TV Scam

Also had to replace our bedroom TV Friday night. We purchased a 27” TV/DVD Combo Insignia TV (Best Buy’s “generic” TV brand) for our bedroom during the after-Christmas-sales in 2007. The TV was a great price and was the perfect size for our bedroom (not the 52” inch one we previously had). The TV was working great until last month when the picture spontaneously went black. There was sound, but no picture.

I called Insignia and they told me that if you unplug it from the wall, it will reset to the TV’s factory settings and it should fix itself. I did that and it worked (after leaving it unplugged for a good 15 minutes), but it wasn’t a long-term fix as it still would spontaneously go black while we were watching TV in bed at night.

So I called Geek Squad to make an appointment to see if they could fix it. But when Geek Squad came a calling we learned that it would $150 just for them to show up and diagnose the issue and then an additional $50 for every half hour they were there (something crazy like that!!). The Geek Squad guy advised us that since the TV didn’t cost that much to begin with, we’d be better off just buying a new one.

While looking for someone online to repair the TV, I also found some web chatter about these Insignia TVs. Turns out we’re not the only one who has had this issue. Seems like these TV’s are made to last about a year and then once it’s out of warranty, the TV dies.

So not only did we buy a TV that only lasted about a year, we had to buy a new one to replace it, and after what happened with the Insignia TV, we got suckered into buying the extended warranty for our new TV. What a frickin’ scam!!