Richer Sounds after sales TV service, i've had a bad experience so far

Ah great stuff and fair play to Richer Sounds - nice one!

I have contacted Mr Clayton too about an issue I am having with my Samsung ES7000 smart TV (waiting reply) Its the motion Judder issue people are talking about. There is also noise when playng a Blue Ray that just isnt there on other TV pannels. Richer Sounds have replaced the TV this week but the issue seems to be with this new TV too. I have contacted Richer sounds and told them Im not happy and would like a refund as this issue doesnt look like it will 'go away'. RS have told me if they dont find an issue with this TV panel after their engineering department tests it they will charge me a handling fee of 15% of the price of the TV. Has anyone experienced this from Richer Sounds? How do I know they wont just turn it on and look at the screen and tell me is fine and cost me money? Surely this isnt fair.

I think you may have a problem here, to me the motion judder issue sounds like a trait of that particular tv and not a fault as such with the tv. I had what i would call a technical fault with the tv and not an issue that had been reported on any forum or to Panasonic themsleves which could not be repaired or solved by a replacement screen or by any other means, conversely it seems from what i have read with about the ES7000 issue it has been widely reported and seems to be an inherent issue with this particular model.

I presume the tv is more than 1 month old then?? If you look on the back of your receipt card (not the actual receipt inside) you will see this about the refund policy:

"We will cheerfully refund your purchase price IN FULL if FOR ANY REASON you return your purchase to us in a 'sealed' unopened/unused condition within 7 days of purchase.

If your purchase has been opened or used , we are unable to resell your returned goods as new. Therefore, a 15% handling charge will be deducted if goods are returned within one month of purchase in mint condition with all packaging/accessories."

This will be what Richer Sounds are referring to when you contacted them but the charge won't apply if you exchange it for another different tv as far as i'm aware so you may be able to get a resolution this way but i'm not certain about that but may be worth enquiring. If your faith in Richers has been dented and you want to shop elsewhere then unless a fault is found with the tv you may have to take the 15% hit unless you get more joy from Mr Clayton.

It's clearly stated in the t&c's of purchase where you stand with your issue as it stands but you do have other options, have you contacted Samsung atall?? If you can get confirmation from them that the issue should not be present on your ES7000 or that it's a fault they are aware of then you will strengthen your case considerably and have cause to ask for a refund as the set would then be deemed faulty and you won't incur the 15% charge.

Oh and one more thing...would Richer Sounds be taking the set away for an engineer to inspect it or would that be done at your local store or at your home? If you could demonstrate the fault you are refering to then that would also greatly help your case, be it with an engineer or in store.

I hope you get some contact from Richer Sounds soon and that some sort of resolution is forthcoming but in the meantime give Samsung a call to get more info about the issue.

Hope that is of some help to you.

Update:

My replacement tv for my faulty GT30 is being delivered tomorrow, it's been a weeks wait since i paid the extra money for the Sony KDL46HX853 which has felt like an eternity but tomorrow the replacement should finally be with me and i will have a resolution at last. Can't wait to see how the 46HX853 performs, i certainly don't want to see any backlight bleed for example i would be crushed if that were the case.

Have you tried switching all artificial processing off (motion control etc.)? Usually that helps motion judder & other artefacts significantly.

Which Blu-ray player are you using?  Because some handle motion better than others in my experience.

Hi Oldboy

I saw your new TV in Currys the other day - looks cracking.  I was very impressed with the black levels too.  Hope all goes well.

Great news! Thanks for your input as always gel, will keep you updated with how it performs in situ

Thanks for your reply Oldboy, Bigboss and Gel,

I have infact contacted samsung today and they are sending an engineer from a different company, (DK Audio Visual) to inspect and try to fix my set. I have a demonstration setup for this to show the issues i am experiencing. Last night I noticed that the new set also has very noticable clouding or backlight bleeding. I have taken photos of all the issues too.

