Probably because they're not footing the bill.

I am not sure how it works with the CO-OP and their arrangement with Digihome, but when I worked for a manufacturer those dealers with a service department could reclaim the cost of agreed works at specified rates. Also, product returns (dealer back to mfctr) would be fully credited too after passing inspection. If the dealer decides to do something outside of the agreed framework then they alone bear the cost.

This is one of those times where you see the consequence of the snake snake eating its own tail. Consumers think that having dirt-cheap tellies is good without considering what else is being sacrificed. Selling on price and sacrificing profit means poorer quality product, which means more problems and no dealer service support to fix them. That's what's happening here. It is simpler and more cost effective for the dealer to get rid of the problem with either a refund or replacement. The bill for that probably lands back with the manufacturer or the set gets written off against corporate profits. For the dealers that's a better option than giving you money off an already-heavily-discounted cheap TV or paying for 3rd party engineers. Selling cheap cap in general is a liability when consumers don't (or won't) recognise that they get what they pay for.

It is out of stock on the coop website at the moment but it seems to sell at £379.99, remarkably cheap. There is a limit to what you can expect for that price, I would be surprised if its replacement is any different, could even be worse.

I assume this is it.

http://www.coopelectricalshop.co.uk/...tent=Skimlinks

You have clearly never worked in retail and particularly electrical retail.

The margins are tiny. From the retailer's perspective either they have sold you a set which is fine or they haven't. If they haven't then under the various parts of consumer legislation they are required to replace or refund the item, particularly at this early stage following the sale.

If they were to offer you some discount, they are effectively accepting there is a fault with the set which leaves them open to future claims.

If the set is faulty, they will almost certainly receive full credit from the manufacturer, so they're not out of pocket in dealing with it in this way.

Being objective, it sounds more like you've bought a cheap set and now you've got it and decided you're not really happy with it, you want them to make it even cheaper for you. Whereas the retailer is following the letter of the law and is offering a replacement or refund without question. On that basis, I know who I think is behaving more reputably here.

Yes, that is it. It is a remarkably good set apart from the backlight issue and has surpassed my expectations in every other way to be fair, and certainly will make me more likely to purchase at this end of the market in future as I don't think the big brands offer enough to justify their premium.

I've worked briefly in food retail, apart from that my only other experience is as an occasional eBay seller, where returns are absolutely the last thing you want, as you get stung for return P&P just to get a useless dead item back and probably receive negative feedback for your trouble. So in such a situation offering a partial refund is usually exponentially better than accepting a return. Just shows how different big business is.

I still think (though I’m clearly in the minority here) that returns are a wrongly applied one size fits all type solution and in the ways I have mentioned (mainly environmentally and in terms of peoples time/money) quite wasteful for very minor or by design type issues as mine might be.

Early this year I had a fault with a Goodmans soundbar/subwoofer system, where I returned it as the sub would pop when coming out of standby (auto standby meant this was frequent) and got a replacement with the exact same problem. Researching the problem revealed it as a design flaw, though I still had a hard time convincing the retailer not to waste even more time with yet another return and instead provide a partial refund, which they eventually did, though had I not intervened the retailer would probably have happily had me returning faulty soundbars indefinitely, hence the problem with the one size fits all type returns policy.

Regarding the TV, putting the backlight issue aside, I am very happy with it and think it was a great bargain and has made everything from games to tv to film a lot more immersive and fun. But perhaps being too critical, it is just a little frustrating that it has a problem that neither of my two (far older) LG sets seem to suffer from.

Lastly, I don’t think it is in anyway disreputable to make a request of a retailer, it is entirely up to them if they agree to it or not, if I was in anyway making up the problem or trying to coerce the retailer then that is a different matter, but this is a completely genuine (albeit minor) problem, which I have photographic evidence of.