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GE refrigerator warranty repair misery
Our refrigerator (GE model number GSS25KGMD-WW) failed on or before
January 21, 2005. To this day GE has failed to repair the unit successfully; all diagnostics and repair work point to the in-warranty sealed system. Since the initial failure we had scheduled eight service appointments. At one of the appointments the technician refused to perform any diagnostics. At one appointment the technician refused to even come to the house. At another appointment the technician failed to show up or even call. GE Consumer Relations (1-800-386-1215, based in Louisville, Kentucky and Norfolk, Virginia) still does not know what is wrong with our refrigerator and refuses to replace it with a new one. They keep saying that they need to follow procedure but they admit that their technicians are not performing the steps that were specifically noted to them (the same instructions I personally asked them to carry out when they were in our home). Consumer Relations will do nothing more than schedule more service appointments but obviously the technicians are not showing up or not doing their work. It has been almost a month and we still have no working refrigerator. We are caught in an endless cycle where GE says the only thing they can do is follow their procedures but then they admit that they did not follow their procedure. We have lost hundreds of dollars of food. We have lost time from work and our lives. I have gotten sick on food that was placed in our refrigerator when GE said it was fixed. The technician has noted on more than one occasion that the compressor is overheating; this refrigerator may be a fire hazard and I have made GE Consumer Relations aware of that but it still does not matter to them. We are being terribly strained by not having a working refrigerator for almost four weeks now. We cannot afford lawyers for this case and every week that passes without a refrigerator is increasingly difficult because my wife is pregnant. We have filed complaints with the Virginia and Kentucky Attorney Generals' Offices as well as with the Better Business Bureau; however, those avenues will require four to six more weeks to process. Here are the details: On January 21, 2005 we noticed that the refrigerator was not producing cold air as evidenced by thawing items and melting ice in the freezer. I placed an outdoor wireless thermometer in the freezer in order to monitor its performance without opening the door. When the failure was first noticed, the freezer was above 40 degrees. Eventually the freezer's interior rose to room temperature even while the unit was running constantly. I turned off the refrigerator to prevent compressor burnout in case the refrigerant had leaked. Our first appointment was on Tuesday, January 25, 2005 (the earliest time we could schedule). I missed work in order to be home for the repair. The technician was named Joe (technician number 560). He explained that he could not do anything unless the refrigerator was on for at least 24 hours prior to the appointment. Joe said that he needed to see frost patterns in order to diagnose the problem. No one ever gave me any instructions about leaving the unit running for 24 hours beforehand. I also explained that the freezer had gone up to room temperature (above 70 degrees) before I shut it off so there would be no frost to even inspect but he disagreed. He checked the defrost unit and evaporator coils and said that they were in working condition. I asked him if he could check other things in the refrigerator but he said that he did all he could do at the time. Joe spent a total of approximately 5-10 minutes in our home. The food in the refrigerator had already spoiled. We lost the top of our wedding cake. We lost family-cooked meals that we had brought down when we last visited our families. There were hundreds of dollars worth of food that spoiled. We rescheduled another appointment for the next day (Wednesday, January 26, 2005). Again, I missed work in order to be present for the appointment. Within 5 minutes Joe had found a visible oil leak in one of the tubes in the sealed system. He did not check for frost patterns like he said he would do. I do not understand why he did not check the tubes on the first visit even though I asked him to check other items that were not related to the refrigerator needing to be on for 24 hours. Essentially, the second appointment was not necessary because Joe could have easily done that check on the first day but refused to do so. Joe's diagnosis was that the compressor and evaporator needed to be replaced. Unfortunately for us, the parts were not in stock so we had to reschedule for yet another appointment to perform the replacement. He also made sure that the light switch was operating and that the seals were in good condition. Joe spent a total of approximately 15 minutes in our home. Our third appointment was on Saturday, January 29, 2005. Joe was present with another GE technician but I do not know his name. The compressor and evaporator (including related defrost hardware) were replaced. The freezer temperature dropped rapidly down to approximately 0 degrees Fahrenheit. Joe and the other technician spent approximately 75-90 minutes in our home. The refrigerator would not stop running. After approximately 24 hours, the temperature began to rise again. At times the temperature in the freezer would climb above 40 degrees even though the unit was running constantly. Often the temperature would be over 20 degrees. It would take hours to bring it down just a few degrees. We limited