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Westinghouse Customer Service; Worst Ever!

19 Comments

Yeah, I know, some people say that bloggers shouldn’t write about personal stuff on their blogs. Sorry but this time not only must I, but it’s going to go beyond just being a personal complaint. Stick with me and heed my warning, if you will.

WestinghouseStinks

Just after Christmas I went out looking to find a relatively inexpensive 32″ flat screen TV for my office. I had gone to a few places and found myself at Best Buy. In the back around TVs of similar size I came across a Westinghouse 32″ flat screen TV for $189. That was amazing, as it was about $50 less than its closest competitor. I asked one of the Best Buy guys why this TV was so inexpensive, because the image I saw looked pretty good, and he said they were trying to grow in the market by keeping their prices low. Sounded good to me, the price was right, so I bought it.

Got it home, set it up, all looked good. Very clear picture, and I was finally able to take advantage of the digital hookup I have here in the office. I pulled out my Time Warner remote, set it up so it would handle turning the TV on and off, and off I went.

Or so I thought. It seemed that other than turning the TV off and on, anything else I did with the remote, at least every 2nd or 3rd thing, made the TV try to reset itself. Thus, I had to go to the remote that came with the TV and reset it. I thought this would be a one time issue, but no, it’s an issue that’s continued for the almost month I’ve owned the TV. I thought maybe it was the Time Warner remote because I’d programmed the TV to it so I tried the other 2 remotes I have in the house for Time Warner, those that weren’t set up with the TV; they also made the TV reset itself.

What the hey? So, within 4 days after buying the TV, I went online to their customer service page, wrote up my complaint, and submitted it. Almost immediately I got an email saying they would be contacting me within 2 business days. To make a long story short, after 15 phone calls and two more online customer complaints, I’ve heard nothing. Oh yeah, I’ve gotten to talk to people most of the time; that’s the 15. The times I’m not counting is when I went through the phone prompts and either got a busy signal or had the phone up and disconnect on me. I also tried to contact them 3 times through Twitter, as they have a handle there(@WestinghouseTV; try sending them a message telling them how bad you heard they are; they won’t respond).

The final straw was last night when I called at 6:20 their time (9:20 my time), said I was calling for the 15th time looking for service, was put on hold and they kept me there until 7PM their time, when their customer service office shuts down. What the hey? In other words, they never came back. Me being me, I stayed online (speaker phone) for another 10 minutes of stubbornness; nothing!

That’s when I decided it was time to call them out in a blog post. But y’all know me; I don’t just roll like that. I decided to look up complaints about their customer service issues, and man, what a load I found!

This site called Customer Services Scoreboard ranked them at #589 out of 593 for worst customer service; I don’t even want to know who could possibly be ranked worse.

On this page of Best Buy reviews, of all things, I found many people with the same complaint as mine. What’s shocking is that it ranks 3.6 out of 5 stars, and even those who ranked it high state they had the same issue as mine, but like the picture. Really, you don’t mind having to reset your TV every time you use it? Should I have fussed at @BestBuy for selling the TV in the first place?

I would add a bunch more but there’s no point. I remember when I was much, much younger Westinghouse used to be a company known for quality. Those days are obviously long gone; products, customer service, stinky! People, save your money, save your peace of mind, don’t buy anything from this company, no matter the price. If you don’t believe me, do a search on Google; mine showed 3,100,000 references to complaints against them. However, this will be in the top 10,000 blog posts about how lousy they are; now that’s a shame! 🙁
 

19 thoughts on “Westinghouse Customer Service; Worst Ever!”

  1. Thanks for the tip Mitch. Sorry about your experience. With all the info. out there about how effective customer service can grow your company, I’m surprised Westinghouse is this stupid. The incident where they kept you holding until their service dept. shut down is probably an example of a low morale department with little oversight. Not exactly a recipe for success.

    1. Phil, that was horrid and the last straw for me. Best Buy contacted me yesterday & asked me to contact them by email. I did & got the automated message saying 1-2 business days. Let’s see if they’re better.

  2. You know, it’s amazing how cheap TV’s are while everything else continues to go up in price.

    You get less oranges than you used to for a dollar but twice the screen size?

    I guess our priorities are screwed up.

    Thanks for sharing this though, my main TV zonked out and I left it that way.

    Now I know what brand to avoid when I get ready to replace it, thanks.

    1. You’re right Jacko, TV prices have definitely fallen a lot. The thing is, Westinghouse is a big name, or at least used to be, and to have their customer service falling this badly and have it all over the internet, even before I wrote this… shameful.

  3. There’s your problem Mitch, Westinghouse make washing machines and fridges, not TV’s 😉

    Seriously though, does the TV work whilst using the normal TV remote?

    1. It works fine Sire, looks great, but with the regular remote all I can do it turn it on and off. I can’t turn channels with their remote since I have a digital cable box.

      1. Ah, I see the problem. Weird that the cable box affects it in such a way. What if you place the cable box in a position where using the remote won’t affect the TV?

      2. That might have to be an option one of these days but if you’re familiar with how they normally work, you usually keep them pretty close to each other. Still, it might end up being the only workaround for me.

  4. I think you found the real reason why it was so cheap. You should invest in a Consumer Reports subscription or ask a friend who would have steered you away from the brand. 🙂

    1. Dude, I wanted inexpensive and came upon a name that I knew in a store I trusted and… well, there you go. The picture works great for my office; it’s the other stuff that’s intolerable, something I never knew could happen.

  5. Mitch,

    I agree with Scott. Always check anything out first. Consumer Reports is your friend.

    Second, never, ever, ever go to Worst Buy. Like the old commercial from Saturday Night Live, where the phone operator says, “We’re the phone company. We don’t care. We don’t have to.” Worst Buy could care less about you. Here are my experiences with them and Hewlett Crappard who also could care less than less about you once you purchase their product.

    http://patrickphoto.blogspot.com/2010/10/comcraphewlett-crappard.html

    http://patrickphoto.blogspot.com/2011/03/i-fought-law-and-i-won.html

    http://patrickphoto.blogspot.com/2011/04/so-who-put-crap-back-in-hewlett.html

    good luck!

  6. I have been having my own adventures with two big companies, one a multinational bank and the other a well known magazine and on my blogging about them, and sending links to their contact links on their websites, I got action. In the former the matter has been resolved and in the latter it is still on a daily exchange of mails and phone calls drill. I wish you luck!

  7. Sorry to hear that, you should’ve bought a Samsung instead. From my experience, the customer service is impeccable.

  8. Hi Mitch, sad that it happened with you. All I would say is don’t give up. Try being at it, as long as it takes, atleast you will be satisfied that you tried your best to be heard, and just didn’t accept it. Apart from this you can discuss about this issues on social networking sites too, so that others come to know about their service, that might affect them.

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