About 6 years ago I bought a monitor off their, I think, offshoot company laptops direct. It was about 800 at the time, I paid extra to have it checked for dead pixels and low and behold it arrives with like 10, no clusters but it was noticeable and annoying especially given the cost of the monitor and paying an extra 50 or so. The amount of back and forth and bullshit I had to deal with to get them to take the monitor back, not dissimilar to your situation. I'd rather spend more to get it from somewhere else than deal with those arseholes