BenQ. The Q isn’t for Quality.
Just a quick note about a manufacturer of computer monitors, among other things. They seem to be a Chinese company with offices all over the place.
I bought a used PC. Now I’ve been on Apple computers since the 80’s but I needed a Windows machine to do my testing. I’m a graphic designer and web designer so I have to look at alignment and colours and so across both platforms. And I like the games.
Having bought this computer I decided to get a brand new BenQ 19″ monitor to go with it.
No problems for the first 4 months, until all of a sudden, anything dark/black starts to appear as a kind of funky day-glo purple. You can imagine how this is very disconcerting for someone who relies on the monitor to choose colours for a living.
I then wasted the next few days checking settings, running diagnostics, installing and reinstalling drivers and I even changed the video card. All the time thinking that it couldn’t be the monitor. After all the monitor is brand new. Finally, I take my crappy monitor and hook it up to my trusty mac. (I know I should have done that earlier but I’m new to Windows so I blame it first for everything.)
Lo and behold, the now tormenting shade of purple.
I go to the BenQ web site. I fill out their contact form and give them my phone number and address and serial number of the monitor. I explain to them how important it is I get this resolved because I rely on it for work. I get an e-mail back telling me that I need to phone the service department. Okay, but why don’t they call me since they made me give them my phone number and all the other details?
Fine. I call the service department. I’m on hold for over half an hour listening to how important my call is and all the other irritating crap you hear on these systems when you’re on hold. I can’t help but wonder why they put those messages in. If someone says they care about you but obviously treats you like they don’t, doesn’t that just make you angrier?
Finally I get a rep, based in California. He tells me I can give them my credit card details so they can charge me for a new monitor, to be shipped asap, in case I don’t return my broken one. (WHAT THE…?) I just paid this company money. They gave me a monitor that broke within the first four months of using it 5 or 6 hours a day. Now they’re asking me to give them more money? Why?
Alternatively, I could send my monitor back and wait till they receive it, at which point they would send me a replacement. Or I could go out to Scarborough somewhere to pick it up myself.
Now I know how easily things can get “misplaced” whenever a company asks to have something sent to them. Either through the fact that they are too big to handle all these issues or just plain incompetence. So I went with the pick up option even though it would cost me gas money to go there and get it.
Oh yes. Did I mention that the replacement monitor isn’t new? I paid them for a new one and they have graciously offered to give me a “refurbished” monitor. (“Refurbished” of course being a marketing word for garbage. I’m in the field so I know these things.)
The rep tells me they’ll call me back with the pickup location and details.
Okay?
I wait all day. No call. I wait all the next day. No call but I had a barbecue. Finally on the following day they manage to call me. I don’t know what took them so long but fine.
I head out to Scarborough. I drive past the address they gave me. I didn’t see BenQ. Did I miss it? I turn around and very carefully creep up to the address on the piece of paper that I’m staring at just to be sure. Hey! No sign says BenQ but it has to be right.
I pull in following the signs that say customer service. They lead me around the back of the building like some secret gang hangout or something.
I go inside and speak to a woman that takes down my reference number. When you come to a secret gang hangout like this you need to have good references.
As she goes to the computer to punch whatever keys she needs to push I notice that the shelves are lined with all kinds of defective BenQ merchandise. Everything from CD Burners to Monitors to you name it. If BenQ makes it, and it broke the way they knew it would, it was there.
I took home my monitor in a box that proudly said “Refurbished” on the side in big purple official BenQ letters. Embarrassing.
I’d like to wrap things up by saying a big thank you to BenQ. Thank you for the lousy monitor. Thank you for giving me someone else’s used monitor when I gave you money for a new one and thank you for telling me that you have some third party servicing your monitors in Toronto. It made it really easy to find the building.
My advice is this. If you’re in the market for a monitor, save your money a little longer and opt for a better brand.
Thanks for reading.
P.S. Just so the search engines can pick up this phrase, BenQ Sucks.
September 25th, 2005 at 1:43 am
I have a Dell Ultrasharp Monitor and I believe the Ultrasharp’s are a BenQ made monitor and I have not had 1 problem with mine. OK Sony’s has a bit better picture quality but I could not afford a Sony LCD at the time.
