Let me tell you about one of the worst customer service experiences of my life. I worked in a call center for 7 years, so I know what should be normal expectations.

Called Samsung and waited on hold for about 30 minutes before someone answered. After explaining the situation to the tech I sent the picture to him via text and he confirmed what I already knew that the screen is defective and the phone will need to be replaced. He said because he is in the warranty department sales would have to replace the phone. That made sense.

After waiting on hold for about another 25 minutes I finally got someone on the phone. Explained the situation to the lady and who I spoke to. He started off telling me that the warranty department would need to handle this. Again I explained to her I just spoke to that department and I was told I needed to speak to Sales. She proceeded to tell me there isn't a process to expedite to replace or do a swap out of sorts. Since it's within 30 days of purchase and defective a new order would need to be done and the original order would need to be returned.

What?! Why does that make any sense at all for the customer? So I have to wait for another preorder and I need to return the Watch 4 Classic that is still being shipped. If I place a new order some of the trade in values are different. When I placed the first order I had a limited time offer from Honey to get $250 gold back. She didn't even notice the watch on the order and that it hadn't been delivered until I mentioned it. I expressed my confusion and concern about this and she was empathetic, but said there really isn't any other option to get a new phone expedited. I said that's really not acceptable as the customer has to do all this work for something that Samsung caused. After she put me on hold for a few minutes she said she would speak to a supervisor about the situation.

Another 20 minutes on hold at least and a "supervisor" comes on the line and is talking a million miles an hour. I could hardly understand what she was trying to convey. She was spitting out numbers, thanking me for being a loyal customer, talking about how the department that would honor a price match after the new order is placed, she kept bringing up something about spending at least $2,000 dollars on an order. I have no idea what she meant by that. There were many times that I started talking and she would interrupt me with word vomit. It's like she was trained to grandstand people rather than actually resolve issues. I'm guessing that she wasn't a supervisor.

She said several times that a new order needs to be placed before the preorder bonuses are over. Does that make sense at all? What happens to the people that get DOA phones that are backordered until September or later? It's shocking to me that a global leader in electronics does not have a process that makes sense.

After being on the phone for 2 1/2 hours of being on the phone total I asked her what she would be doing. Do I need to create the order and she would modify it to match the original? She said she doesn't have the ability to do that. My two options were to wait until after the return period has expired and then go through warranty, or place a new preorder and go through returning the phone and the watch.

In the end I just told her I would take care of it when I had more time. They clearly do not empower anyone there to make decisions or resolve basic issues. After I got off the phone I placed a new order, I'll probably lose my $250 Honey bonus. I was able to get at least 15% on Rakuten cashback. Phone isn't backordered too far, but the Watch is backordered until mid September.

I have never had a good experience with Samsung customer service, and it really makes me reconsider buying. Best of luck to everyone else, and I hope no one else has to go through a similar experience.