LG notebook exchanges and returns

If I had to do it all over again....

I purchased an LG LM50 15" SXGA+, 80G hard drive 512 Mb Ram notebook from the bookstore of the college I work at in Toronto. The notebook arrived March 10/05. The following week I went back to the bookstore and told them the LCD was really hard to look with sparkles and grey/silver shadows that moved whenever you changed your head position even slightly. Additionally I was not able to come anywhere near the claimed 6.5 hours of battery life even with the battery miser set to dim the display in 30 seconds and shut down the hard drive in 10 seconds while running the processor at its slowest setting. The best I could do was 4.5 hrs. The Power DVD 5.0 software didn't have all the features it claimed to have either and movies jumped during action scenes.

I called customer support at LG in Mississauga the week of March 16/05 and spoke with a fellow called Kosta. He listened attentively as I described the look of the LCD. Heck, he even went down the hall to look at an LM50 in another office just to see what I was talking about. His recommendation in solving the problem was to return the notebook in exchange for an LW60 with A 15.4" WXGA (1280x800)Finebright display. He said it was the model he used himself and had no trouble with the LCD on it. After a little more discussion I agreed to the exchange.

The following week was spent waiting for the bookstore to get the approval for the exchange. A call to Kosta on March 23/05 revealed that his supervisor had not approved the exchange yet. Finally I was able to send my notebook on March 29/05 to the distributor in Richmond British Columbia (ALC Micro is the distributor's name).

The next step in the process was to wait for ALC Micro to issue a credit for the notebook to the college bookstore where I purchase it. A week and a half later and no credit yet. Another call to Kosta on April 13/05 about the credit revealed that it had been approve some time ago. Kosta was going to check up at LG to see if the credit was held up in accounting there. After that call the credit from ALC Micro came through April 18/05.

The next step in the process was to order an LW60 from ALC. It seemed that LW60 notebooks were in short supply and it took several more days to locate an LW60 DBJU1 model. Once again the distributor was ALC Micro in Richmond BC. The best delivery time they could promise was two weeks. Okay, so I ordered the LW60 on April 20/05.

Now it turned out that LG in Mississauga didn't have any LW60 notebooks either and they were waiting for them to come into Canada.
It seemed to me that there had to be a way to speed up the delivery of the notebook. After all they arrive at LG in Mississauga and then are shipped to the distributor. Why should my notebook travel out to British Columbia just to come back again to Ontario? I called Kosta again on May 2/05 to see if something could be done about this but had to leave voice mail asking him to call me back. He didn't return my call so I called ALC Micro in Richmond Hill to see if it would be possible for me to get the LW60 from them instead of British Columbia. Then seemed to think that it would be no problem.

Another call to Kosta the following day but all I got was voice mail again so I called the LG general support number and asked Kosta was at work that day. The person on the phone told me he was so I asked to be connected to him. Instead I got another fellow in Notebook support. I told this guy that I kept getting Kosta's voice mail and then asked him if Kosta was there that day. He said yes he was but not in the office and would I like to leave voice mail. I said no, and if I couldn't speak with Kosta then I wanted to speak to his supervisor. At this point the guy on the phone asked me for my name, which I gave him. A little while later he returned and told me that Kosta and his supervisor were in a meeting and unavailable. He gave me the option of leaving voice mail again. I did that and asked that Kosta call me back later that day. That was May 3/05 and I still haven't heard from him.

I called ALC Micro in Richmond Hill, Ontario again that same day to follow up on the possiblility of getting my notebook from them rather than BC. I gave them the purchase order number for the new notebook that ALC had given to the college bookstore and asked them the status of my order. ALC in Richmond Hill couldn't give me any information about my order saying that it had to be done by the ALC in British Columbia. A different story from my first conversation with them.

As of today I've exhausted all the options I can think of to speed up this process in any way. The last word from the bookstore where I purchased the notebook is that ALC Micro in British Columbia is promissing to ship the notebook out before the end of this week. That would be May 13/05. So far its been nearly 7 1/2 weeks since I returned the LM50 (to my bookstore March 29/05). You can add on another week before that spent arranging for the return with LG in Mississauga. I'm pretty much resigned to having to wait until ALC and LG do whatever it is they feel like doing now.

I've learned a couple of things through all of this.

First, is not to buy a notebook from a small business like a college bookstore. They can't offer a refund or an exchange to their customers in the event of a problem. Their volume of sales in notebooks isn't high enough for them to absorb the cost of giving you that refund.

I'm a first time notebook owner (well I really don't own one yet, I just make the loan payments on it while I wait). I didn't go with Dell even though my partner has a Dell 8600 that she really likes and which has a very easy to look at LCD. I read notebook reviews on this web site and others, I talked to tech support people about LG components and I went to computer stores in Toronto and spoke to the people there. LG came highly recommended by all. The problem was that I couldn't find a store that had an LM50 available for me to look at so I bought it sight unseen.

That turned out to be a big miskake.

And as for LG customer support......

A three year warranty on LM50 notebooks. Prepaid shipping for notebooks requiring servicing with a quick turn around to the customer.....

My experience with LG, so far, has fallen far short of their promised customer support.

cao

 

it's sad to hear that....compare to Dell this is bad...Dell turnaround time that I experience is (maximum)3 working days
why don't you keep bugging LG...keep calling them ask for compensation...

 

I've bugged them plenty. I guess so much so now that Kosta in notebook service doesn't return my calls anymore. That's why I began to call ALC Micro directly to see if they could speed up the exchange and get a notebook to me sooner. Their "red tape" won't let the ALC in Richmond Hill send me a notebook when my order is with the ALC in British Columbia. I work for a large college in Toronto and know that this sort of internal transfer between departments isn't all that difficult. I arrange it all the time in my job.

The point is that I shouldn't be the one having to approach ALC Micro about this notebook. LG customer service should be dealing with me directly and should have arranged to send a notebook to me from their Mississauga branch. Then LG would take care of the paper work with their distributor ALC Micro to balance ALC's books. That seems to me to be the least LG could do.

Customer service means dealing directly with the customer. I've had to call LG at each step along the way to ask why it has taken so long. At no time has LG called me update me on things or to assure me that I'm being taken care of. If LG had done that I wouldn't need to be using this forum as a way to get their attention.

I know, now, that if I had purchased my LM50 from Notebook Depot in Toronto they would have given me a refund for returning my notebook withing 7 days. (Aside: There's a guy there called Dave who is really knowlegeable and helpful. He acutally suggested in February that I wait a little before buying an LM50 as LG was soon to launch the LW express series). As their customer of I would have received immediate service. They are the ones who told me that it's standard policy for notebook distributors that once you the customer open the box you can't return the unit. That's why Notebook Depot inspects each unit when it arrives. Now Notebook Depot deals in high volumes, so I guess they can afford to issue a refund to a customer knowing that they will be buying from the same distrubutor in the near future - when a notebook is returned D.O.A (dead on arrival)a credit is issued to the retailer.

I don't see why buying an LG notebook from a small volume college bookstore should make such a difference. The LG customer service should be the same regardless. If ,as Kosta told me, it was a matter of no LW60 notebooks being available in Canada at this time, then the least he could have done was to assure me that when one became available it would be sent to me as soon as possible. Instead my LW60 has to go to Richmond B.C. and come all the way back again.

Monday of this week ALC Mirco in B.C. said that they would be shipping my notebook by this Friday. Today is Thursday: I'm not holding my breath waiting.

cao