Firstly, I am sorry that you're dissatisfied with your monitor purchase from us. I'm also sorry that you're not happy with our service and handling of your issue.
Since the unit was originally collected from our offices, we did ask for you to bring it back to us. We cover shipping both ways for our customers that opt for courier delivery on their products that are DOA, but generally ask customers that collect their products to return them back to us (assumption being that this is the most convenient for them given that they opted to collect in the first place). Given that you did indicate that time without the monitor was an issue, bringing it back directly would minimise the time spent without a monitor. Using a courier would add at the minimum 2 days to the time you would be without a monitor.
In terms of what we communicated before the unit was given back to us, we did initially state that the unit would need to be sent back to LG's service centre for testing before a decision could be made to replace with a new unit. After receiving further communication from your side, we then offered to test the unit ourselves and make the final call (which we did). If the unit was non-functional of the box, we would've been able to offer a new replacement from the get-go after having received the unit back.
In terms of our testing, during daytime/general use we couldn't discern any noticeable difference between your monitor and another unit of the same model that was calibrated using the same settings. Both units looked excellent, without any flaw or defect in image noted during this scenario.
In a darkened environment, with the monitor brightness set to 100% and on a black background we could see the characteristic IPS glow on the unit. The reference unit also displayed IPS glow. Given the nature of the technology (edge-lit LED backlights and IPS panel) this is normal. In this testing scenario, I'd hazard to say it's discernable on almost all IPS LED monitors.
Neither unit displayed what could be considered excessive backlight bleed, this is our opinion. We still would've sent the unit back to the service centre in any case for the final call to be made under normal circumstances. Given that Zewp/Graal was very unhappy and had expressed as much to us, we went ahead with offering a full credit or replacement while re-iterating that the IPS glow may be apparent on the replacement unit (as it seems to be the case).
Up till this point, we hadn't had a single complaint about backlight bleed on this particular monitor, nor a DOA or dead-pixel out of 100+ units sold. The one complaint that we have received twice was that the out-of-box calibration of the monitor is not good. Both customers were more than happy with the unit after tuning the monitor with a preferred calibration setting that seems to work best for this panel. This same profile was indicated and recommended when we sent the replacement unit. We have listed this on the product page on our website now as well.
I know that eyestrain was mentioned as being an issue with this monitor as well when you contacted us. The only recommendation that we could offer in that regard would be to tweak brightness and contrast settings, making sure that there's sufficient ambient lighting as well as making use of software such as Flux that will manage your colour profile based on time-of-day to relieve eye-strain.
Regardless, if you're still not happy with the new replacement that you received, we can arrange a courier collection of the unit and offer you a full refund. If there is perhaps any other brand or model of monitor you might want to consider, we would be happy to try source it for you.
I would like to state that our markup/margin model is not a relevant determinant of the service we provide with regards to returns. Adopting a blanket policy of just replacing any item that gets returned wouldn't necessarily be a good idea if the root-cause of the problem is not found since a replacement may not solve the issue either. We understand that every customer/situation is unique, and it’s our goal to help each customer find the best solution that suits them. If there's any constructive suggestions or opinions about how we could deal with such an issue better in future, we’d like to hear them. We are continuously trying to improve our systems and policies.
