Samsung forum: Samsung Customer Service is a nightmare

I purchased the Samsung Rant cell phone last year (December 2008). On June 7th, 2009, after only six months of operation, the phone lost its ability to charge. At first, I thought it was the charger, so I bought a new charger and tried to charge the phone with that. When that didn't work, I figured something was wrong with the charge connector on the phone, and that it would be a good idea to call Samsung to get it repaired.

I called the Samsung technical support number. After two days of two attempts (the first attempt failed because the rep didn't properly key-in the RMA information and I never got the email with the UPS return label), I got the UPS label finally emailed to me.

I shipped the phone to Samsung. After about 2 weeks of silence, I called their customer support line again. They assured me that the phone was being repaired and should be ready next week...

More silence.

I called again on June 23rd. This was now my 4th call into Samsung. This time, the rep told me that the latest update was that the phone is currently being repaired. They are in the process of replacing the LCD on the phone... The LCD screen? That sounded very odd since that had nothing to do with my problem but... ok... I figured the manufacturer knows best what to do...

I asked for an ETA again. Again, the same thing they told me a week ago: it will be available within 2-3 weeks from today, excluding Saturdays and Sundays... Now at this point, I figured ok, this is going to take a while, so I dug up an old 2003 Sanyo phone I had laying around, and reactivated cell service on this old phone, so that I could at least have cell service while they took their sweet time fixing my Samsung Rant phone...

Interestingly though, about 30 minutes after that call, I got an email saying that the repair has been completed! Here's is the content of that email:



Dear **** ********,

Thank you for your patience.

Your product was shipped on 06/23/2009 at 13:13 EST.


Service Ticket Number: 4003774739
Ship Company: UPS
Tracking Number: 1Z6VF637429025****
Serial number: A1000008E7EC6D
Please view additional information below for more details.

Original Problem:
Technical Inquiry
Power
No Power Up

Problem found:
LCD BLANK/SEG. MISSING/LINES
BER - ABUSE, NOT REPAIRABLE

Solution:
BER


BER (Beyond economical Repair) Comments:
Your phone is damaged beyond economical repair in the form of a warped board, or missing or damaged components. The factory warranty has been voided.
If you have any additional questions, please call us at 1-888-987-4357 and reference Ticket Number: 4003774739.

Thank you.
Samsung Electronics America



When I saw that email, I could not believe my eyes! Instead of fixing the phone, Samsung broke the LCD, and waived off my phone as being beyond repair! Never mind that the phone was in working condition when I sent it in. The only thing wrong with this phone was that it wasn't charging! When I would charge my battery inside my coworker's phone, everything worked fine.. There was no reason to break my phone, Samsung... You are supposed to repair, not break...

They are now shipping the dead phone back to me, and I can track its progress on the UPS tracker. How wonderful...

I called customer support once more today after I got that email and was able to get the issue escalated to level2 supervisor. The supervisor was not helpful at all. She kept telling me that my LCD was broken. I kept telling her my phone was perfectly healthy when I sent it in, save for the charging problem... But she kept insisting that there was something wrong with the LCD and that they had to replace the screen on the phone, and that now it was broken... After half an hour of arguing back and forth I gave up. This is going no where.

In conclusion, I wanted to say that, in the past, I have been impressed with Samsung products. Ironically, I have purchased an LCD monitor from them, many years ago, and have been very happy with it for many years, never had a problem... But now that I have learned what their customer support is like, I do not think I will be buying anything else from Samsung ever again. Why take the chance?

I also have decided to forward this letter to their corporate headquarter guys, the addresses of which I found from another poster on another forum, who was in deeper shiite that I (he had purchased an expensive LCD which broke down and was having similar issues with the support. At least my phone was _only_ $400...)

Just trying to raise awareness and protect other people from falling into the same trap here...

If anyone's customer support experience parallels mine, feel free to write to their corporate guys, as well:

Mr. Yoon-Woo Lee, Vice Chairman
Samsung Electronics America, Inc.
105 Challenger Rd Ste 1
Ridgefield Park, NJ, 07660

and

Mr. Dong-Jin Oh, President
Samsung Electronics America, Inc.
105 Challenger Rd Ste 1
Ridgefield Park, NJ, 07660