Samsung LCD TV VESA bracket manufacturing defect

I recently bought a brand spanking new Samsung HD Ready 26inch LCD TV (LE26R74BDX) for myself to bring myself in to the digital age and spent a pretty penny doing so.

I bought it from digiuk and got it for a little over £620.00 including delivery. Their service was spot on, it was here next day and I can’t fault them at all. My thanks to digiuk for their service.

Next task was positioning. This TV is for my bedroom and given that my bed is quite tall the TV position needs to be a decent height so I can see it properly. So off I trotted to rs100 and bought a VESA 200×100 compatible mounting bracket so that I could adjust where necessary. That too cost me a few quid and, along with the stud finder that I had to purchase so I knew where to mount the bracket, the total package has set me back about £750.00.

So would I expect a problem after spending that much money? No. Alas, with today’s piss poor customer service I shouldn’t really expect manufacturing and quality control personnel to give a toss about a TV.

Basically, if you’ve ever mounted or tried to mount an LCD TV on a bracket off a wall you know that you have to fasten a plate to hang the TV off on to the back of the TV using either M4 (4mm diameter) or M5 (5mm diameter) screws. They can be either 10mm, 15mm or 20mm long. So I began to install the bracket but the screws supplied with the bracket seemed to just fall through the holes manufactured in to the back of the TV. Needless to say I was not a happy chappy. I had paid for the bracket to be delivered to me next day as a Saturday delivery so that I could fit it. This oversight on Samsung’s part obviously put the kybosh on that plan.

At first I thought the problem was related to the bracket, I mean is Samsung likely to get something like that so wrong?! Unlikely I thought. So, given that I really wanted to get the bracket fitted on Saturday, off I popped down to Homebase to buy some REAL M4 and M5 screws (just in case) to satisfy my curiosity. These M4 screws also simply dropped through the holes and the M5 screws were far too big. JOY! NOT!

I picked up the phone to Samsung and spoke to the most defensive Customer Care representative I could possibly have got hold of. I’m sure she’d just returned from a three week intensive course on how to piss customers off. While I was busy explaining my problem she interrupted, spoke over the top of me and proceeded to tell me that she knew about the problem and that I was…

“…trying to put 5mm screws in to 4.5mm holes but I’m afraid there’s nothing we can do about it today. We’re aware of the issue but I’ll have to excalate the problem to engineers.”
I responded: “I’m trying to put 4mm screws in to 4.5mm holes and they keep falling through.”
She then said: “Well there’s nothing we can do about it today. We’re aware of the problem and I’ll escalate it to Engineers who will give you a call back during the week. We just can’t do anything about it…”
I responded: “Wait a minute, wait a minute. Relax! There’s no need to be on the defensive, I’d just like to know what’s going to happen about the problem that’s all, there’s no need to go off on one.”

We went round in circles a couple of times like that and she eventually took my details and promised I would get a call during the week. She made no reference to any solution, just promised that I would get a call. I didn’t get a call right up until last night (Wednesday) so I emailed them to ask what was going on. I got a rather helpful response from the team there who promised that I would be receiving the correct M4.5mm screws to allow me to fit the back plate to the TV in the post this week.

Now am I the only person that sees a small problem here? M4.5 screws of this type are not manufactured or sold ANYWHERE that an average Joe can get any. If I lose any single one of those screws in the future or if they’re not of the right length, where am I supposed to get some that are longer? Answer: I can’t. So I’ve asked Samsung to send me ample 10mm, 15mm and 20mm versions. Who’s going to take bets on how may I receive and what sizes I receive of this illusive M4.5 screw?

When I’m feeling a little happier about losing my TV for a couple of weeks I might consider sending it off and having the back plate re-tapped. I wouldn’t expect Samsung to say no to this request a few months from now, their warranty specifically states that it covers defects caused during manufacture.