It all began in November of last year. Molly and I decided that as a Christmas present to each other we would get a new combo TV/DVD player. We were, at the time, probably the only household in the US that owned only one television, and with Ellie on the way Molly thought it would be nice to have one in the bedroom. We picked up a Polaroid 19″ LCD model at our local Circuit City, and brought it home to sit for a couple weeks.
We had previously had a TV in what is now Zoe’s room, so that was where the satellite connection came into the house. As Christmas and Ellie’s birth approached the time came to get the TV set up. I called Dish network and was told they’d be happy to move it to the other side of the house for the low, low price of $99. I pointed out to them that if I were to switch to DirecTV they would do the work for free. The representative I was speaking with agreed that would be a much better deal as far as the installation was concerned, and offered me a $30 credit on my next bill to offset some of the cost. I explained that $70 was still a lot more than $0 and asked to be transfered to their customer cancellation/retention department. The guy who answered the phone there told me that he had been informed of my request and that they would be able to send someone out later that week to do the work for free. “Score one for us” I thought to myself “this will be an easy project!”
The Dish guys showed up on the appointed day and got the cable moved without too much of an issue. It did take a couple tries to drill a hole through the wall though, as the first one the made went into our chimney as well. Fortunately, they didn’t do any damage other than putting a hole through a bunch of brick. After finishing up the installation of the wall mount we had a brand new TV in our room.
The problems started to manifest themselves quickly. On a few occasions over the first couple weeks while Molly was watching the TV it would either go black and become inoperable, display some funky colored lines and become inoperable, or let out loud high-pitched squealing sound and become inoperable. You’ll notice that all three of the options ended with “become inoperable”. So, since by this point we were well beyond the 30 day return policy at Circuit City I called up the Polaroid warranty line.
The person I spoke to was quite apologetic and helpful, he told me that I would just need to send in the TV and that a replacement would be sent to me within 2-4 weeks as my particular model was currently on back order. The next day I bundled it up for it’s trip to California.
