My wife asked for a quote from this company and received a response from a Mr. Marvin Priester. He left messages to schedule an appointment through the Yelp app that my wife hadn't had a chance to respond to. He subsequently showed up at our front door step on a Saturday morning. I let him in and he offered to mount our 65 inch LCD TV for $150 (65 for the mount and 85 for installation). My wife and I agreed and he proceeded with installation, seemingly without issue. He did ask me to help him lift one side of the TV at one point, which I happily did. In hindsite, I shouldn't have allowed him to perform a task he couldn't handle on his own or without his own staff for help. I payed Mr. Priester $150 via check and he left.
My wife and I didn't use the TV until the following day because we were running errands, but when we did we noticed an image distortion coming from the side of the screen Mr. Priester was holding. There is a clear ripple effect that looks like dropping a stone in water (see photos). We messaged Mr. Priester to let him know of this issue, and he messaged us back asking us why we waited to tell him until the following day. He also insisted that he couldn't have caused the issue because there was no obvious crack on the screen. A quick Google search clearly showed that this "ripple" effect can happen when too much pressure is applied to an LCD TV screen.
We asked about repayment for the value of the 3 year old TV or at least refund of the mounting charge, but Mr. Priester said he had cashed the check and had no intention of paying any amount for the TV unless there was proof that he had broken the TV. He said he could send someone from a place called "Ben's Electronics" to assess the TV and determine if he was at fault for the TV damage. If he was at fault, he would pay for the TV expert's assessment as well as the the cost of used version of the same TV. If the assessment didn't definitely prove that his hand pressure caused the damage to the TV, he expected us to pay for the assessment. We didn't feel comfortable with having someone he chose assess the TV. We offered to pick someone neutral found from a website. Mr. Priester was initially agreeable to this, but insisted he would offer no money back unless someone clearly stated in writing that the damage was his fault.
In speaking with someone with a TV repair company, they are not a legal entity and do not have the power to assess "fault" for TV damage. They can only diagnose and fix TV issues. From what we heard, this LCD ripple issue is generally permanent and can't be fixed; it is due to pressure being applied to the screen.
It became clear to my wife and I that Mr. Priester was essentially doing anything possible to deflect responsibility for this and was never going to admit that this damage was caused by pressure he applied to the screen. We informed him that we are looking into addressing this issue through small claims court as clearly we were getting nowhere in our conversations with him.
I've read some positive reviews about Mr. Priester, so it's a shame we had nowhere near the same experience. If you decide to have your TV mounted by Mr. Priester, I'm sure he more likely than not will perform a satisfactory job. Just be aware that if he damages your TV, he will have no intention of accepting responsibility for it.
There appear to be plenty of other options on Yelp for TV mounting; we wish we had gone with one of those. read more