This is the first time I am writing a post on this forum, so please be kind (for the length and for any mistakes)...
As we move into the part of the year where checking out new and shiny gadgets and objects doesn't feel as guilty a pleasure because of all the discounts and offers, I just wanted to share my perspective based on a recent experience I had while trying to get my TV repaired.
First, some context. I purchased my first TV in 2015 when we were setting up our new house. We were on a tight budget for the big appliances, so we bought a decent washing machine and fridge and then literally asked the store guy if he could show us a cheap TV (any brand) that we could buy in the rest of the budget. He pointed us to a 32'' Mitashi TV in a corner of the lowermost shelf of all their TVs. We balked at the brand name, but he said, "Sir, isme teen saal ka warranty hain" (this has a 3-year warranty) and sweetened the deal by offering it at a nice discount. We thought, "Yeah, we could live with a broken TV for a few days if it can be repaired for free and we can probably upgrade if it fails after the warranty." So off we went with the Mitashi.
To our luck, however, the Mitashi turned out to be much more durable than we had thought. We had absolutely no issues with the TV till early 2021, when it started showing some screen problems. We got an Urban Company person to take a look at it since it was out of warranty, and he fixed it for around 1.5k. However, he also told us that we should not be expecting the TV to last much longer, and just like he said, we started seeing some occasional glitches in early 2022. We thought we might as well get a new one now when the TV still had some exchange value, so we looked around and settled on a 43'' Redmi 4K TV (https://www.amazon.in/gp/product/B09RFC46VP). By this point, we had become somewhat brand-agnostic because of our experience with the Mitashi (not to mention that Xiaomi was a decent-sized brand in India by that time). The only issue was that Redmi did not offer a long warranty (2 years for the panel, and 1 year for the rest of the TV). We thought, "No worries, we'll just buy an extended warranty," and so we went ahead and got the Mitashi exchanged and welcomed a shiny new 4K TV. Redmi offered only one-year extended warranties (a red flag we didn't pay attention to then), and my brother had faced some difficulty in claiming warranty from Onsitego (Amazon's extended warranty provider at that time) for his Vu TV a couple of years earlier, so I looked around for another warranty provider and found GoWarranty (https://gowarranty.in/). They had good online ratings and decently priced plans, so I went ahead and purchased a 4-year extended warranty. GoWarranty was a third-party warranty provider, i.e., it was not being offered by the manufacturer or seller, and it clearly mentioned that it did not conduct physical verification of the devices, so it was up to the customer to ensure that the correct documentation was provided while registering the warranty. So I made it a point to call them up and ask what was the documentation they needed. The guy on the other end said they needed a valid purchase invoice and an image of the TV switched on and showing the serial number in the settings menu. Now Amazon has three documents in the "Invoices" section of the order menu: a GST invoice, a packing slip, and an order summary. While the GST invoice is the obvious invoice, the tricky part is that the GST invoice does not contain the serial number appearing in the TV settings menu (that number appears in the packing slip and order summary). I explained this to the GoWarranty guy and he asked me to upload the invoice that contained the serial number since they needed the image and invoice to match, so I went ahead and uploaded the order summary. Once I did this, they issued me a warranty certificate, and I thought our TV game was set for the next few years at least.
Fast forward 2.5 years and our TV started failing one fine day. A few minutes after it was switched on, the screen would go blank with the audio still playing. I logged into the GoWarranty portal and verified that my warranty was still active. Strangely, there was no option to raise a service request there, so I emailed them informing about the issue and asking them to help me with the repair. Then the ordeal started. When I called them the next day to check if there had been any progress, they told me that my request was "in audit" because of wrong documents. I asked what they meant by wrong documents, and the guy at the other end said, "Sir, you have not uploaded a GST invoice; our rules clearly state that a GST invoice is required." Later that day, they sent me an email informing me that my claim was rejected and my warranty was invalid because of wrong documents. The email included a screenshot of their invoice upload page (I've attached that screenshot) to emphasize how they had mentioned in "red letters" that correct documents should be uploaded. However, when I pointed out that the page still did not clearly state "GST invoice," quoted the Consumer Protection Law sections that made it mandatory for service providers to inform customers about such issues in advance, and told them that I would take them to court for what appeared to be fraud, their "CEO/Founder" intervened and asked me to send the GST invoice and then apparently made an exception by allowing me to raise a service request (no one informed me about this exception; I just found out that I could now raise a service request when I logged into their portal after a few days later). When I contacted them to know the progress regarding the service request, they gave me the number of my "Service Manager." Now this guy was in a different league altogether. He would keep assigning my case to different technicians, none of whom would actually visit my place to check the TV. By the time he had done this trick three times in a week since my service request was generated, I was irritated enough to go ahead and post my experience online on multiple online forums (Google, Facebook, MouthShut). After one whole week of never calling back or sharing any updates, suddenly the company appeared to have been jolted into action and I got assurances from multiple people (including the aforementioned "CEO") that my case was gonna be taken "on priority" and that the unseasonal rains were the reason why the delay happened (btw, the rains happened on 2 out of the 9 days). They asked me to take down the reviews and assured me that they would service the request. I made it a point to tell them that it was a problem if they needed online reviews to do what they were supposed to do in the first place and took down the Google and Facebook reviews in good faith (MouthShut does not allow reviews to be deleted, so I edited it).
