Feb 23 2009
Poor Warranty Service From ViewSonic
Recently my father had a ViewSonic 22″ LCD Monitor that went on the fritz and developed a green line vertically across the entire screen. He immediately contacted ViewSonic by email and phone, and they suggested to send the unit back to them for repair. The next day he boxed it up and shipped it out by UPS Ground which cost him over $40 by the way.
The LCD Monitor arrived at the ViewSonic Repair Center in 5 days. This is where it gets interesting, according to their online website that monitor remained in the “Being Repaired” status for a month. Yes, a whole month! At this point, my father was already upset that it was taking so long and several attempts to contact ViewSonic during this time were futile.
Finally after 33 days, a ViewSonic representative emailed him and said the repaired unit has been sent out. A few days later, 35 in total since it was shipped, he received a package from ViewSonic. Unbelievably, when he opened up the box, he immediately noticed that it wasn’t the same monitor but a LCD panel that had been used with several scratches on the back of it. Also, the LCD he received was a cheaper model and was missing several features that his original monitor had like an iPod Dock and a USB Hub.
Being really frustrated, he immediately called ViewSonic and they stated to him that they couldn’t get the parts for his monitor and that they decided to send him a comparable refurbished one. About to blow his top, he told them he didn’t want a cheaper model and wanted his original one fixed. The representative said that he could resend the monitor they shipped to him back (for another $40+ bucks), and he could wait until possibly they received either more parts or another one of the same models that he had, but it could take up to 6 months. Now being absolutely totally disgusted, he hung up on them and immediately wrote several letters to the CEO’s and other upper management, and he has yet to hear back from anyone (it has been well over a month).
The point I am trying to make with this story is, you should really think long and hard before you buy a ViewSonic product. I have always been a fan of ViewSonic myself, but now I absolutely refuse to even take a glance at a ViewSonic item due to their horrid customer service and extremely poor warranty repair process.
Too bad - poor customer service can ruin a company. I had a similar experience with an HP computer. After months of trying to resolve the issue, and it not being resolved (parts kept failing on the machine), I turned the matter over to my credit card company - they refunded my purchase price, plus interest, sent me a shipping container and had me ship it to them - they resolved the issue and closed the case, I got my money back and bought another PC. HP quality has gotten better.
Unfortunately, this seems to be the standard experience with Viewsonic warranty repairs now-a-days. I own a computer repair shop and have sold hundreds of Viewsonic monitors. In the last six months I have had to send several back for warranty repair. It always takes over a month, they frequently have to send a refurbished replacement, and many times the refurbished replacement is not even the same model as the original. They almost never respond to email or letters. It has gotten to the point hat I will never sell another Viewsonic monitor out of my business. My customers expect better service than what Viewsonic delivers.