the number of times we opened the doors to prevent loss of cold air. The refrigerator continued to run constantly for days upon days. We scheduled another appointment. Our fourth appointment was on Thursday, February 3, 2005. I had requested that a different technician come this time. I was concerned that there would be conflicts of interest in having the same technician review his prior work. I was also dissatisfied with Joe's attitude and how he avoided performing inspections and work. Bob (technician number 551) was our technician at this appointment. When he arrived, the refrigerator was still running but was not able to bring the temperature down any lower than 21 degrees in the freezer. He immediately noticed a pumping/gurgling noise in the rear of the unit. His diagnosis was that there was something wrong that was related to the refrigerant. Bob flushed the old refrigerant and replaced it with new refrigerant. He also noticed that the compressor was unusually hot (it almost burned his hand). Bob spent about 35 minutes in our home. After about 12 hours of running, the unit was able to eventually bring the temperature down low enough that the thermostat allowed the compressor to shut off. Once the internal temperature rose high enough, the thermostat turned the unit back on and it has been running non-stop (except for 1 defrost cycle) ever since. Even though the compressor was constantly running, the temperature inside the freezer fluctuated from -7 degrees to 24 degrees with the door never being opened during the time of that fluctuation. The temperature rose even though the compressor was running and the defrost cycle had not activated. Our food that we added after the compressor replacement was developing bad flavor and much had to be discarded. We scheduled another appointment. I spoke with Carol at GE Consumer Relations on Monday, February 7, 2005. I complained that GE has been to our home a number of times already and that the refrigerator was still allowing our food to spoil. Carol explained that the technician at the next visit would call the GE engineers in Kentucky. She put in a note for the technician to call the engineers when they were at our home and looking at the refrigerator. Carol told me that if the engineers deemed the unit non-repairable, we would be given a new refrigerator. Our fifth appointment was on Tuesday, February 8, 2005. I had requested and confirmed that Bob would return for the appointment but instead Joe arrived. At the time the freezer was at 7 degrees. Joe refused to do anything because he said the unit was working properly. I explained that the refrigerator was running constantly and would never get low enough to shut off. His solution was to add more food to the freezer to bring the temperature down. I found that contrary to simple thermodynamics and asked how adding frozen food at temperatures _higher_ than the air temperature could possibly bring the air temperature down. He could not explain how it could bring the temperature down but said that adding food would help stabilize the temperature. I agreed, but I pointed out to him two things. First, a fuller freezer only helps stabilize in situations when the door is opened (because there is less cold air to replace and solid, frozen items have higher thermal mass). Secondly, our primary problem was that the unit could not produce air cold enough to even trigger the thermostat to stop the compressor; there is no way the refrigerator can stabilize a temperature if it is running full-bore and still cannot produce low-enough temperatures. I asked Joe to call the engineers. He refused to do so. I told him that Consumer Relations had specific instructions written for him to contact the engineers. Joe again refused to follow his instructions. I explained once again to Joe that the refrigerator ran constantly and simply could not produce temperatures low enough to even stop running for a moment. I showed him the sound pressure meter that I kept nearby to measure the increasing noise level of the refrigerator. I showed Joe the records I kept of the fluctuating freezer interior temperature. He denied my claims, insisted that the unit was working properly, and told me that he "[wasn't] gonna stand here and argue" and that he was going to leave. Eventually, he said he was going to order a new compressor and angrily stated that "Bob can deal with it" since "Bob must think there's something wrong with it". When I asked more questions about what could be wrong with the refrigerator, he changed his mind and said in a harsh tone that he was going to cancel the compressor order. He left after that. Joe was in our home for approximately 20 minutes. I immediately called GE Consumer Relations after Joe left and expressed my dissatisfaction with his cocky attitude and his failure to follow their procedures. The Consumer Relations person I spoke with was named Greg. I had taken off time from work to be home for a technician who refused to do anything. Now the refrigerator repair was being delayed even further. Greg set up another appointment for me for that coming Saturday morning. I did not want Joe back at our house because he does not do his job. Greg requested that Bob would be our technician. Greg confirmed that Joe had instructions to call engineers and that he did not perform his duties; Greg sent a note to Joe's supervisor to let him about it. Greg explained again to me that if the engineers in Kentucky deemed the unit non-repairable, we would get a new refrigerator-brand-new, straight from the factory, and at no cost to us. A note was put in the GE system for our technician to call