Still high quality Dell monitor for $700.
September 25th, 2005 at 2:05 am
I’m sure there are plenty of happy customers out there. I’m just not one of them. Maybe Dell does a better job of quality control on their batches. Thanks for the post.
October 26th, 2005 at 12:50 pm
Geez! Am I ever glad to see that there is someone else who is fed up with this company! They have TERRIBLE technical support and quite possibly the WORST customer service I have ever experienced! I could bore you with all the details, but to save everyone the grief, just take “monitor” out of the first post and insert “digital projection unit.” It’s pretty much the same story there as well.
I am surprised the first post didn’t mention that while on hold, the company only has ONE irritating muzak song that plays over and over again! LOL!!!!
Let me agree with the final advice given on the first post, and please let me add to it:
If you’re in the market for a digital projector, save your money a little longer and opt for a better brand. If you earn a living with a digital projector like I do, spend an extra grand if you have to – you will thank yourself for doing so in the long run!
And oh yes, BenQ sucks, and let’s add a few more:
BenQ Customer Service
BenQ Quality
BenQ Product Information
BenQ Warranty
BenQ Reliability
BenQ Digital Projectors
November 7th, 2005 at 8:54 pm
I’m so sad. I bought a Benq MP3 player and it broke and I am emailed them and called them and nobody is helping me out. I hate it so much. $160 gone before a year has even gone by….
=(
November 7th, 2005 at 9:21 pm
Do you know what I can do? My Benq 130 Joybee mp3 player is broken and I still have the warranty…but no technical support and no answer via email…
=(
November 7th, 2005 at 9:28 pm
Hi,
I’m sorry but I don’t know what you can do. You should try to contact the company again. If that does not work, you may want to try complaining to an industry watchdog of some sort. The problem is that as a consumer you do not have much power. I wish you all the best.
June 29th, 2006 at 10:41 pm
At least your monitor started out working(for at least a month or two). I hooked it in and only got a black screen. I am still waiting in the long process of analyzing/checking whats wrong with it ( i don’t know why… i am told its a load of crap. I recieved a benQ monitor as a gift from my computer stupid father, and refuses to settle for another (better) brand!! Ill see what happens in a couple weeks.
January 25th, 2007 at 5:57 pm
We are reseller and I bought my very first BENQ x805.It was DOA and keyboard will not work.It is still under warranty. I easily got an RMA but so far no response when they’re going to replace the keyboard. Their service really sucks. the rma was submitted and received on 11-06-2006. It’s already 01/25-2007 and so far nothing.
I will advice everybody to stay away from BenQ as it is a really bad company when it comes to customer service and response. Their manager in charge of RMA will not return calls
Here’s the contact info:
Karin Wang #949.255.9586
RMA dept# 866.600.2367
I have never have any problem with keytronics and other brand name. But I will definitely stay away from BenQ for any products.
October 31st, 2009 at 11:17 pm
Bought a W5000 projector a bit over a year ago. Beautiful picture, quiet, with all the gizmos you’d expect from a $3000 purchase. Came with a 1 year warranty. About 40 days past the one year mark, half of the projectoed image suddenly goes bonkers. It shows vertical stripes or bands over exactly half the image. I call BenQ, and they quickly advise me its busted – and out of warranty – but that I can send it in for repair at my cost. OK, I knew which warranty I was buying, so I can hardly cry foul (YET). I send the projector to the nearest repair depot in Montreal. They well quite helpful and sympathetic. I get a $500 estimate to replace the DMD board. Go ahead and fix it, I tell them. 10 days later, I call to check on the repair. Not done yet – having hard time finding the part. Apparently, the repair place has a couple of these projectors all waiting for the same part from Japan. Uh oh. Not much the repair place can do though… I call BenQ back to complain about the lack of spare parts. Initially, they’re very concerned, apologetic and worried… Of course, the next day, the BenQ guy phones me back and tells me that he’s confirmed that my projector has all of its paperwork in order, and that its “just awaiting the part from Japan”.
