Complaint Review: Circuit City / City Assure - Internet

The lamp in my video projector burned out as was to be expected.  Luckily i opted for the Circuit City advantage protection plan so im good to go.  A new bulb was just a phone call away, or was it?

So the bulb blew and i couldnt find my receipt.  Circuit City is already bankrupt and closed so i cant go to them, im completely screwed!  So the next thing i did was search google to see if my warranty was still good even though Circuit City was closed.  Figures... the top results are ripoffreport posts.  I'm surely never getting this replacement bulb i thought.

Anyhow, at this point i embedded the thought into my head that im screwed.  I found a phone number on circuitcity.com that i can call to take care of any extended warranty stuff.  So i dial the number, totally expecting them to screw me because i cant find the receipt.

The tech answered and surprisingly was able to find all my details and confirm my eligibility just by giving them the serial number on my projector.  What???  No.... it cant be that easy???

Five minutes later, after giving them my new address I was told that a new part would be shipped out within 10 business days.  The call was over and i was left scratching my head.  No it cant be that easy. No way.  Could it?  No... no way....

To my absolute suprise, the part showed up 3 days later.  I called in the afternoon on Friday and the part showed up via UPS on Monday.  WHAT!  How could that even be possible.  Its not supose to be that easy!  How could these guys ship me out something faster then amazon.com or some random person on eBay...

Package in hand... im still telling my self.. no way, this cant be that easy...

I open the box, pull out the lamp, open my projector, pull out the old lamp... they don't match.  They sent me the wrong part.  Arg!  It couldn't be that easy, i knew it!

So i call up Assurant.  The tech is again extremely nice.  Believe it or not, every single phone call to this company has had an extremely friendly and nice person on the other end.  They apologize and give me the number for the part distributor.  Just call them up and they will send you a new part and a label to return the old part. 

So i call up the distributor.  The tech for the distributor was an unhelpful a*****e.  The first time i called they asked for my reference number and told me to hold...then hung up.  I called back and the person was a complete d**k.  I was told that only Assurant can call them since Assurant has the account with them.   Ok no problem, i call back Assurant...nice lady answers, explains how Assurant just sends orders out to part distributors and that i probably talked to someone who didn't know what they were doing.  They asked if i would call back and ask for a supervisor at the distributor.

 At this time i was happy with Assurant because they were overly nice, sympathetic, and got a part (even though it was the wrong one) out to me in 3 days.  We all make mistakes, im giving Assurant credit at this moment because they were nice, and i had already beat into my skull that this was going to be a nightmare so i was trying to keep my cool and prove myself wrong...

I call back the distributor, ask for a supervisor and am asked "Why do you need a supervisor?"  Long story short...the lady tells me the supervisor is not available and that i need to have Assurant call.  At this point im getting pissed.

I call back Assurant and again.. a nice fellow answers and gets a supervisor.  I'm told that they will escalate this and a supervisor will follow up with me the next day because they "want me to be satisfied" and they were genuinely nice and sympathetic so i was not pissed anymore.  This is just a big mixup that is finally going to get fixed.


Ok so 3 days later, no response from the supervisor. I call back Assurant and im told that it would be best if we 3 way call the distributor.  Now Assurant recommended this so that was good...

We call up, i tell the distributor that I have Assurant on the other line and what do you know... they put the supervisor on without me even asking!  The supervisor looks up the order and states that Assurant ordered the wrong part because the distributor doesn't carry the one that i need!  Ah hah!  I knew it... Assurant screwed me by typing in part 9000 (which is what i need) and the only part available was 9001 so they ordered me that one figuring it was probably the same!  The supervisor at the distributor was nice, she ordered the correct part, told us that it wasn't in stock so it would be 5 days to get it and send it.  Just to be safe i said "So within 2 weeks ill get my part right?"  The lady said yes and our call with the distributor was over and i was back on the line with just me and Assurant.  The tech was cool, thanked me for my patience and we hung up.

2.5 weeks later no followups, no part in the mail, no nothing!  I called up Assurant at about 11pm on Friday (woah they answered.... 24 hours support... cool!)

The tech looked up my info and said that on the 18th (10 days after our call to the distributor) that the part was still not in stock and that i need to call Assurant back during business hours so that they can 3 way with the distributor to sort this out.  The distributor is only open mon-fri during the day.

At this point im extremely pissed off.  Now Assurant... your techs are well trained, very friendly, and whoever supervises and trains your techs is doing a great job, but unfortunatly your company has let me down.  Im angry, its been over a month and my projector is still broken. 

Looking back at this I would suggest that you immediately 3 way with the distributor if this type of thing happens, and that you stay in constant contact with the customer throughout the process.