the engineers while the technician was in our home. I asked if GE could send us another new compressor and evaporator in case they needed to be replaced again but Greg said that he could not do that. Our sixth service appointment was on Saturday, February 12, 2005. I received a call that morning from Bob. He asked if a compressor had been sent to our house. I did not know what he was talking about since no one told me that any parts were being ordered. Joe had angrily canceled the order he placed at our fifth service appointment. Consumer Relations already told me that they could not order parts. Bob said that he was not going to come out to our house because there were no parts there. Bob said that he even noted that the compressor was overheating and that Joe should have known that at the fifth service visit (note that when I brought up the overheating issue to Joe at that appointment, Joe replied that "compressors get hot" without examining it). I explained to Bob that his specific instructions from Consumer Relations were to arrive at our house, inspect the refrigerator, and call the engineers in Kentucky. Bob replied that Consumer Relations "will do anything to get [me] off the phone" and that calling the engineers would only result in "four more" service appointments to my house. Bob said that he would order yet another compressor and evaporator but would not come to our house to call the engineers. I scheduled a seventh service appointment for Monday, February 14, 2005. I called GE Consumer Relations again on Monday, February 14, 2005 and spoke with Bernadette and Peggy Martinez. Again I requested a new refrigerator because it had been over three weeks since our refrigerator failed. Once again, GE refused to do anything other than send technicians to our home. I explained that the technicians were not following their orders and the last one refused to even come out to our house. Peggy said that she would investigate by sending an email out to Bob. I asked Peggy what happens if the technician does not show up. She assured me that the technician would be out to our home that day and would call the engineers. She said that the technician would call me 30 minutes before arrival at my house. I filed a complaint with the Virginia Attorney General's Office on Monday, February 14, 2005. Shortly afterwards I filed a complaint with the Kentucky Attorney General's Office. I also filed a complaint with the Better Business Bureau. I submitted our story to the local ABC station's "7 On Your Side" consumer-protection segment. I wrote to our homebuilder about our problems with GE. I spoke with Diane at GE Consumer Relations on the same day. I explained the situation and told her that I thought GE is only trying to delay the service process and that they already knew about the non-performance of their technicians. I was worried that the technician would not even arrive. Diane said that if the technician did not show up, the issue would be automatically forwarded to the Exchange Team for evaluation. The seventh service appointment was supposed to have been between 1:00pm and 5:00pm on Monday, February 14, 2005. The technician never showed up and never called any of the phone numbers we registered with GE. We have CallerID and call-waiting and there is no record of any attempts being made to let us know that the technician would not be there. I called GE Consumer Relations again and spoke with Karen. Diane had already gone home for the day. Karen read the notes and followed Diane's instructions to forward our case to the Exchange Team. On Tuesday, February 15, 2005 I emailed members of the Virginia Chamber of Commerce about our problem with GE. I spoke with a member of the Greater Louisville Chamber of Commerce who said that he would do his best to get in touch with GE. I emailed him the information I had up to that point about this case. One of Steve's suggestions was to contact the local newspaper, so I submitted this problem to the "Washington Post" and "Loudoun Easterner" newspapers. I also contacted "Dateline NBC", "60 Minutes", "60 Minutes II", "20/20", and "Primetime Live" with information about how GE is mishandling our situation. On February 15, 2005 at 10:38am EST I called Consumer Relations and spoke with Shirley. She reviewed the notes and confirmed that a request for exchange had been sent out because the technician did not come to our house for the February 14th service appointment. Shirley said it would take the Exchange Team 24 to 48 hours to process the request. On February 15, 2005 at 3:18pm EST I called Consumer Relations and spoke with Barbara. She told me that the exchange was denied and that they had scheduled an eighth service appointment for us for tomorrow (February 16); no one had called me to let me know that they went ahead to schedule yet another service call. She put in a note for the technician to call the engineers while he was in our home inspecting the refrigerator. I once again expressed my concern that the technician (Bob, technician 551) would once again not show up. Again, all we could do was call Consumer Relations and reschedule if the technician failed to show up. Our eighth service appointment was on February 16, 2005 at approximately 12:30pm. When he showed up, the freezer temperature was over 34 degrees. I measured the temperature of the existing compressor using an infrared thermometer; it read 175 degrees Fahrenheit on its surface. He replaced the compressor and slowly the temperature went down to a low of 13 degrees. Within less than four hours after the repair completion, the temperature began to rise again even though the