Me: “So, when will it arrive?”
BenQ: “We don’t know, we just have to wait.”
Me: “So, you’re telling me it could be a day, a week, a month or more??”
BenQ: “Uh, well, I can’t really say how long it might take”
Me: “Then it could be 2 months?”
BenQ: “Yes, it could be, I can’t really say.
Me: “Well, you haven’t exactly helped here, you told me exactly what the service depot said”
BenQ: “Well, I just wanted to assure you that management is well aware of this issue.”
Me: “But that doesn’t really mean anything to me, does it.”
BenQ: “They are VERY aware of this issue, and are working on it”
He then proceeds to hurry me off the phone.
So, $3000 and a little over a year later, I have a broken, out-of-warranty projector, that the manufacturer can no longer provide parts for…
BenQ…spoken aloud, it sounds a bit like F#@* You.
Rest assured that the next time I’m buying a projector (which apparently might be soon), the fine staff at BenQ won’t see a penny of it.
January 15th, 2010 at 7:21 pm
Wow. Deja vu on the projector issue. Spent way too much on the PB8263 projectorwhich was left in the box for about a year and a half while we finished the theatre room. We had problems with it as soon as we hooked it up. Seems as if the fan overhears (our assessment) and the unit shuts down within 30 seconds after turning it on. Very sporadic problem though. Some nights it won’t shut down at all, and other nights it shuts down 18, yes 18, times before it will stay on. I usually give up after about 10 times. Benq’s fix?Send it back to us (at our cost for shipping and repair of course), and they replace the color wheel. Really?? In the meantime, their ‘customer service rep’ said that we needed to replace the lamp. Which we did. Three times. At $350 per whack. Upon receiving the unit back from repair (at $450 plus shipping both ways), the projector worked for about a week and has the same problem as it’s always had–for another year now. We’ve called customer service at least 30 times in the past year and they have resolved nothing. II can’t scream it far enough or loud enough—BENQ SUCKS!!!!!
September 13th, 2010 at 11:24 am
So it’s not just me…
I had a few Benq products from projector to external DVD drive. I also had bad experience with all of them failing before their time, so I stopped buying Benq. Support sucks and their website is useless.
November 16th, 2010 at 4:28 pm
We purchased a 37″ Benq LCD TV less than four years ago for over $3,000. At first, it functioned well and we were completely satisfied. In the last year or more, an irregularly-shaped area of the picture has become dark and fuzzy, and this area has been gradually expanding. Additionally, there is sporadic interference to the picture when using the SCART and simple video connections.
The 3-year warranty had run out but we have insurance cover. The repair company took the faulty TV away over a month ago. After about two weeks they said it would be extremely difficult and expensive to obtain a new screen so they would offer us about $250 as a reward for not making them repair it! However, a new 37″ TV with similar specs still costs more than $250 so we declined. We now have a conversation every three or four days in which I am told that the Benq importer is still waiting for a replacement screen and that it will arrive any day now, so maybe we’ll have our TV back by the weekend… Naturally, we are not happy with a manufacturer who doesn’t ensure that spares are available in all countries of sale for at least 10 years or so (3 to 4 years is nothing). I suppose most people are very happy with their Benq purchases otherwise the company would be bankrupt by now, but we have been unlucky and would never touch this make again.
February 11th, 2013 at 2:47 pm
Well, Your still are lucky
My benq clock-radio, 3 years old, caught fire itself while I was out,
When I came back home I found the house with the electricity off, full of smoke and ash and the f*** radio still in flames.
After that, a hard work to rebuild and clean all.
Thanks to benq
YES, FIRE.
July 29th, 2014 at 7:09 am
I also have a BenQ W5000 projector, the dust filter is looking old and needs renewing, so I emailed service at BenQ with the model name and the description of the part. It’s a consumable item and should be easily obtainable.
They replied asking me to supply the model name and part description. So I just repeated the email.
The next reply was that they didn’t recognise the part and could not supply it. A dust filter! Described in their parts list as “Dust Filter”. Alarm bells are ringing about this company if they are that dumb.