I bought a 42 inches Viera plasma TV on December 22 2006 for $1750 and only after three years the TV has stopped working. Panasonic Australia expected me to pay over $600 for repair (most of cost would be for freight) for repair which is only guaranteed for 3 months.

I wrote to Panasonic Australia asking why this product has failed so soon and got a call telling me that the product is three years old and falls outside the warranty. I was given an offer to buy a similar product at a discounted rate of $935 if I am able to provide Panasonic a fault report which would cost me around $300, taking the cost of this new replacement TV to over $1200. To my surprise a local dealer was selling the same Viera TV for $900. So I gathered that Panasonic was ripping me off yet again by selling me another Panasonic at a higher price as well as getting me to have repairer’s diagnosis report at a cost of $300.

Both my wife and I work full time jobs and the plasma was only used a couple of hours each day for normal TV watching and a couple of DVDs occasionally. PANASONIC GUARANTEED 60, 000 HOURS of life which is equivalent to 7 years 24/7 viewing. Bullshit...

Ripped off pretty badly...