So on the 10th day after I raised my first request, a technician came to my house, opened up the TV, and told me that this was a panel issue. He said that the panel would need to be replaced and that it would cost around 16-17K. He was a third-party vendor, so he said he'll need approval from GoWarranty for the repair. I confirmed this with the GoWarranty people, and the service manager assured me that he would expedite the approval and pickup. However, four days later, neither the approval nor the pickup had happened. I talked to the service manager (again, no one contacted me, so I was doing the calling and following-up), and the guy said they felt that the quote was too high so they were looking for a different vendor. Then, two weeks after this saga started, the service manager messaged me saying they had assigned this to a new vendor. I asked him what that meant, and he said another technician was gonna come and take a look. Basically, the warranty provider's liability was for the full price of the TV, so he was trying to spin it saying that he wanted to ensure that this repair would ensure as much of our coverage was retained. However, in parallel, I had been doing some checks on the company, and it was beginning to appear that the online ratings that had led me to them in the first place were probably fake. The online feedback consisted of somewhat templatized positive reviews and very specific negative reviews. Many of the negative reviews were mentioning issues similar to mine, and every negative review seemed to be followed by an avalanche of positive reviews which seemed too timely and too engineered to be fully genuine. It seemed like the company was basically buying and posting high online ratings to attract business and collect premiums and had a playbook of tricks to deny and frustrate people into letting go of warranty claims. So I found it a little difficult to believe this delay was actually for my benefit. The fact that we were basically back to square one after two weeks really annoyed me, and I made it a point to give him a piece of my mind. I told the service manager I was done waiting for this nonsense and that I was gonna get the issue resolved myself and post everything online again. Having successfully frustrated me into getting my TV serviced from somewhere else, he probably realized that his job was done so he gave me a fair bit of lip himself, including asking me to stay within my "aukaat" (status) and bizarrely telling me that he had much more money than me so I better listen to him (for a moment, I was reminded of Donald Trump talking). I decided to just write off the whole thing as a bad judgment call and move on. I know that if these guys are scamsters, then that is exactly what they would have wanted me to think, but there's more important and urgent things in life than trying to right every wrong (at least that is what I think, as of now).
I called up Urban Company again and their technician checked the TV to tell me the same thing (panel was most probably failing and may need to be replaced). Both this technician and the previous one said that a lot of the low pricing of TVs and slimness of the models was achieved by compromising on components and design. Apparently, a lot of the brands (including Samsung, Sony, and LG) had been using 4K panels from a supplier named CSOT, and these panels basically were showing a life of 2-3 years. However, brands were only now figuring out how widespread this issue was (panel failure rates are a closely guarded secret in the industry), so some of them were moving on to other suppliers. The Urban Company technician also mentioned some other design changes that were basically shortening the life of TVs, like replacing the inverter board for the LEDs with something that was like an old tubelight choke (his words, so I don't know how accurate they are). I had also come across a long-term test of TVs that is being run by a ratings company (https://www.rtings.com/tv/tests/longevity-burn-in-test-updates-and-results), and that's when I realized that edge-lit LED TVs, especially the slim ones, are a lot more susceptible to multiple points of failure. However, this is where things get a little murky. The guy told me that there's a cheaper repair that apparently works temporarily on a lot of these panels. It involves pasting a bit of tape on a cable (). He tried it and it worked on our TV. He also said that this repair typically fails within a couple of days or stays on for at least 6-8 months. The fact that the earlier guy didn't try this or mention it and that no one from GoWarranty actually mentioned anything like this makes me wonder if the earlier guy actually intended to do this and say that the panel was changed or that his quote was rejected because he was probably not willing to do this. Anyway, the TV was working again, although the Urban Company guy told us that there's every chance it could fail soon again and that a replacement panel will mostly have the same life, so the choice before us is to get a replacement (around 16-18k) or get a new TV (that could also fail in a couple of years). We'll cross that bridge when we get there.
