My recent experience of purchasing a TV shows that it is a risk to buy things from Golden Electronics due to their poor return policy and service attitude. If you still want to buy from them, remember to take it out of the box and examine everything carefully and completely before leaving the shop.
On Thursday Nov 27, 2014, my wife and I bought a LG 40” 4k TV from Golden Electronics at Times Square (Hwy 7 and Leslie), intending it as a Christmas gift to our daughter.
After we had paid for it with debit card (they don’t accept credit card), the salesperson asked a helper to take out the TV from storage, opened the top of the box and showed us some accessories and part of the top edge of the TV, with the TV still inside a plastic bag and inside the box. I noticed a Styrofoam block at one corner was cracked, and I asked if he could take out the whole TV for examination, he refused because he considered that was too much work. We accepted that, naively thinking that if anything is broken, we could just take it back for exchange. After all, our experience with other shops was that they did not even bother to open the box, but just gave us the assurance that if anything was found wrong, we could take it back for exchange.
Two days later, on Saturday Nov 29, I transported the TV to my daughter’s home, took the TV out from its box, and started to assemble the legs to the TV. At that moment, my daughter noticed there was a small crack at one corner. On further examination, I found that the side of the TV also had bulged out. The TV was a damaged one. We took the damaged TV back to Golden Electronics on the same day. The salesperson (the same person who sold us the TV) took the TV out from the box, and laid it flat on the counter. At that position, I noticed that in addition to the cracked corner and the bulged side, a corner of the glass panel was also cracked. However that glass crack was noticeable only when viewed more or less horizontally. To my surprise, when the manager saw this damage, her remark was that their salesperson would never sell such damage TV to their customer, implying that we had damaged the TV ourselves. They refused to give us a replacement on the spot, instead, they just said they would send it back to LG for RA (Return Assessment), and it would take 2 or 3 weeks to know if they would replace it.
On Monday Dec 1, the owner of Golden Electronics, Benny, phoned us, and told us that on examination of their closed-circuit TV record, he noticed we had already examined the TV before it left the shop and therefore they were not responsible. We explained again that the small crack could not be seen easily and the bulged side could not be seen unless the TV was taken out of the box. Therefore both we and his salesperson had missed it. But Benny would not accept reason, instead he suggested that we just take the damage TV back home, and see if we can claim any compensation from our credit card company (what an irony! He didn’t even remember his shop did not accept credit card). On hearing this, my wife told him that we would take legal action about this. At that instance, Benny softened up, and agreed to contact LG about this.
From that day onward, we had followed up with Golden Electronics about the progress of the RA every week. According to Benny, LG had come to their shop and took photos of the damage TV two times, but did not issue a replacement authorization.
On Dec 27, Benny called and told us that LG still had not issued the replacement authorization, but in view of the long wait, he would agree to give us a replacement on Dec 29 from his stock. On Dec 29, 2014, we got the replacement TV finally from his Bayview shop, after the agony one month of waiting and worrying.
Lesson learned
Golden Electronics may have better prices on some electronics equipment. I had bought many items from them before including camcorder, TV and photography accessories. But after this incident, I know there is a significant risk buying from them because of their poor return policy and service. They should have a large and clear sign saying in their shop “No return or refund. Please examine every purchase carefully and completely”. In the case of my LG TV purchase, both they and we had not examined the TV carefully and completely for physical damage, but they could right away insist that it was us, the customer, who had damaged the TV. This showed their attitude of customer service. I am sure most other shops in Toronto would not do that. I will avoid buying from Golden Electronics again.
