Surprising Positive Experience

When was the last time you heard someone say something good about Walmart?  Regardless of what you can remember this post will soon fill that slot in your memory. 

Our VCR (yes, we are still in the stone ages) croaked a little over a week ago, and it was time to find an alternative.  It seems that you cannot by VCRs anymore that have tuners - required if you want to do programmed recording and/or watch one show while recording another.  It seems that I was able to get in on the tail end of DVD recorders that have a tuner.

I found what I thought was a great deal at Walmart for a Magnavox DVD recorder with a tuner, but it was anything but.  (No, this isn't the positive part yet.)  I hooked everything up, and tried to take the recorder for a spin.  However it wouldn't read any of the DVD +RW discs that I bought for recording.  I thought I had a bad batch of DVD +RWs.  Before returning those, I tried to play a movie that we had on DVD.  Ah, the DVD recorder could not read this either, and so it turned out to be a bad recorder.

This is where the good part comes in.  I went back to Walmart on Saturday, and I had the easiest return experience ever.  I walked right up to the return counter and explained that this player did not work.  Within a few minutes, I had a refund, and I was free of the Magnavox piece of junk.

I was shocked at how easy it was.  I figured I'd have to stand in line for 30 minutes then I'd have a big hassle with the return.  Not so.  While I wasn't please with my purchase, I can't argue with the customer service on the return.  Customer service.  I didn't know that still existed.  Who knew?

For the curious, I wound up with a Panasonic model from Circuit City that works like a charm.  The guy at Circuit City said that Panasonic is the only manufacturer who makes DVD recorders with tuners anymore because the cable and satellite companies have put on a lot of pressure in order to force people into buying/renting their DVR systems.  Sounds like the makings of a rant, but that's for another day...

Until next time...