Panasonic refused to fix couple’s $1100 flat-screen TV because it was damaged by smoking

by Scott McKay | April 13, 2016 12:35 am

The entitlement parade goes on and on. Here’s a guy who bought a TV and sat in his easy chair, smoking so much while watching it in his den with his wife, who also smokes, that he fogged up the screen – and when he tried to use the warranty to get Panasonic to fix it for free, he started screaming after he was told “forget it.”

Such is life in the Western world[1]…

smoky screen[2]

From the Daily Mail:

A couple have been left fuming after Panasonic refused to fix their £800 42-inch television because damage to the flat-screen had been caused by their smoking.

Thomas Defty, 53, and partner Denise Head, 60, bought the TV in 2012 and thought the five-year warranty would cover any problems they encountered.

They later noticed shadowing had appeared on the screen which affected the quality – but Panasonic put that down to the couple’s smoking and said this was not covered under guarantee.

Mr Defty described the decision as ‘disgraceful’ and vowed to never buy ‘another thing from Panasonic again’.

The 53-year-old, from Seaham in Co Durham, said: ‘Me and Denise smoke. We have about 20 a day, but we’re not in the same room all day and we have the window open, so it’s not a smoke-filled room.’

After the shadows started creeping onto the screen, Mr Defty sent pictures to the TV manufacturer.

When he had not heard anything for two weeks, he phoned Panasonic who told him, after an investigation, they would not be fixing the television.

‘They said they wouldn’t be fixing the TV because of nicotine smoke. It’s disgraceful. They should be replacing the screen. It’s wrong.’

He added: ‘I’m not buying another thing from Panasonic again and we’ve told our friends and family not to either. We used to get everything from them, but not any more.’

The Panasonic people said when they got the TV into their repair facility, it smelled like a cigarette factory and it was obvious the smoke had shadowed the screen. It’s the same thing – if you take a sledgehammer to the screen or throw a whiskey bottle through it, the manufacturer might well tell you they’re not going to replace it on the house.

And if you blow so much smoke that the vents the TV uses to cool itself are ingesting enough smoke to fog the screen, then no, you don’t get to whine about how the manufacturer treats you when they tell you they’re not going to subsidize your habit by fixing the damage you did to their product for free. And when they tell you they’ll fix the screen if you pay for the repairs or sell you a new TV at cost, they ain’t the bad guys. You are, for acting like a jackass about it.

The old adage “the customer is always right” is overused. We’d say it was obsolete, but that gives it too much credit – it was never right in the first place. There are crappy customers. This guy was one.

Endnotes:
  1. Such is life in the Western world: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3535536/Panasonic-refuse-fix-couple-s-broken-800-42-inch-flat-screen-TV-smoke-20-cigarettes-day.html
  2. [Image]: https://rightwingnews1.wpenginepowered.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/smoky-screen.jpg

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