The TV From Hell

So, I've been raving about the new TV I was getting soon. A new Vizio 42" Plasma. It was supposed to arrive last week at some point, but after calling into the holding depot, they discovered that my order had been placed on hold and that they would need to call back east to find one. Great, so I wait. I called Monday to find out that the TV was in SFO and that they'd call Tuesday to deliver it. They called Tuesday to set up an appointment for Wednesday and today is Wednesday. But my TV didn't come.

No, I didn't get my 42" Plasma TV like I had hoped, I got 50" Plasma in its place. I didn't even notice until it was out of the box, on my stand, and playing pictures.



My apartment mate noticed that the model was a P50HDM, not a P42HDTV like I ordered. There was no coaxial input, no TV tuner, nothing. But to make matters worse, there was a scratch on the screen glass from a puncture hole in the box that it arrived in.



Now, I wasn't too worried about it, since I didn't want to have to ship it around again. I decided to plug it in and check it out. We turn it on, plug in the Wii and there's this monstrous buzzing sound coming from the power board and red spots flickering on the screen. Here's some screenshots of the Wii and 300.



They aren't terribly noticeable, but it's there, so with all the problems mounting, we decide to call Vizio Customer Service. After about an hour of runaround and an email with a PDF of my order receipt, they tell us they can't service it because we don't have a receipt for the right model.

What do I do now?

I call Overstock.com, notorious for their poor customer service. Actually, I used their Live Chat. I hate dealing with scumbags that work CSR (Sorry to the nice people who try to make a difference, but I know most people despise the job and what it stands for - which is not helping people so that the company makes a larger profit margin). At any rate, I mention the whole debacle and she starts quote me the return policy that's in their website FAQ. I'm telling her that I don't want to return the item, I just want a correction on the receipt to mention that I received a P50 instead of a P42. She says she'll forward it to a supervisor and that they'll email me tomorrow. Then she quotes me the price of the TV. WTF?

I'm kind of tripping out here, because I'm not prepared to pay 1500 for a refurbished television that came cracked, buzzing, a flickering out of the box when the item is definitely not what I ordered. More importantly, there's no way I'm paying return shipping for an item I don't want to send back unless I can get a better one for the same price I paid for what I wanted. So if I get an email tomorrow saying that they're going to charge me the difference, then I'm calling Visa and disputing the charge and Overstock can fight me for it...and I'll never buy from them again. And I'll tell everyone not to buy from them again as a personal vendetta. They're already bad, but my experience with them will be bar-none, the worst customer experience ever.

Gah.