throw-away economy.
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Fix it yourself easily
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