I’m in mourning. My DVD player decided to blow itself up last night 🙁 . One minute, my girlfriend is watching “Miss Congeniality”, the next minute there’s a few funny noises, some popping, a bang and a burning smell. At first I thought it was the speaker system – I’d thought there was something wrong with them for months now and I was still recieving a picture, but upon noticing the garbage that the players LCD was spewing out and that the burnt smell was coming from the player, I had to conclude that something had blown inside the player unit itself. So it was a case of power off and unplug, before anything caught fire.

It was less than 6 months old.

I suppose it’s possibly a case of “you get what you pay for”. It was a cheapo Bush brand player, bought as bundle with the speakers, for £99 just after Christmas. Still, you would expect it to last more than 5 and three quarter months…

Personally, I blame the crap film for all this trouble 😉

So why am I not tearing down the walls of the Curry’s store that I bought it from? Well, cos quite frankly they suck at customer care. All the major high-street electronics retailers do. I would take the entire system – player + speakers – back to them (fully repackaged, as per their requirements), along with the reciept and warranty slips. I’d then explain several times what happenerd. After a few attempts to explain what happened, I’d either be told that:
a) it’s not eligable to be repaired;
-or-
b) it is eligable, but it might cost a fair bit
After that (if they take it), it’ll take a number of weeks – possibly months – to get returned to me. Most likely, it’ll fail again within 5 months.

For a £99 system, the hassle just isn’t worth it, IMO. If the customer care was decent, I might consider it… but I know it’s not. I’ve heard too many horror stories (here’s a now famous example…), and have had a few iffy experiences with high street electronics retailers myself. Instead, I’ll mutter under my breath, grumble a bit, then buy a decent player to replace the dead one. I’ve got my eye on one of these, which I’ve been told are the dogs wotsits.

Ah, modern technology… can’t live with it, can’t live without it…