compressor was running. I called Consumer Relations yet again and explained that the eighth service repair attempt was again a failure. At the time of the call, the freezer temperature was over 40 degrees and rising (even with the refrigerator running); fourteen hours after the phone call the temperature had risen to almost 60 degrees in the freezer. Consumer Relations once again denied a refrigerator replacement and said that they would need to send out a technician to call the engineers. I explained again that the technicians had refused to do that the last four times even though it was specifically noted to them by Consumer Relations and I even reminded them to do so. All they would do was schedule a ninth appointment for Friday, February 18, 2005. We have done everything we can to explain our plight to GE. Their solution is clearly not working and yet they will do nothing else. It has now been almost four weeks since our refrigerator failed and still no word from GE about what the problem is our what they will do about it. I think they want to drag this out as long as possible until we cave in under the financial and emotional stress and simply buy a new refrigerator. Unfortunately we do not have that kind of extra money. I wrote this because I am dissatisfied with not only the poor reliability of our GE refrigerator, but also the poor treatment that we have been given. GE does not want to face the problem and does not care that it has taken almost a month and eight service appointments to get nowhere with our refrigerator. GE realizes that the technicians are not showing up and when they do, they do not follow their procedures. Yet GE refuses to do anything more than send technicians who obviously cannot and will not do the work. My wife is getting further along in her pregnancy and going out to eat all the time is not a good option (health-wise, time-wise, and financially). We're desperate for a resolution. I know that we will never, ever purchase GE appliances for the rest of our lives knowing what we have to go through to have an in-warranty problem worked on. What should we do? Please respond in newsgroups or by email to me ). Thanks in advance. |
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In article .com,
" wrote: Consumer Relations will do nothing more than schedule more service appointments but obviously the technicians are not showing up or not doing their work. It has been almost a month and we still have no working refrigerator. I had pretty much the same experience with my GE refrigerator. It broke about 6 months after being installed. GE wants you to stay home all day to wait for them, and they only show up about half the time. I only got it fixed after I went to the retailer and asked to have the unit replaced under the lemon terms of my extended warranty. Turns out that the problem was a design fault that happened to every unit of that model, and GE was stalling for time due to a shortage of the repair kits. -john- -- ================================================== ==================== John A. Weeks III 952-432-2708 Newave Communications http://www.johnweeks.com ================================================== ==================== |
#3
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wrote in message oups.com... Our refrigerator (GE model number GSS25KGMD-WW) failed on or before January 21, 2005. To this day GE has failed to repair the unit successfully; all diagnostics and repair work point to the in-warranty sealed system. Since the initial failure we had scheduled eight service appointments. At one of the appointments the technician refused to perform any diagnostics. At one appointment the technician refused to even come to the house. At another appointment the technician failed to show up or even call. GE Consumer Relations (1-800-386-1215, based in Louisville, Kentucky and Norfolk, Virginia) still does not know what is wrong with our refrigerator and refuses to replace it with a new one. They keep saying that they need to follow procedure but they admit that their technicians are not performing the steps that were specifically noted to them (the same instructions I personally asked them to carry out when they were in our home). Consumer Relations will do nothing more than schedule more service appointments but obviously the technicians are not showing up or not doing their work. It has been almost a month and we still have no working refrigerator. We are caught in an endless cycle where GE says the only thing they can do is follow their procedures but then they admit that they did not follow their procedure. We have lost hundreds of dollars of food. We have lost time from work and our lives. I have gotten sick on food that was placed in our refrigerator when GE said it was fixed. The technician has noted on more than one occasion that the compressor is overheating; this refrigerator may be a fire hazard and I have made GE Consumer Relations aware of that but it still does not matter to them. We are being terribly strained by not having a working refrigerator for almost four weeks now. We cannot afford lawyers for this case and every week that passes without a refrigerator is increasingly difficult because my wife is pregnant. We have filed complaints with the Virginia and Kentucky Attorney Generals' Offices as well as with the Better Business Bureau; however, those avenues will require four to six more weeks to process. Here are the details: On January 21, 2005 we noticed that the refrigerator was not producing cold air as evidenced by thawing items and melting ice in the freezer. I placed an outdoor wireless