I have tried turning off all the motion settings and this doesnt help, the fast action scenes are terrible to watch. My prior understanding was that the 800 HZ was going to eliminate any motion blur issues, much to my amazement this is actually a bit of clever advertising to get peole to buy the TV when it cant actually deliver this sort of refresh rate without problems. Also I have learned its only a 200hz panel so the issue seems to be with the processing. If I use the Motion blur 10 and motion Judder 0 settings as suggested by many forums then for a few seconds the picture looks good then there is a small stutter and it looks like the picture is catching up to the sound and skips a few frames.. This is really noticable when watching tennis, the ball does all sorts of jumping round the court !

All I want now is to exchange this set for the new brand, a plasma this time....

I am using the Playstation 3 and also tried my PlayonHD2 media centre, same on both. Any suggestions on which players handle motion better?

With Blu-ray players and motion, the best thing would be to demo, in the latest issue of WHF they talk about motion on Blu-ray players in a group test, which is well worth a read.  The Panasonic BDT500 they talk about smooth motion, I have also found the Pioneers smooth too.

Update:

Yesterday my replacement for my 42GT30 tv arrived (Sony KDL46HX853)....but without the promised 2 pairs of 3D glasses  A quick call to Stephen at Richer Sounds was in order i thought and once he called me back after speaking to logistics and the courier it would seem the courier never added them to my delivery (insert expletive here).

I was told to expect a call from the courier yesterday to arrange delivery, that call never arrived surprise surprise so when or if i will get the glasses i have absolutely no idea but if i've had no word by midweek then i will be chasing them up yet again, this is really poor customer service considering that this is Richer Sounds response to the issues i had with the GT30, no?? Being left to now chase after the 3D glasses bears a striking resemblence to the situation i was in with the 3D glasses for the GT30 and that took almost 3 months to resolve so i'm not happy about the glasses seemingly going missing.

The tv though is great and i'm reasonably happy with it although on some sources there is quite significant backlight bleed on the two bottom corners, weirdly it seems at it's worst when using the web browser or the apps and is clearly noticeable when using the menus of the tv but during tv, bluray playback and gaming it's not noticeable which is the main thing.

Of course i've still to do some tweaking and the tv isn't calibrated correctly just yet as i've not had the time so i'm just hoping these are teething issues that i can sort out over the weekend, i'm thinking that it may just be the picture modes when using the browser and apps that may be the issue but if not i may have to live with it as a perfect tv simply isn't out there. I was disappointed to see the bleed though as it wasn't mentioned in the WHF review, fingers crossed i can eliminate it over the weekend....i really don't want to send this one back too!!

Got a call today from Richer Sounds and the 3D glasses will be with me on friday so i've been told so an end is in sight at long last, shame i've had to wait another week for the glasses though as they should have arrived with the tv but at least i'm going to get them eh.

Update on my situation.

Stephen from Richer sounds called me to sort out my TV issues. What a nice guy, he really knows what customer service is and I wish we could always deal with someone with his professionalism. I swapped my Samsung ES7000 TV for the new Panasonic TX-P55VT50 after much reading on the forums and reviews about how good this set was with motion judder/blur. My verdict is somewhat different though, why is the motion judder on this set worse than the Samsung? Am I missing something? I have spent a good few hours trying different settings and still cannot get the motion right. Fast panning scenes are terrible to watch, I been re-assured that motion is not an issue on these Plasma tvs, maybe I searched the wrong forums.. help..

I have turned off all the motion enhancement settings and still no luck, The best picture seems to be with the 'Cinema' picture mode.

I dont know what to do now, is my panel faulty, how can I test if its faulty without going back to the store I picked it up from?

Any suggestions would be most helpfull, All this trouble to buy a new 'Top of the range' TV, is it worth it...!

I have not got any motion judder or blur on my GT50, and I cant help on the Vt50 still not seen it.  Is it on blu ray or normal TV the issues?