Circuit City No Lemon Policy Ripoff Springfield Illinois

I purchased an Onkyo surround sound receiver a few years ago. I also purchased the extended warranty. I was given a warranty card that stated that if an item broke and was serviced 2 times, then it would be replaced with a new, comparable product if it broke a 3rd time.

I had a "protect" circuit activate on my receiver rendering it useless. I took the receiver in and described the problem and it was sent away. I got it back about 2 weeks later with a new resistor put in it to correct the problem.(05/01) After using the product again for about 6 months, the same problem occurred.(11/01).

They sent it off again and it took almost a month to get it back, but they did have it working again. One month later I boxed the receiver up and it sat in storage for the next year and a half while I built a new house. After returning it to everyday use last June of '03, it provided me trouble-free service until the other morning (after about 8 months of total use since the prior repair). The protection circuit activated again.

I still have a couple of months left remaining on my esp and took it in along with ALL of my paperwork. It seems as though the esp policy is different than when I purchased mine. The current "No Lemon" policy includes the wording that the fact that the receiver is broke must be verified by a service technician and that a refurbished unit may be supplied at the sole discretion of the service provider. This is NOT what my policy states!.

I took the item in expecting to get a new one and was told instead that I have to wait for them to send the receiver in to have the receiver checked to see if it is in fact broken. I had the customer service person plug it in to see how the unit powers up for a few seconds and then activates the protection circuit which he did, but yet the sales manager still would not "make it right." He referred to the customer service hotline on the wall. I called it, waited on hold for 30 minutes, and then spoke for another 30 minutes with someone who basically told me that he has no authority to tell the store what to do. What is the point of having a customer service hotline then?

After finding this site, I am seeing that this tends to be the rule rather than the exception when dealing with Circuit City and wish that I had never given them my business then or when I recently purchased HDTV and the "wonderful" extended service plan!

I have yet to see how this is all going to pan out.

Fred
Girard, Illinois
U.S.A.