So for those who have managed to read it till this point, here's a bit of gyaan I can give you from my experience:
1. When it comes to appliances, don't assume you are expert enough to make big decisions just because a previous call went right (unless you are actually an expert who repairs those appliances). The quality issues that the Urban Company guy was talking about are significant factors that we were completely unaware of. However, we were just thinking in terms of our Mitashi decision, so we made a bunch of bad calls.
2. Brand may matter, but not as much as you think. In terms of brands, we had technically upgraded from Mitashi to Xiaomi, but our mistake was in only looking at the "upgrade" aspect and thinking it was good enough to validate our decision to buy the Redmi TV. Also, if LG, Samsung, and Sony TVs were using these same panels and failing, that was just an indication that the brand matters much less than we think and we often know or are shown much less than what we need to make a proper informed decision.
3. So if you are not an expert and the brand doesn't matter much, then what does? The answer is "warranty," more specifically the manufacturer's warranty. If a manufacturer with a proper service network is offering a decent warranty (2+ years) for the product and also gives you the option to extend that warranty for a substantial amount of time (like say 3 years), go for it. That's the closest you can get to negating the effects of both your lack of expertise and the manufacturer's poor calls.
4. Another way to look at this is that if you are gonna go for a less reliable brand and/or short warranty, then don't raise your expectations. We chose a Redmi TV with a one-year warranty and were hoping to run it for 5+ years. Obviously our expectation was shaped by our previous experience, but the fact is that the previous experience had no bearing on how this one would have worked out since the only thing similar about both situations was that both were TVs (everything else, including the size, technology, brand, and warranty, was different). Conversely, if you wanna gamble on a lower-level brand or a product with a short warranty, ensure that the money you pay is only enough that you'll regret, not cry, if the gamble fails.
5. Finally, be wary of using online ratings as your primary parameter for selecting a service or product. The Redmi TV had good online ratings when we bought it, but the more recent ratings indicate that the panel failures may be a widespread issue. The GoWarranty guys seemed to have a strong online rating game, but their service simply did not match up. The whole online ratings system has now become so murky that it is quite difficult to separate the genuine stuff from the frauds. So use these ratings only as an adjunct, not as the primary filter for any aspect of your decision-making process.
Thank you for reading till this point. Hope you found the insights useful and that they'll help you purchase your next shiny thing and use it for years to come. 🙂
As we move into the part of the year where checking out new and shiny gadgets and objects doesn't feel as guilty a pleasure because of all the discounts and offers, I just wanted to share my perspective based on a recent experience I had while trying to get my TV repaired.
First, some context. I purchased my first TV in 2015 when we were setting up our new house. We were on a tight budget for the big appliances, so we bought a decent washing machine and fridge and then literally asked the store guy if he could show us a cheap TV (any brand) that we could buy in the rest of the budget. He pointed us to a 32'' Mitashi TV in a corner of the lowermost shelf of all their TVs. We balked at the brand name, but he said, "Sir, isme teen saal ka warranty hain" (this has a 3-year warranty) and sweetened the deal by offering it at a nice discount. We thought, "Yeah, we could live with a broken TV for a few days if it can be repaired for free and we can probably upgrade if it fails after the warranty." So off we went with the Mitashi.
To our luck, however, the Mitashi turned out to be much more durable than we had thought. We had absolutely no issues with the TV till early 2021, when it started showing some screen problems. We got an Urban Company person to take a look at it since it was out of warranty, and he fixed it for around 1.5k. However, he also told us that we should not be expecting the TV to last much longer, and just like he said, we started seeing some occasional glitches in early 2022. We thought we might as well get a new one now when the TV still had some exchange value, so we looked around and settled on a 43'' Redmi 4K TV (https://www.amazon.in/gp/product/B09RFC46VP). By this point, we had become somewhat brand-agnostic because of our experience with the Mitashi (not to mention that Xiaomi was a decent-sized brand in India by that time). The only issue was that Redmi did not offer a long warranty (2 years for the panel, and 1 year for the rest of the TV). We thought, "No worries, we'll just buy an extended warranty," and so we went ahead and got the Mitashi exchanged and welcomed a shiny new 4K TV. Redmi offered only one-year extended warranties (a red flag we didn't pay attention to then), and my brother had faced some difficulty in claiming warranty from Onsitego (Amazon's extended warranty provider at that time) for his Vu TV a couple of years earlier, so I looked around for another warranty provider and found GoWarranty (https://gowarranty.in/). They had good online ratings and decently priced plans, so I went ahead and purchased a 4-year extended warranty. GoWarranty was a third-party warranty provider, i.e., it was not being offered by the manufacturer or seller, and it clearly mentioned that it did not conduct physical verification of the devices, so it was up to the customer to ensure that the correct documentation was provided while registering the warranty. So I made it a point to call them up and ask what was the documentation they needed. The guy on the other end said they needed a valid purchase invoice and an image of the TV switched on and showing the serial number in the settings menu. Now Amazon has three documents in the "Invoices" section of the order menu: a GST invoice, a packing slip, and an order summary. While the GST invoice is the obvious invoice, the tricky part is that the GST invoice does not contain the serial number appearing in the TV settings menu (that number appears in the packing slip and order summary). I explained this to the GoWarranty guy and he asked me to upload the invoice that contained the serial number since they needed the image and invoice to match, so I went ahead and uploaded the order summary. Once I did this, they issued me a warranty certificate, and I thought our TV game was set for the next few years at least.
