Lite-On

I've had a LVW-5005 DVD recorder for some time now and recently it started to lock up. A few months ago I tried to contact them, but their site was awful and no details were forthcoming. In desperation I tried again today to find (to my delight) that they now have a decent suport site in place with a UK number to ring. They quite correctly pointed me to a firmware update and told me that if this did not work then they can get a curier to pick it up and take it to get repaired. Nice one I thought.
The update was in fact 2 updates. One for the firmware and one for the drive itself. The firmware went fine, but the drive update locked the machine and displayed a 'Insert new CD' message on the box display. Nothing works past this point. 'Oh well' thinks I and phones them back quoting the referance number thay had given me to have the very helful lady tell me that they will arrange to pick it up ASAP as long as I have the proof of purchase ready.
Bugger. I'd lost this last year (the unit is almost 2 years old). They then tell me that they will never accept a unit without one. What a load of cr*p. What other IT\electronics company demands this!!
I will never, ever buy anything from this bunch of clowns again, nor recommend anyone else do so.

Is there no manafacturing date on the drive itself? most manafacturers accept this plus 3 - 6 months for shelf time as enough proof of warranty?

Ben

Its getting very common now the proof of purchase, HP are starting to do it a lot, forget there records, they have been in one case I had near enough 12 months out! so I would have lost 1 years warranty on a Desktop if I had trusted them. I keep everything, at least electronically if not in paper as well for 5 years just in case I need it for things like this. As for Lite-on, glad UK supports better, I only get optical drives for PCs from them for one reason they are VERY cheap, so cheap its easier when they die to bin them, thats all I tend to do

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Originally Posted by plexer

Is there no manafacturing date on the drive itself? most manafacturers accept this plus 3 - 6 months for shelf time as enough proof of warranty?

Ben

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Yes. It has a manufactured date on the bottom. They simply will NOT accept it back. My solution is simple. To never, ever buy from them again, nor recommend anyone else do so.

Ridiculous oh well you may have to chalk it down as experience and like you say never buy their products again it really peeves me when companies don't care about 1 customer enough to do anything to help.

Ben

I'm sorry to hear about your problems with your DVD recorder, if it were me I would just make up some kind of proof of purchase myself. They will have no way of checking it at all they are just going to look at the date. If you want please pm me and I can knock something up for you to fax to them. Did you pay for the item on a card? If so you can provide them with a copy of your statement which they should except. LiteOn happen to make excellent optical drives but did have a lot of problems with thier first models of set top recorders which is one of the main reasons thye started setting up thier regonal support centers. If you had purchased some other budget make you might not even have direct manufacturer support and only a 12 month warrnaty with your reseller (which would probbaly be less than usefull).

Hope you get it sorted !

Peter

Alot of monitor companines are requiring Proof of Purchase too - I guess its to prove it didn't fall of a lorry, or even better, that ship down in the English Channel..

From a work point of view, our finance dept are meticulous (like everyone elses I hope :)) in filing this things for years to come.

If I remember my trading standard law correctly, then items are guaranteed to be fit for purpose and should last a reasonable time. Two years for a DVD recorder doesn't seem a reasonable time to me.
Also, for proof of purchase, they can accept a bank statement or credit card receipt or statement! See http://tinyurl.com/4npg

Oh yes and if you mention the words 'trading' and 'standards' in your conversations they do tend to start listening!

Thanks for the heads up on the proof of purchase requirement.
Something to remember for future purchases.

Despite this headache, I don't think I will abandon Lite-On since DVD drives these days are much of a muchness and Lite-On ones are about the easiest ones to make region -free.

A lot of the Sony ones are rebadged Lite-Ons anyway, so by avoiding them, you may actually end up with one anyway!