thermometer in the freezer in order to monitor its performance without opening the door. When the failure was first noticed, the freezer was above 40 degrees. Eventually the freezer's interior rose to room temperature even while the unit was running constantly. I turned off the refrigerator to prevent compressor burnout in case the refrigerant had leaked. Our first appointment was on Tuesday, January 25, 2005 (the earliest time we could schedule). I missed work in order to be home for the repair. The technician was named Joe (technician number 560). He explained that he could not do anything unless the refrigerator was on for at least 24 hours prior to the appointment. Joe said that he needed to see frost patterns in order to diagnose the problem. No one ever gave me any instructions about leaving the unit running for 24 hours beforehand. I also explained that the freezer had gone up to room temperature (above 70 degrees) before I shut it off so there would be no frost to even inspect but he disagreed. He checked the defrost unit and evaporator coils and said that they were in working condition. I asked him if he could check other things in the refrigerator but he said that he did all he could do at the time. Joe spent a total of approximately 5-10 minutes in our home. The food in the refrigerator had already spoiled. We lost the top of our wedding cake. We lost family-cooked meals that we had brought down when we last visited our families. There were hundreds of dollars worth of food that spoiled. We rescheduled another appointment for the next day (Wednesday, January 26, 2005). Again, I missed work in order to be present for the appointment. Within 5 minutes Joe had found a visible oil leak in one of the tubes in the sealed system. He did not check for frost patterns like he said he would do. I do not understand why he did not check the tubes on the first visit even though I asked him to check other items that were not related to the refrigerator needing to be on for 24 hours. Essentially, the second appointment was not necessary because Joe could have easily done that check on the first day but refused to do so. Joe's diagnosis was that the compressor and evaporator needed to be replaced. Unfortunately for us, the parts were not in stock so we had to reschedule for yet another appointment to perform the replacement. He also made sure that the light switch was operating and that the seals were in good condition. Joe spent a total of approximately 15 minutes in our home. Our third appointment was on Saturday, January 29, 2005. Joe was present with another GE technician but I do not know his name. The compressor and evaporator (including related defrost hardware) were replaced. The freezer temperature dropped rapidly down to approximately 0 degrees Fahrenheit. Joe and the other technician spent approximately 75-90 minutes in our home. The refrigerator would not stop running. After approximately 24 hours, the temperature began to rise again. At times the temperature in the freezer would climb above 40 degrees even though the unit was running constantly. Often the temperature would be over 20 degrees. It would take hours to bring it down just a few degrees. We limited the number of times we opened the doors to prevent loss of cold air. The refrigerator continued to run constantly for days upon days. We scheduled another appointment. Our fourth appointment was on Thursday, February 3, 2005. I had requested that a different technician come this time. I was concerned that there would be conflicts of interest in having the same technician review his prior work. I was also dissatisfied with Joe's attitude and how he avoided performing inspections and work. Bob (technician number 551) was our technician at this appointment. When he arrived, the refrigerator was still running but was not able to bring the temperature down any lower than 21 degrees in the freezer. He immediately noticed a pumping/gurgling noise in the rear of the unit. His diagnosis was that there was something wrong that was related to the refrigerant. Bob flushed the old refrigerant and replaced it with new refrigerant. He also noticed that the compressor was unusually hot (it almost burned his hand). Bob spent about 35 minutes in our home. After about 12 hours of running, the unit was able to eventually bring the temperature down low enough that the thermostat allowed the compressor to shut off. Once the internal temperature rose high enough, the thermostat turned the unit back on and it has been running non-stop (except for 1 defrost cycle) ever since. Even though the compressor was constantly running, the temperature inside the freezer fluctuated from -7 degrees to 24 degrees with the door never being opened during the time of that fluctuation. The temperature rose even though the compressor was running and the defrost cycle had not activated. Our food that we added after the compressor replacement was developing bad flavor and much had to be discarded. We scheduled another appointment. I spoke with Carol at GE Consumer Relations on Monday, February 7, 2005. I complained that GE has been to our home a number of times already and that the refrigerator was still allowing our food to spoil. Carol explained that the technician at the next visit would call the GE engineers in Kentucky. She put in a note for the technician to call the engineers when they were at our home and looking at the refrigerator. Carol told me that if the engineers deemed the unit non-repairable, we would be given a new refrigerator. Our fifth appointment was on Tuesday, February 8, 2005. I had requested and confirmed that Bob would