Telemarketers = WTF?

my television died recently. it was old...i happen to have been watching it when the screen went crazy, then the audio went crazy, there was a popping sound and finally a strange smell....so i went and bought a new television. i went to Sears (its all of 5 blocks from my apartment) and bought a Sylvania LCD tv. Its ok. i wouldn't say i'm thrilled but really its fine. i don't care enough....i only like a couple of shows...

i weighed the options between plasma and LCD and opted for the LCD for several reasons. i'm not going to go into them. And i hate arguing with the proponents of plasma (i have my reasons and its too late anyway so SHUT UP). I did NOT opt for the extended protection plan as i just didn't feel the television warranted it.

While i looked around, i talked to the sales guy (total cutie by the way) who actually understood my reasoning (thanks cute sales guy!) and we had a nice long discussion about the virtues and vices of both plasma and LCD sets. He knew he was going to get a sale and i really thought that he was pretty up front about the various sets they were offering. i had done some research online first and had some ideas of what was going on with some of the models and he echoed much of what was being said online. Cute Sales Guy said that in his experience the model i ended up buying didn't come back often and he was unaware of any excessive problems.

At checkout i opted not to go with the extended protection plan - figuring that the set only has to last a few years and its not totally critical like my computers or cell phone.

Anyway...about two years ago i bought a vacuum cleaner from Sears...i purchased a higher end one because i'm crazy about vacuuming and put a lot of miles on my vacuum. i bought the extended protection program for it - normally i don't but with as much as i use the vacuum i figured it wasn't a bad idea.

What this is all leading up to is the phone call i got this morning. it was from Sears. They want me to buy an extended protection plan because basically the television is going to blow up very soon. According to the woman who called, i bought an inferior television set. She told me how all of the flat screen televisions sold by Sears end up breaking. And how many of the problems occur within the first two years....She attributed it to the newer technology of flat screens....

Seriously?

i told her that i did not want the plan and were my tv to break as she expects it to, i will just take it back there and throw it through the window and i hope that their windows have an extended protection plan...there was nothing more to be said.