Fast forward 2.5 years and our TV started failing one fine day. A few minutes after it was switched on, the screen would go blank with the audio still playing. I logged into the GoWarranty portal and verified that my warranty was still active. Strangely, there was no option to raise a service request there, so I emailed them informing about the issue and asking them to help me with the repair. Then the ordeal started. When I called them the next day to check if there had been any progress, they told me that my request was "in audit" because of wrong documents. I asked what they meant by wrong documents, and the guy at the other end said, "Sir, you have not uploaded a GST invoice; our rules clearly state that a GST invoice is required." Later that day, they sent me an email informing me that my claim was rejected and my warranty was invalid because of wrong documents. The email included a screenshot of their invoice upload page (I've attached that screenshot) to emphasize how they had mentioned in "red letters" that correct documents should be uploaded. However, when I pointed out that the page still did not clearly state "GST invoice," quoted the Consumer Protection Law sections that made it mandatory for service providers to inform customers about such issues in advance, and told them that I would take them to court for what appeared to be fraud, their "CEO/Founder" intervened and asked me to send the GST invoice and then apparently made an exception by allowing me to raise a service request (no one informed me about this exception; I just found out that I could now raise a service request when I logged into their portal after a few days later). When I contacted them to know the progress regarding the service request, they gave me the number of my "Service Manager." Now this guy was in a different league altogether. He would keep assigning my case to different technicians, none of whom would actually visit my place to check the TV. By the time he had done this trick three times in a week since my service request was generated, I was irritated enough to go ahead and post my experience online on multiple online forums (Google, Facebook, MouthShut). After one whole week of never calling back or sharing any updates, suddenly the company appeared to have been jolted into action and I got assurances from multiple people (including the aforementioned "CEO") that my case was gonna be taken "on priority" and that the unseasonal rains were the reason why the delay happened (btw, the rains happened on 2 out of the 9 days). They asked me to take down the reviews and assured me that they would service the request. I made it a point to tell them that it was a problem if they needed online reviews to do what they were supposed to do in the first place and took down the Google and Facebook reviews in good faith (MouthShut does not allow reviews to be deleted, so I edited it).
So on the 10th day after I raised my first request, a technician came to my house, opened up the TV, and told me that this was a panel issue. He said that the panel would need to be replaced and that it would cost around 16-17K. He was a third-party vendor, so he said he'll need approval from GoWarranty for the repair. I confirmed this with the GoWarranty people, and the service manager assured me that he would expedite the approval and pickup. However, four days later, neither the approval nor the pickup had happened. I talked to the service manager (again, no one contacted me, so I was doing the calling and following-up), and the guy said they felt that the quote was too high so they were looking for a different vendor. Then, two weeks after this saga started, the service manager messaged me saying they had assigned this to a new vendor. I asked him what that meant, and he said another technician was gonna come and take a look. Basically, the warranty provider's liability was for the full price of the TV, so he was trying to spin it saying that he wanted to ensure that this repair would ensure as much of our coverage was retained. However, in parallel, I had been doing some checks on the company, and it was beginning to appear that the online ratings that had led me to them in the first place were probably fake. The online feedback consisted of somewhat templatized positive reviews and very specific negative reviews. Many of the negative reviews were mentioning issues similar to mine, and every negative review seemed to be followed by an avalanche of positive reviews which seemed too timely and too engineered to be fully genuine. It seemed like the company was basically buying and posting high online ratings to attract business and collect premiums and had a playbook of tricks to deny and frustrate people into letting go of warranty claims. So I found it a little difficult to believe this delay was actually for my benefit. The fact that we were basically back to square one after two weeks really annoyed me, and I made it a point to give him a piece of my mind. I told the service manager I was done waiting for this nonsense and that I was gonna get the issue resolved myself and post everything online again. Having successfully frustrated me into getting my TV serviced from somewhere else, he probably realized that his job was done so he gave me a fair bit of lip himself, including asking me to stay within my "aukaat" (status) and bizarrely telling me that he had much more money than me so I better listen to him (for a moment, I was reminded of Donald Trump talking). I decided to just write off the whole thing as a bad judgment call and move on. I know that if these guys are scamsters, then that is exactly what they would have wanted me to think, but there's more important and urgent things in life than trying to right every wrong (at least that is what I think, as of now).
