Complaint Review: Hitachi - Circuit City - Internet

In November of 2003, I purchased a Hitachi 50-inch LCD Rear Projection Television set with the Circuit City Advantage extended warranty in Thousand Oaks, California. I spent $1995.99 on the television and another $399.95 on the warranty including a home theater system component cables and various other accessories that would compliment my purchase. All in all a great sale for Circuit City close to 5k with Tax. My Television was delivered about three weeks later which wasnt an issue at the time and was installed by Circuit City. The first few months owning the TV were great! Six months after i first turned the TV on their was an issue with the display and all shades of white turned pink in color. When I contact Circuit City I was told to contact Hitachi because the TV was still under the 1-year manufacturer warranty. After a short call to Hitachi they walked me through a few troubleshooting techniques and determined that my optical engine was the root cause of the issue that I was encountering. They dispatched someone to come pick up my TV and replace the optical engine, the repair company took my TV and I did not get it back for over 3 weeks. Their tardiness in returning the TV to me was blamed on Hitachi due to the optical engine being on back order. Within another six months of having the optical engine replaced my TV again began to have similar issues and again we spoke with Hitachi who claims the Manufacturer warranty was no longer valid advised my wife and I to contact Circuit City, thank god we bought the extended warranty. In dealing with Circuit City they dispatched a repair man to come out and look at the Television and again we heard a similar story, we have to take your TV and we have to replace the optical engine. This time the technician had advised us of a recall notice involving the optical engine after we voiced our displeasure with our previous experience. This time the technician gave us the option of taking the TV now or picking it up when the part was available, we chose the later option. After we received the Television back from the technician, we noticed problems with the screen alignment and a strange ghost image that appears to be a smudge on either side of the screen. We contacted Circuit City again to report the display issues and they said they would handle the problem and send someone out. They were able to resolve the screen alignment issue but they were clueless on how to resolve the smudge. They told us they would get back to us. The smudges appeared and disappeared over time and were only a nuisance when viewing an all whit screen. We lived with the problem. A year goes on and I am almost done with my extended warranty when we begin to encounter more issues with our Hitachi TV, the smudges are more apparent and now the TV is displaying ghost outlines on the images displayed through the TV. At this point I am very firm with Circuit City about their Warranty Protection program. I was sold the program with the understanding that if I encounter 3 or more issues regarding the picture display on my TV that I would receive a brand new Hitachi TV or the equivalent credit towards the purchase of a new television. In explaining this to Circuit City they had advised me they would escalate this to a Level 2 support representative who would contact me within 72-hours of my claim. The level 1 representative was able to dispatch a technician to resolve the ghost outlines and look at the smudges. The level 2 support representative never followed up after several contacts through email, web, and phone. It has now been five months since my extended warranty expired and there is no use in calling and complaining to anyone any longer. My only motivation in telling this story is that others can share in my displeasure with these two entities and hope that someone reads this and cares enough to correct the product/quality issues at Hitachi and the sales practices/customer support practices at Circuit City. Guess what!?! The TV is now displaying the ghost outlines again and is now displaying the smudges that are seen on a white screen! In short, Circuit City sells a Warranty Product that it cannot fully support the claims that their sales representatives are making. I will never purchase a large or small ticket item from a Circuit City again. Your level 2 customer support team does not exist for all I know and never bothers to return anyones calls. Hitachi Home Electronics does not care about their consumer when they say they do, they do not follow the high level of quality assurance claims they say they do in the link below and I will never buy a Hitachi Product again! Their corporation has grown too large to care about the consumers/customers that helped build this brand in North America. http://www.hitachi.com/csr/society/customer/index.html Mike Thousand Oaks, California