Forgive me for using this forum for a rant, but I really need some help.

I bought my 9600 back in October. It worked great, I developed an almost-complete set of pages for my home theater, and I was very happy with the product, until ...

In early January, I started getting random lock ups, spontaneous resets and power-on's, and finally the touch screen became inoperative.

I posted a thread to this list about the problems. Within a day, a very helpful engineer from Eindhoven PM'd me and asked me to get an RMA number and send it to L.A. He was convinced that it was a hardware problem, and he wanted a tech to evaluate it.

I did as he asked, got an RMA number and FedEX'd the unit to the repair facility. The Philips web site says that they received it on Feb. 26th.

Three weeks later, having heard nothing, I called the toll-free number and talked to a CSR, who was very cordial, but unable to tell me anything about the status of this; she asked me to call back in a week.

A week later, I called again, got a different CSR, who told me (after quite a while on hold), that the problem is that they had "lost" my shipping address. Of course, they still had my e-mail address and phone number, but that's another story. This CSR said he'd look into it and expedite it, if possible.

Another week goes by: I called again today, and after getting a "no information" response, I asked for a supervisor. After several more minutes on hold, this supervisor told me that he'd checked with "customer relations" and that the replacement hadn't even been ordered yet! He said it would take "one to two" MORE weeks to order the replacement, and that meanwhile, no one would be able to contact me with an update.

Assuming that they do what they told me they would, it will be a full two months since they received the unit. The "warranty" and RMA confirmation both clearly state that the policy is "replacement." I guess the non-existent fine print says "eventually, maybe."

So, my purpose in posting this isn't just to complain, but to ask if anyone here has any contact information for someone in authority at Philips USA -- something else that I can try to at least get a straight answer about when I might expect my $1000 remote control back.

At this point, I'd appreciate any suggestions. Fortunately, I kept the last e-mail from the Eindhoven engineers, and when I get home tonight, I think I'll reply to his e-mail with a copy of this chronology. Perhaps he can find someone on "the other side of the pond" who can help me.

Thanks in advance,

-doug-