So remember how I posted a couple of months ago about how I bought a totally awesome refurbished Samsung Blu-ray player? Turns out that the totally awesome Blu-ray player is so awesome that it won't even play Blu-ray discs. Sound like a problem to you? Yeah, me too. I played one disc all the way through clear back when I first bought the player, but I have tried four discs since (I don't have a lot of Blu-rays, so don't judge the low number) and none of them has worked. DVDs work fine, but not the Blu-rays.
I looked up the product online and found out that I have a 90-day warranty. Sweet. So I called Best Buy, who told me to take the player into the store, where they could look at it for me. So the next day I went to the store on my lunch break so they could look at my player, and I was told that because it was a refurbished model, they couldn't send it into Samsung for me. I needed to call the number I called in the first place so they could help me. Fantastic.
I went back out to my car and decided to try calling support again while I had some time. They tried transferring me, but I was told that their systems were down so they couldn't help me. Now that is what I call good service. I was really frustrated, so I made myself feel better by buying lunch at Zupa's. Because Zupa's never disappoints.
After work, I called Best Buy's support again, and the call was disconnected. It was getting ridiculous when I finally got ahold of someone who had a working system and could look up all of my information. It turns out that the Best Buy warrantee on my player had run out. I still had a warrantee through Samsung, but I had to call Samsung and get help from their customer service. That would have been nice to know the first time I called.
So I called Samsung's support and spent a good 35 minutes on the phone with a lady with an accent from who knows where. She kept trying to convince me that my player wouldn't play the Blu-ray discs because my firmware wasn't updated, even though that was the very first thing I tried. Then she tried telling me that I just needed to wait for the next upgrade that they were working on right then and that would come out in the next few weeks. There was no way I was waiting for a few weeks hoping the upgrade worked while my warrantee expired. No way. The lady finally agreed that something was wrong with the player when I told her that one of the discs that wouldn't play (
How to Train Your Dragon—way cute movie, by the way) played perfectly fine on three—yes, three—other Blu-ray players, one of which was the same exact model as mine.
After this ridiculous process, I was hoping there would be very little I was required to do to get the thing fixed. I spent a lot of money on it—I deserve to have a working player. Unfortunately, my saga wasn't over yet. I was told that I had to fax in my receipt to prove that I bought the product. The fact that they had record of it didn't matter. So I had to wait two days until I was back at work so I could fax the dumb receipt. Then I had to wait for a phone call with the rest of the information I needed. Luckily, I got the call the same day I faxed the receipt. The lady on the phone told me the address and that I needed to ship the Blu-ray player to Samsung on my own dime. Awesome. But I guess it's better than paying for a new player.
Finally, a week and a half of phone calls and $20 later, my Blu-ray player is in the mail. It should get to the repair place in California on Thursday. Then they will have to look at it, fix it, and ship it back to me. In about two weeks (at the longest), I should have a fully functional Blu-ray player back where it belongs, hooked up to my TV so I can watch awesome-looking movies. Because even watching DVDs on a regular DVD player isn't the same as watching DVDs on a Blu-ray player. I need my Blu-ray player back. Seriously.
