Vindication!

Some wonderful information found its way to me, and the joy of sharing it with you supersedes anything else I was going to talk about today. Most of you probably won’t care about the specifics of the incident that I’m about to describe, but I’d be willing to bet that almost everyone has had to deal with something like this in the past, or will in the future. Or, who knows, maybe you’re going through it right now. If so, read onward through this twisted cautionary tale of deceit, treachery, and eventual justice. Keep hope alive!

Since I prefer to shop locally rather than at chains, I always default my shopping choices to local businesses whenever possible, and I try to limit my exposure to chain stores by only patronizing smaller franchises. Several years ago, I went into one of the branches of a smaller, locally-based chain of electronics stores to purchase a new high-definition big screen television. The store is called Conn’s, and although I should have smelled a rat just by the company’s name alone, it didn’t dawn on me that I would, in fact, be literally conned from the moment I walked in up through to the expensive and bitter eventuality of getting financially raped years later.

During the closing of the deal, my salesperson convinces me to purchase the company’s extended warranty. Normally, I pass on such things, as there is usually little use for the damned things beyond a simple padding of the salesman’s commission. However, since I was making a purchase of significant value, (and because I didn’t want to bother with having to wait for the television to be repaired, should it ever break), I let the nice gentleman talk me into buying what would eventually prove to be an utterly useless and impotent extended service agreement.

Fast-forward to a year or so later, when my new television is no longer very new. For some unknown reason, the image on the screen has been slowly growing too large for the viewing area. Because HDTVs have all sorts of sophisticated scaling technology to properly display the image, I suspected that something was going wrong somewhere inside the twisted guts of the infernal machine, and whatever it was happened to be over-enlarging the image. At first, it was barely noticeable – but over time, it became unbearable to watch. Slowly, over the course of a few months, the image on the screen began to, at first, cut off only the tips of an actor’s spiky hair, but it wasn’t long before it was completely severing thespian heads with the furious banality of a disinterested executioner. The television never popped, it never hissed, and smoke never rose from its vents in angry ethereal wisps of burned silicon and plastic. No, it just simply and quietly began to malfunction.

Sad TV says, “Please, sir. I want some love.”

My call to the store requesting service caused a slightly confused young man to appear at my front door, wearing a white shirt stained with sweat and other suspicious fluids. He greeted me with the neigh-toothless grin that’s a staple of any seriously Southern locale that respects the grand tradition of stereotypical inanity, and I directed him to the brobdingnagian digital monstrosity towering over my living room. Things were going well, right up until he approached the glowing phosphors of the behemothic screen and slowly extended his hand to cautiously touch its delicate reflective surface. Then, like a curious and frightened ape reaching out to caress the nameless wonder of an extraterrestrial obelisk, he tilted his head and said, “Hmmmm.”

When the laying-on-of-hands failed to exorcise the TV’s demons to his satisfaction, the poor, simple man turned to me and asked me what the problem was. I looked at him, then I simply pointed at the bobbing Adam’s Apple of some random actor as it spoke to a pair of breasts that were only somewhat on-screen. “That,” I said, “shouldn’t be like that.”

“What do you mean?” he asked, with a surprising accent of innocence.

“What do I mean?” I replied. “What do I mean?! Just look at the screen!”

“Yeah?”

“YES!”

“Um. So?”

I sighed and slapped my forehead, shouting, “So?! So it should be two PEOPLE talking. Two COMPLETE people. You know, like with heads and bodies and such?”

He said, “Oh, your scaling is off.” Then, he looked up at me and accusingly asked, “Have you tried changing it?”

“You mean with this button?” I held up the remote. “This one that says Aspect? The one that changes the aspect and zoom ratio of the picture? The one that makes it bigger or smaller? Yes,” I said, as hard and as icily as I could, “I have.” I pushed it a few times to illustrate, expanding and contracting the increasingly disturbing image of an Adam’s Apple talking to two round and firm balls of skin-covered silicone. “It doesn’t fix it.”

“Hrmm. No, it doesn’t. Maybe it’s your logic board?” he said, sliding the last notes of the sentence into a question mark.

“Sure,” I said, as I slapped my hands against my thighs and exhaled a throaty, “Why not.”

“I’ll have to take it into the shop for that. It’ll be a couple of weeks.”

“That’s fine. I have the extended warranty, so you can just keep this one and deliver my replacement.”

The guy stood frozen in place, a frightened gazelle stranded alone on the Serengeti and worried about why that patch of grass over there suddenly seems to be shaped like a lion. “Um, ok,” he stammered. “I’ll just go ahead and take in your unit today, and you can, um…call the warranty department about your replacement. OK?”

