Circuit City ripoff Beware of Circuit City CitiAdvantage Protection Plan Richmond Virginia

We purchased a Hitachi 50" HD TV in November 2004. At that time the TV cost approximately $3500. Unfortunately, we also purchased the extended warranty for $650. After about a year the TV would take about 20 minutes to warm up and turn on. We were moving, so in June I called the CitiAdvantage Plan number and they sent someone from their approved list to come fix it. They could not fix it, so they took it with them. After having it for 12 weeks, they informed me that it was not cost worthy to fix it and Circuit City would replace it. I also received an email from CitiAdvantage plan stating the same thing.


I called the CitiAdvantage number and was given a case number and the name and phone number of a woman who was to be my case manager. They told me I would hear from her in two days, and if I didn't, then I should call her. Well, that was on a Wednesday and by the following Monday, I hadn't heard anything so I called her. Of course, I got voicemail. Over the next two weeks, I left many messages, again with no return call. I then proceeded to call other customer service numbers, only to be transferred to different "levels." Finally I got a man who said he was writing an email and I would hear something "very shortly." Well, I don't know what "very shortly" means to you, but after a few days, I gave up and had my husband call the store manager where we bought the TV. He said he would look into it and call us back.


Of course, again, no return call. We proceeded to call Mikele Ervin, Executive Response Specialist, Executive Offices, Circuit City at 804-527-400 extention 3221 and again got voicemail. We left many messages with her and again no response.

We finally got the store manager to find out that they offered us a $1500 store credit. Kepp in mind, the warranty states that if the produce it non-repairable it will be replaced with one of equal or similar features and if they are unable to do that in a reasonable amount of time, they will refund the ORIGINAL price. Now, I know TVs have gone down in price over the last year and a half, but we could not purchase anything in the store that had comparable features as the TV we had for that price. He told us that he would call Corporate and see if he could get more. Well, again, he never called us back. We placed many many calls to their Corporate Office with not one single return call in a two-months time.

We finally got so tired of dealing with it (which I'm sure is what they want) that we went in and used the $1500 for another TV and ended up paying another $400 out of our pocket for a lesser TV, and lost the remainder of our warranty which was still good for two more years!! We could have probably fixed the TV for the $650 they charged us for the warranty!!

They call it the CitiAdvantage Protection Plan because they take advantage of you and protect themselves.
I will never shop Circuit City again!! Not even for a pack of paper! They NEVER even gave us the courtesy of a phone call!

Teresa
San Antonio, Texas
U.S.A.