A Name You Can Trust

Duhhh… Yeah, sure.

The other day we pulled the plug on our TV which had been on life support for the last month. Actually, I thought the problem might have something to do with the cable but, when the cable guy came out, he said in a heartbeat it was the TV – the tuner to be specific.

So, without delay, I headed out to do some shopping. There’s not much I require in a TV. It has to have a port for headphones; it has to have hookups for my VCR; and it has to be less than 32 ½ inches wide so that it will fit in this cabinet we bought at Kmart and my girl subsequently spruced up with paint and various patterned wallpaper. For some reason, she likes the idea of hiding the TV when company comes over. Me? I’d rather keep watching whatever was running before they got here.

Anyway, WalMart had a set that met my meager requirements but, unfortunately, they were out of stock. The kid who waited on me said something about a shipment, but knowing how long it usually takes Wally’s World to restock sold-out items, I figured I better move on. Circuit City was a bust. They had TVs but no employees to sell them. Besides, their prices didn’t seem that good for a company that was about to go tits up.

Next, I hit Best Buy. On my own in the TV section, I quickly found a TV that met my requirements – an Insignia 32” HD Flat screen TV. Insignia – a name you can trust. At least I hope you can trust it; I never heard of it before. The girl at the register talked me into a 4 year protection plan. It sounded good to me until I mentioned it to my wife. “Will they be in business for 4 years?” she asked. Always the pessimist.

Anyway, I didn’t have to bust a gut carrying the new set home. However, I think I got a hernia removing the old one.

My Insignia’s set up and working. Unfortunately, the cable box doesn’t recognize the model, so I have to use two remotes – one for on/off and the volume, the other for switching channels. That’s a burden I think I can handle.

Thinking About Direct TV – DON’T DO IT!

I’m stuck in the middle of a technological nightmare.

First, a couple weeks ago, I came home from a trip to the pool room to find that my pc had crashed. I lost everything – programs, emails, pictures. You name it, I lost it. I picked up a new rig from Office Depot. It has 500 gigs on the hd and 4 gigs of ram. With a 17” flat screen monitor, it cost me $593. Not bad.

Then, the following Sunday, my vcr died. I went out and picked up a new one at WalMart, but it didn’t work. I traded it in for another model which didn’t work either. A kid at Circuit City told me I needed to get a cable box because newer vcrs required a connection from the cable box. (This, I later learned, was a bunch of hooey, as was a lot of what I was told along the line by Best Buy, Direct TV, etc. etc.) I called Bright House and was told I couldn’t get a cable box with my level of service and that I would have to spring for an additional $40 a month if I wanted a box. Vindictive bastard that I am, I said “No, thanks,” and immediately logged on to direct-tv.com. Within moments I had called, explained to the girl rep my vcr woes, and signed up for their cheap $29.99 per month plan. By noon the next day, my satellite service was installed. I even slipped the installer a fin for helping me hook up my new LG, RC897T VCR.

Trouble was the VCR wouldn’t work. What I normally do, because my wife likes to go to bed early and I’m often out playing pool, is program our VCR to record a couple shows that we will watch early, after dinner, the next day. Well, what I couldn’t do is program the new recorder to record one show on FOX from 8 to 9 and then record another on NBC from 9 to 10. Correction – I could do it if I stood in front of the TV and changed channels with the satellite box at the times in question. Not exactly what I had in mind. I called LG customer service and spoke to someone in India who told me over the next 20 minutes how I could get the VCR to perform as I wanted. I programmed it last night and checked the tapes this morning. It did not work. The VCR only recorded the stations the box was tuned to. I called LG again this morning and spoke to someone who spoke English. After hearing my dilemma, she immediately responded that what I wanted to do was impossible because a satellite signal cannot be split. “Well,” I said, “why don’t you tell that to the guy I talked to yesterday.”

I’m pissed, now. I call Direct TV and tell them about it. They offer to sell me more equipment and to increase my monthly bill by another $5.95 for something else that would not quite give me the capabilities I was looking for. Oh, yeah, I had already upgraded my plan to the one with 150 channels because the $29.95 plan gives you nothing – that’s NOTHING! Anyway, I tell the girl to forgetaboutit, “I just want to cancel.” That’s when she hits me with the $347 disconnect fee. There was probably something in that agreement the installer had me sign to that effect. Unfortunately, he didn’t leave me a copy. “Do you still want to cancel?” “YES, I STILL WANT TO CANCEL.”

So, as of midnight tonight, the satellite will no longer be sending me beams. Tomorrow morning, between 8 – 10, the Bright House guy will be here to hook me up with a cable box which is what I should’ve opted for in the first place before I got the idea of showing the world how smart I am. To mollify Uppy, my frugal better half, I cancelled NetFlix to help defray our increased cable costs. Our next dvd will come from the movie cube down at WalMart.

Postscript: After the hookup to cable, my new VCR (or DVD-R) still wouldn't work. After a few calls, I hooked up with another young fellow from the manufacturer, LG Electronics. He told me the cable box was the problem. He instructed me that I could get the unit to perform the way I wanted if I bypassed the cable box. So, I went to Radio Shack and purchased a splitter and split the signal as it came into the house and sent one line to the cable box and another to the VCR. That did the trick. Honestly, I had never heard of LG before, but based on their commitment to customer service I wouldn't hesitate to buy one of their products in the future.

Update - I received a response from the FCC today, 11/03/2008. Here are the pivotal points:

"Billing and service disputes between customers and satellite providers are not subject to FCC jurisdiction...

You may file a complaint with the FTC. The FTC does not normally investigate or resolve specific complaints: they look for trends of patterns when an issue appears to warrant action."

In other words, I'm screwed.