The Quickest £3000 Ever Spent - A Tale of Screen Burn In

I was working at a retail outlet in the UK that will remain nameless except to say that they normally specialise in PCs (they have yellow and purple livery, and the second word of their 2 word name is World ;) ) but have recently started offering higher end Plasma & LCD TVs.

A nice chap came in with his young son (probably 6 or 7). They brought a slimline PC base unit and a 42" Samsung PDP recommended by PC World as a "Home Theatre System". Oops did I say PC World? The total bill was £2899 once the extended warranty/insurance had been added on. I heard my colleague say, "It covers everything!" I felt like interrupting and pointing out that actually it covered only the things that would probably never happen or where already covered by the customers home contents policy. But I didn't. They left the store £3000 worse off but with a lot of exciting looking boxes and a copy of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire the PC game.

This happened at about 10 am on a Saturday. It was a very busy day and by the time I had sold a few LCD TVs (and taken the trouble to warn customers of the pitfalls like image retention) it was already the afternoon and I noticed Nice Chap was back looking... Well not so nice anymore. His 42" Plasma TV was up on the PC Clinic (Customer Service Section) desk for the whole store to see.

Nice Chap was demonstrating that no matter what he played on the TV a rather vivid incarnation of Chris Tarrant appeared permanently over about 80% of the screen. Anyway Nice Chap was passed from team member to team member. Nice Chap went through the common retail complaint experience where first you dealt with the, "flippant self righteous blame it on the customer b***h", proceeding through the "Caring but pathetic bald chap", not forgetting the inevitable "Trainee manager who is highly trained in saying NO but cant justify why".

Eventually Nice Chap played his joker. He pulled out of his back pocket a piece of paper. He was going to remind them of the extended warranty that covered "EVERYTHING". By this time the real manager had arrived who politely pointed out that Screen Burn In was not covered by the guarantee and although he sympathised enormously he was unable tho change the TV or give a refund. Nice Chap swallowed hard. I actually saw his Adams Apple rise then fall. I sensed he was beaten and sure enough with Chris Tarrant grinning on from his 4 hour old £3000 pile of miss-sold junk he burst into tears.

It was no act and it quickly evolved into uncontrollable sobbing. Of course his 6 year old son had no option but to join in and Nice Chap just sat on the floor with his head in his hands wailing, floods of tears wetting his shirt, Flippant B***h, Caring But Pathetic, Trainee Manager & Real Manager looked on (as of course did Tarrant) almost wishing that for once they could give him his money back.

By now a packed store was silent except for the sound of misery. And that is when it happened. As Chris Tarrant took his final grin Nice Chap FLIPPED! He took the slimline Packard Bell PC base unit and jabbed the corner into Tarrants world record breaking annoying grin. And with a quick crackle and a surprisingly quiet smash the Plasma was gone. "Where is the f**cking c**t who sold me this pile of f**king s**t. He said it covered Everything"

Anyway, shortly afterwards the police arrived and escorted Nice Chap to a car and drove him away. A woman police constable took the inconsolable little boy in a separate car.

The matter was resolved by post and I don't know how it ended... Sorry.

Thanks to Johnathan for the story (changed to protect identities by eliteintegrity)

I suppose you have to have a little sympathy for the innocent staff who might have felt threatened but this story I believe is a perfect example of how consumers are losing out to the big retailers who have everything squared away in the small print. More on this soon.

Want to learn how to buy a plasma or LCD TV.

or

How to avoid Screen Burn. Laviva Online Store

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