Shirley Mitchell of Berkeley bought a Samsung TV last January, especially for her mom. The 55-inch screen made TV easier to watch.
"She was having visual problems and she had a little dementia and I bought it for her," said Mitchell.
When her mom died, Mitchell and the television moved about five blocks to a new home, but when she turned on the TV, it didn't work.
"Just lines ran through it. No picture, no sound," said Mitchell.
She says there was also no sign of damage, and the TV was still under warranty. So she contacted Samsung.
"When I called the number they said, 'Oh, don't worry, we'll fix it for you,'" said Mitchell.
Samsung sent out a repairman, who took pictures of the broken set. They show blue lines going across, rainbow lines up and down, but no picture. The technician said, somebody must've bumped into it.
"I told them that I hadn't damaged the TV. I was setting it up, turned it on, and it didn't work," said Mitchell.
Now Samsung said because the technician found damage, it would not cover the repair after all, and repairs cost about $1,500. She insisted, the TV screen wasn't broken.
"They kept saying there was a crack in the screen, but there was no crack in the screen," said Mitchell.
She contacted 7 On Your Side, we called Samsung, and the company pointed to those pictures. The crack is very hard to see. It's under the surface, but it's there -- a tiny circle in the center of these vertical lines.
However, Samsung looked into the case and found that a customer service agent initially had promised to repair Mitchell's set. Samsung wanted to keep that promise.
"They called and said, 'We're going to fix your TV.' I said, 'That's wonderful,'" said Mitchell.
Samsung told us, "We were sorry to hear of Ms. Mitchell's concern. Samsung takes all consumer issues very seriously and we do our best to resolve them to the customer's satisfaction."
Samsung repaired the set and now it delivers the same eye popping pictures Mitchell had before.
"And I thank you again. I really appreciate it," said Mitchell.
We want to thank Samsung for stepping up and making the repair. The big lesson here is to be very careful moving these large television sets. The panels are made up of many layers and the wrong kind of impact can cause a lot of damage.
