Brand New TV

I was so excited that my brand new 50" plasma TV (a Panasonic TH-50PZ800U for the interested) was going to be delivered today. Things started going poorly when I left work to wait for the delivery. Someone was supposed to show up between 12:00 pm and 2:00 pm. However, at 1:30, still nobody at my door. So I called the delivery company because I had to get back to work promptly at 2 for a meeting. They assured me the delivery guys would be here. Not 1 minute after I hung up, I got a phone call directly from the delivery truck drivers saying they were running late and would be at my apartment by 3:00 pm. Ugh...

I went back to work and went to my 2:00 meeting. In the middle of the meeting my phone starts ringing (luckily I had remembered to put it in vibrate, so I didn't end up disturbing the whole meeting). Looking at the caller ID, I can tell its the delivery guys. What part of, "I won't be able to take delivery until after 3:00" did they not understand. It turns out, I was just being paranoid. They were calling to let me know they were on their way, but they understand that I can't be home until 3, so they'll wait for me. I gotta say, I don't think that would ever happen on the east coast. Delivery people seem to be more patient and reasonable out here (I had a similar experience with my mattress delivery).

So, I get back to my apartment just as the delivery people are showing up. They bring the box out of their truck and there's a giant hole right in the middle of the box. I'm thinking, "This can't be good." They bring the TV into my apartment and open it up a bit so we can check for damage. Everything looked fine and I was psyched to get the thing set up. After I signed for the delivery, they delivery guys left, and I began to further unpack things. When I got the whole TV out of the box, I noticed a gash in the lower left part of the screen. Nooooooo!!!!

So, now I have to get a new one from Panasonic. I must say that I'm disappointed that I don't have everything set up today. But, Panasonic did have really good customer service. Other than getting disconnected once for mysterious reasons, the people on the other end didn't ask any questions. They just set things up to have a new TV shipped out to me and said the delivery people would take the old one away. That's how all customer service should be. Kudos to Panasonic.

Now, my only problem is trying to figure out how to get the TV and all the other random parts that fell out of the box back into the box for when the delivery guys come to haul it away. Sigh...

Hopefully in a few days, I'll have good news to report. A new TV (without a gash in the screen) will arrive and Comcast will install CableCARD into my HD TiVo and all will be wonderful in TV Land.