HORROR STORY, HELP!!!!

danielehrer wrote:

Russell Evans wrote:

Are you new to the US? It pretty much has been that you need the receipt and the packaging to bring the product back in the exchange period in the US at retail stores for as long as I can remember. Most major retail centers will now also email you a receipt, so that you have both the printed copy and a electronic version. If you paid with a credit card, you might want to look at what they offer in protection. Some credit cards offer lemon, or breakage protection, in the first 60-90 days.

I personally wouldn't have given such an expensive item to a repair shop that wasn't authorized to do warranty work in any case, as I'm pretty sure that will void your warranty no matter what. It sounds like you didn't buy from a big box store? You paid a lot of money, full price or more, so I don't understand why you wouldn't have gone to somewhere larger with a national presence and with a more friendly customer service policy?

Thank you
Russell

Is the SAMSUNG store in Dolphin Mall they sell and representand sell only SAMSUNG.

I looked it up. I've never seen a Samsung store before. The only physical Samsung Stores I know of are in the Best Buy stores themselves. Samsung made a deal with BestBuy to rent space in their stores. Pretty interesting that you found a Samsung store itself, have you seen others in your travels? I think it is interesting as all the Sony stores in my area closed. I can't believe Samsung is now trying to do the same thing.

They sent me to this address to apply the warranty...

If you were directed there by the store or Samsung, then it can't void the warranty. In your first post  it sounded like you simply went to one of those "fix a phone" places. The shop might simply be a "fix a phone" place, but as long as it is authorized, you shouldn't be as worried as you sounded in your first post.

As new as I am in the US, I'm a traveler and I bought Apple computers everywhere and they honored the warranty just reviewing in the system.

Apple probably has adopted Nordstrom practices as far a customer service, but I've also read a lot of posts where Apple didn't really do the right thing as far as customer service once the products weren't covered by the warranty. That gets people to buy Apple Care protection, which pays for that Nordstrom service, where other manufacturers just can't compete, because if the customers have to pay, they'll just buy Apple. Catch 22.

This sucks, which is why most people buy phones through their carrier in the US. The carriers sort of need to work with you as they make money on the service, not the phone. Buying a phone outright also means you are paying for it twice here, as the carriers don't discount the service when you bring your own. You pay the same for service as someone else buying the Note 4 from the carrier for a couple of hundred.

The low cost Nexus devices sort of made sense to buy outright. You paid a little more, but by paying more, you cut the carriers out of the firmware upgrade cycle. The new Nexus phone price is up in the high hundreds, so I don't see a lot of people, paying so much for that firmware perk anymore. It's nice hardware, but you really have to be into it, almost as a hobby, I think, for it to be attractive enough.

And for me is the end of 7 years with Samsung and never more...

I've only had a few Samsung consumer products, one LED TV, a Galaxy S4 and S5. I also bought my mother a Samsung Tab 2 tablet a couple of years ago. Only the TV cost what I would consider a lot of money. We bought it right when the 1080P LED TVs hit the market, but we got a 30% discount through using Bing when Microsoft was trying to buy traffic to their site, so it was a nice deal.

I was pretty interested in the first Samsung mirrorless cameras that came out, but at the time, I couldn't find any information about warranty work, and that scared me off. I've had my DSLR repaired under warranty, so I was on the look out for support. I'm not sure if that has improved over the years, or not. I probably should ask on the Samsung forum, as I still like their camera products, and the NX1 looks really nice.

I've seen a lot of nice Samsung home products, but when it comes to pulling out my wallet, I do really want to know that repair service is there, so I can't blame you for this. I just try to minimize my exposure. We buy with a credit card that extends warranties, offers 90 day breakage coverage, and in the worst case, can reverse charges it the vendor isn't willing to resolve issues. We have the money for most of what we buy and could do cash transactions, we pay off the credit cards each month, but it is the protection and just not having to deal with money that makes it better just to use a card.

Thanks Russel it seems is easier and safer to buy at BH that in the Samsung Store itself...

I don't think there is any vendor that won't have issues with customer service. I think at some point we are all going to have a least one time where things don't work out in our favor. We just buy enough in our lifetimes where it is bound to happen. Hopefully everything will work out OK for you with your phone. Just know if it doesn't, we've all probably have been there at some point.

Thank you
Russell