@trance_nut - its shockingly evident that its a used showroom display. Makes my blood boil as it reminds me of my incident, although mine had no such evidence of image rentention, just a few smudges I had laid on the showroom piece.
To others buying new displays, plasmas or lcds or infact any other large consumer electronic -
1) The missing startup factory settings are the biggest give away (as showroom guys forget to reset the same).
2) use ezones or large stores for your comparo, but buy from a decent small store who you can catch incase you realise they have delivered a showroom piece. The large chains mostly have employees who are least bothered about relationship building, have zero knowledge on the product and don't think twice before giving out showroom pieces (especially if you point out you don't want one !!). There maybe exceptions, but in general our large electronics chains have still not reached the professionalism seen in other developed countries (US, aussie, singapore, UK, etc)
3) when no one is looking place a marker (a couple of finger smudges, a pen mark, etc) on an inaccessible part of the system - some place it does not get cleaned easily. Noting down serial numbers may not always work as that takes longer and grabs sales man's attention and if they don't have stock they will give you a showroom piece from one of their other stores in the same city. If they are going to give you a showroom display piece - you might as well catch them.
4) Incase you get a showroom piece and that has happened 2 to 3 times with panny displays on this thread (first one being me), rush to the showroom immediately. Mostly you will see a blank hole in the wall from where they removed the showroom display or some other display in its place. The sooner you go, the lesser the time they have to cover up. Question them as to where the showroom display went and tell them clearly that you have been given a used product. Don't speak to salesmen, talk to the manager only.
5) Call the manufacturer helpline, detail the issue and ask for the area sales manager or distributors number. Mostly you will get it and the manufacturer's regional team/distributor will clearly tell you if an invoice has been raised with them - mostly it will not have been raised and they will have a clear idea as to how much stock is out there with a particular dealer. Mostly an invoice is raised to fill in for the showroom display later and you can catch that. The manufacturer's regional sales mgr will also be able to push the shopkeeper to replace asap (if its a small store or a brand store not ezone!!). In my case, I was able to get a new piece directly from distributor godown in less than 24hrs. Also a lot of manufacturer's provide NFR (not for resale) products exclusively for showrooms and these are not meant to be sold and if brought to notice, the manufacturer can take over your job of screwing the dealer :-P
Hope the above inputs are useful. Happy gadget shopping and a great 2009 to all