I called up Urban Company again and their technician checked the TV to tell me the same thing (panel was most probably failing and may need to be replaced). Both this technician and the previous one said that a lot of the low pricing of TVs and slimness of the models was achieved by compromising on components and design. Apparently, a lot of the brands (including Samsung, Sony, and LG) had been using 4K panels from a supplier named CSOT, and these panels basically were showing a life of 2-3 years. However, brands were only now figuring out how widespread this issue was (panel failure rates are a closely guarded secret in the industry), so some of them were moving on to other suppliers. The Urban Company technician also mentioned some other design changes that were basically shortening the life of TVs, like replacing the inverter board for the LEDs with something that was like an old tubelight choke (his words, so I don't know how accurate they are). I had also come across a long-term test of TVs that is being run by a ratings company (https://www.rtings.com/tv/tests/longevity-burn-in-test-updates-and-results), and that's when I realized that edge-lit LED TVs, especially the slim ones, are a lot more susceptible to multiple points of failure. However, this is where things get a little murky. The guy told me that there's a cheaper repair that apparently works temporarily on a lot of these panels. It involves pasting a bit of tape on a cable (). He tried it and it worked on our TV. He also said that this repair typically fails within a couple of days or stays on for at least 6-8 months. The fact that the earlier guy didn't try this or mention it and that no one from GoWarranty actually mentioned anything like this makes me wonder if the earlier guy actually intended to do this and say that the panel was changed or that his quote was rejected because he was probably not willing to do this. Anyway, the TV was working again, although the Urban Company guy told us that there's every chance it could fail soon again and that a replacement panel will mostly have the same life, so the choice before us is to get a replacement (around 16-18k) or get a new TV (that could also fail in a couple of years). We'll cross that bridge when we get there.
So for those who have managed to read it till this point, here's a bit of gyaan I can give you from my experience:
1. When it comes to appliances, don't assume you are expert enough to make big decisions just because a previous call went right (unless you are actually an expert who repairs those appliances). The quality issues that the Urban Company guy was talking about are significant factors that we were completely unaware of. However, we were just thinking in terms of our Mitashi decision, so we made a bunch of bad calls.
2. Brand may matter, but not as much as you think. In terms of brands, we had technically upgraded from Mitashi to Xiaomi, but our mistake was in only looking at the "upgrade" aspect and thinking it was good enough to validate our decision to buy the Redmi TV. Also, if LG, Samsung, and Sony TVs were using these same panels and failing, that was just an indication that the brand matters much less than we think and we often know or are shown much less than what we need to make a proper informed decision.
3. So if you are not an expert and the brand doesn't matter much, then what does? The answer is "warranty," more specifically the manufacturer's warranty. If a manufacturer with a proper service network is offering a decent warranty (2+ years) for the product and also gives you the option to extend that warranty for a substantial amount of time (like say 3 years), go for it. That's the closest you can get to negating the effects of both your lack of expertise and the manufacturer's poor calls.
4. Another way to look at this is that if you are gonna go for a less reliable brand and/or short warranty, then don't raise your expectations. We chose a Redmi TV with a one-year warranty and were hoping to run it for 5+ years. Obviously our expectation was shaped by our previous experience, but the fact is that the previous experience had no bearing on how this one would have worked out since the only thing similar about both situations was that both were TVs (everything else, including the size, technology, brand, and warranty, was different). Conversely, if you wanna gamble on a lower-level brand or a product with a short warranty, ensure that the money you pay is only enough that you'll regret, not cry, if the gamble fails.
5. Finally, be wary of using online ratings as your primary parameter for selecting a service or product. The Redmi TV had good online ratings when we bought it, but the more recent ratings indicate that the panel failures may be a widespread issue. The GoWarranty guys seemed to have a strong online rating game, but their service simply did not match up. The whole online ratings system has now become so murky that it is quite difficult to separate the genuine stuff from the frauds. So use these ratings only as an adjunct, not as the primary filter for any aspect of your decision-making process.
Thank you for reading till this point. Hope you found the insights useful and that they'll help you purchase your next shiny thing and use it for years to come. 🙂
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