The new (new) TV, part 2

As you’ve maybe pieced together through my Twitter or you tuned into CAVEradio, we got our new giant TV. It’s big, it’s HD, it cost a lot…but it was an interesting turn of events that got us the TV we didn’t expect to get.

It all started at Thanksgiving when we discovered that the on-line price that day was less than the price pimped for Black Friday. You can get the details in Part 1, but we bought the TV on-line from Walmart.com for $800 and anxiously awaited its arrival, all the time me worrying about having something that big and fragile being delivered to my home. I’ve never bought a big ticket item on-line for just that reason - shipping and handling - and this little episode reinforced why I don’t.

Chapter 1: FedEx Fail

Don't trust FedEx

We knew that the TV was going to be delivered on a Tuesday, which meant Jen would be home to receive delivery of this giant electronic wonder. Around three in the afternoon Jen saw the FedEx truck drive by stop in our driveway…then she saw it leave, without so much as a doorbell ring or knock at the door. Not even a signature.

Jen goes to open the garage to see where and why the delivery truck stopped in the driveway. As the garage starts to open, she sees that the TV was leaning against the garage door. With gazelle-like quickness she ran to basically catch the TV before it fell on the ground. To add insult to injury, the box was leaning vertically, which is exactly 90 degrees OPPOSITE of how the box says to place it…in short, the box was upside down.

And if you think there for a second, you realize that this giant box with 46″ HDTV written on the side was leaning against the garage in plain sight and FedEx didn’t even let us know it was there. Had Jen not been home, do you think that TV would have been there when I got home two hours later?

I got home and dragged the box inside and took out the TV gleefully. I laid the TV on it’s back so I could attach the stand when I noticed a little line on the screen. I followed the line with my finger and it led to a huge spiderweb crack on one end of the TV. It was smashed as smashed can be. Fuck. Better yet, if I had to guess, the end that had the crack was the same end on which the FedEx guy (wrongfully) leaned the box in the middle of our driveway.

Great. So we wait a week to get what…a broken TV…and that’s why you don’t buy things like that on-line, and also why you don’t buy things from Walmart. So we had to return the TV somehow.

Chapter 2: Walmart Win…sorta

We called Walmart customer support and told the story. Walmart told us that they didn’t have that model of TV in stock anymore (ie, discontinued) and that all he could do over the phone is refund our money. They couldn’t send a replacement. At this point I was mad because I didn’t get my TV, and Jen was made because the sweet deal we had found was lost. Fortunately, Walmart lets you return on-line items at the store, and that’s just what we did.

We bellied up to the customer support at Walmart and explained the situation. A guy from the electronics department had to come up front to verify our product. After some standard issue questions and discontent, Jen uttered the words that would change the course of history, “Yes, I’d like to talk to a manager.”

MORE: Listen to more about the drama on the CAVEradio episode replay

At this point, I walked back to the electronics department with the department guy, Jeff, so that I might point out the other Samsung TV that is close to the one we ordered, albeit not the exact same model. While walking back he told me that several items he ordered from Walmart.com also came busted and broken due to poor shipping. I suppose that’s not entirely Walmart’s fault, but continuing to use a carrier that has a rep for delivering broken goods is their fault.

When we got to the Wall-O-Televisions I discovered young Jeff wasn’t really a TV guy…or an electronics guy. Yes, he worked in the electronics department but he didn’t know any specifics about much, it seemed. Of course, this seems on par for Walmart. They don’t have employees that know the product, they just have employees that can stock and re-stock product. We continued to bullshit about TVs and how crappy Walmart is when Jen came back looking for the manager.

“I’m looking for Stacy,” she said.

I expected Jeff to grab his walkie-talkie and ask for Stacy, but no, he went a little more old school. He just yelled, “Hey Stacy!” across the department. A little hand raised over the aisle and Stacy made her appearance with a tiny scrap of paper in her hand, the only information she had about our dilemma was scribbled on it.

She admitted she’s not an electronics manager and didn’t know anything about the products or the situation. We recapped the problem and she asked Jeff about finding a TV on the wall that was comparable to the one we had returned. He pointed out the one I had briefed him on and Stacy did the right thing and gave us that model for the same price. It was actually a better TV in several respects, same size but had a few more ports and little techie things. The sticker on this model was $1050, and we paid the same $850 (total) for the other one. Not a bad deal.

A happy ending

When we were pulling back into the garage I noticed a FedEx slip stuck to the side of our garage. I grabbed it to see that nothing was even marked down on it. They had checkboxes for where they leave products and nothing was checked…no driver initials, no nothing. Not to mention it wasn’t stuck in a good place to be noticed, obviously.

In the end we got a better TV out of the deal but not after some efforts (and anger) with both FedEx and Walmart. Walmart is an idiot for not asking for a signature on a near-$1000 item and they’re an idiot for using FedEx…because FedEx obviously has no clue how to delivery or handle a package. Safe to say I will NEVER use FedEx for shipping if I can help it. I gotta say I’m really shocked at how poorly FedEx handled the delivery. No attempt to see if anyone was home, improper handling of the box, and I know you can’t discretely hide a giant TV in a box, but you don’t leave it in the middle of a driveway. If he had thought no one was home, it would have been better to just keep it and we go pick it up from the FedEx center.

Walmart is still not a favorite shopping choice, but I have to say I was really shocked and happy to see how they handled the situation. It’s not that we didn’t have to pitch a fit, it’s that they actually did the right thing buy honoring the price and giving us a product we wanted. I was honestly expecting only a refund and nothing more. We all know Walmart is a bitch with strict rules but Walmart can be broken, thanks to diamonds in the rough like manager Stacy. She redeemed a sliver of Walmart’s credibility…just a sliver.

I know I’m the last to get a nice big TV so I won’t go into the excitement here…safe to say everything looks better, looks bigger, and works well. It’s a really nice TV that so far hasn’t disappointed at all. Having this giant TV will now doubt breathe life back into every video game and every movie we have. It’s really turning old stuff into new stuff…and that’s some good value right there.

Merry Christmas us!