I agreed, and watched as he disconnected the twisted, tangled nest of cables and wires and unidentifiable cords. He went to his truck, came back in with a dolly, and strapped the television to it. Ten or fifteen struggle-filled minutes later, he succeeded in evicting the set from my home and carrying it away in his service truck. I went back inside, picked up the phone, and called the warranty department.

I’m sure you can guess what happened next, and I’ll save you the profanity-filled details. In short, I was told that I would not receive a replacement because my television could be repaired. Additionally, they did not supply loaner units to use while the repairs were being made, so I’d just have to wait the “couple of weeks” until I got my TV back. I didn’t mind this too much at the time, because a few weeks without that enormous monster in my living room probably wouldn’t be a bad thing.

You know what they say about men with big TVs…

However, two weeks came and went. Then two months. Then six months. Then a year. Time ticked by, and no amount of vitriolic anger communicated either by phone or in person seemed to have any effect. Eventually, the company agreed to replace my set by offering me a “depreciated trade-in value” of my old unit towards the purchase of a new television. Keep in mind, I was sold an extended service agreement that I was told would keep me in a fresh supply of new TVs for two years, should one break, and then another, and then another. I could, in the words of the salesman, “Kick off your shoes and accidentally send one through the TV screen,” and I would be delivered a replacement. HA!

I filed a complaint with the utterly useless entity known as the Better Business Bureau. Conn’s rebutted. I rebutted their rebuttal. This went on until the BBB unceremoniously closed the file on the basis that it had been resolved satisfactorily, regardless of the fact that I was over a year in waiting with no promised replacement television, while my own unit was being held hostage by the company’s uncooperative repair department. I eventually had to get litigious.

Unfortunately, I allowed my then wife to fill out some of the paperwork to file with the court. I instructed her on what to file, but she was eager to show me that she was capable of doing it on her own. Like a great and powerful fool struck down and blinded by love, I let her pretend to be a big girl and do it all by herself. This was a decision I would later regret.

Eventually, our case was brought before the court, and the presiding judge was aghast at the company’s behavior. However, he reluctantly ruled that he could not find them in breach of contract. Yes, my intelligence-challenged spouse had ignored my instructions to file under “deceptive business practices” and instead took it upon herself to file papers claiming a breach of contract. The judge, to his credit, made it very clear that he could not rule in our favor and, while he couldn’t give us legal advice, he told us no less than three times that the case could be re-filed within a small timeframe. He, of course, wasn’t advising us to do any such thing, but was merely telling us that – if we wanted to (wink, wink; nudge, nudge) – we’d need to go see So-And-So in the Such-And-Such Office before Date X, because if this had been filed as a deceptive business practice suit, his ruling would have been much different.

Of course, I re-filed the papers (properly this time), and the case eventually settled out of court, after the company’s lawyers offered to repay the cost of the unit. Since this was all I had been seeking since the beginning (either that or a simple replacement, as I was promised by the service agreement), I agreed to let them pay me, and I walked away from the courthouse.

Keep in mind that, had I simply acquiesced to their original offer of depreciated trade-in value for my TV, I could have purchased a better, newer television for only a few hundred dollars. However, as those who know me are painfully aware, I won’t do something smart if it means going against doing something I think is right. So, I spent thousands of dollars to “Fight The Man” rather than a few hundred to get something better. That’s just how I am; I’d rather be right than happy.

Sometimes, though, karma turns its great wheel and justice eventually comes around. Earlier today, I received an excited call from my sister, informing me that the Texas Attorney General has charged Conn’s with unlawfully failing to honor warranty agreements. Citing more than 2,000 complaints made against the company, the OAG is seeking civil penalties of up to $20,000 per violation ($250,000 if the violation financially harmed persons over 65) due to failing to honor product warranties, selling defective products, false advertising, misleading customers about the nature of its products, and other infractions. Ah, sweet justice!

So, take this knowledge with you the next time some large and toothy grin is trying to sell you an extended warranty. The things are almost universally useless, although I suspect there are still some decent, honest businesses around that actually honor their agreements. By and large, though, buying a service agreement is just a formal way of letting the fat, greedy fingers of a faceless corporation get in your pants to feel you up and make off with your wallet.

Don’t let them do that.

Want some books? 'Course ya do!

NOTE:  I know times are hard and yeah, I need to make a living too, but if you want to read any of my books but can't afford to buy them right now, hit me up.

I'll take care of it.

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