return for the appointment but instead Joe arrived. At the time the freezer was at 7 degrees. Joe refused to do anything because he said the unit was working properly. I explained that the refrigerator was running constantly and would never get low enough to shut off. His solution was to add more food to the freezer to bring the temperature down. I found that contrary to simple thermodynamics and asked how adding frozen food at temperatures _higher_ than the air temperature could possibly bring the air temperature down. He could not explain how it could bring the temperature down but said that adding food would help stabilize the temperature. I agreed, but I pointed out to him two things. First, a fuller freezer only helps stabilize in situations when the door is opened (because there is less cold air to replace and solid, frozen items have higher thermal mass). Secondly, our primary problem was that the unit could not produce air cold enough to even trigger the thermostat to stop the compressor; there is no way the refrigerator can stabilize a temperature if it is running full-bore and still cannot produce low-enough temperatures. I asked Joe to call the engineers. He refused to do so. I told him that Consumer Relations had specific instructions written for him to contact the engineers. Joe again refused to follow his instructions. I explained once again to Joe that the refrigerator ran constantly and simply could not produce temperatures low enough to even stop running for a moment. I showed him the sound pressure meter that I kept nearby to measure the increasing noise level of the refrigerator. I showed Joe the records I kept of the fluctuating freezer interior temperature. He denied my claims, insisted that the unit was working properly, and told me that he "[wasn't] gonna stand here and argue" and that he was going to leave. Eventually, he said he was going to order a new compressor and angrily stated that "Bob can deal with it" since "Bob must think there's something wrong with it". When I asked more questions about what could be wrong with the refrigerator, he changed his mind and said in a harsh tone that he was going to cancel the compressor order. He left after that. Joe was in our home for approximately 20 minutes. I immediately called GE Consumer Relations after Joe left and expressed my dissatisfaction with his cocky attitude and his failure to follow their procedures. The Consumer Relations person I spoke with was named Greg. I had taken off time from work to be home for a technician who refused to do anything. Now the refrigerator repair was being delayed even further. Greg set up another appointment for me for that coming Saturday morning. I did not want Joe back at our house because he does not do his job. Greg requested that Bob would be our technician. Greg confirmed that Joe had instructions to call engineers and that he did not perform his duties; Greg sent a note to Joe's supervisor to let him about it. Greg explained again to me that if the engineers in Kentucky deemed the unit non-repairable, we would get a new refrigerator-brand-new, straight from the factory, and at no cost to us. A note was put in the GE system for our technician to call the engineers while the technician was in our home. I asked if GE could send us another new compressor and evaporator in case they needed to be replaced again but Greg said that he could not do that. Our sixth service appointment was on Saturday, February 12, 2005. I received a call that morning from Bob. He asked if a compressor had been sent to our house. I did not know what he was talking about since no one told me that any parts were being ordered. Joe had angrily canceled the order he placed at our fifth service appointment. Consumer Relations already told me that they could not order parts. Bob said that he was not going to come out to our house because there were no parts there. Bob said that he even noted that the compressor was overheating and that Joe should have known that at the fifth service visit (note that when I brought up the overheating issue to Joe at that appointment, Joe replied that "compressors get hot" without examining it). I explained to Bob that his specific instructions from Consumer Relations were to arrive at our house, inspect the refrigerator, and call the engineers in Kentucky. Bob replied that Consumer Relations "will do anything to get [me] off the phone" and that calling the engineers would only result in "four more" service appointments to my house. Bob said that he would order yet another compressor and evaporator but would not come to our house to call the engineers. I scheduled a seventh service appointment for Monday, February 14, 2005. I called GE Consumer Relations again on Monday, February 14, 2005 and spoke with Bernadette and Peggy Martinez. Again I requested a new refrigerator because it had been over three weeks since our refrigerator failed. Once again, GE refused to do anything other than send technicians to our home. I explained that the technicians were not following their orders and the last one refused to even come out to our house. Peggy said that she would investigate by sending an email out to Bob. I asked Peggy what happens if the technician does not show up. She assured me that the technician would be out to our home that day and would call the engineers. She said that the technician would call me 30 minutes before arrival at my house. I filed a complaint with the Virginia Attorney General's Office on Monday, February 14, 2005. Shortly afterwards I filed a complaint with the Kentucky Attorney General's Office. I also filed a complaint with the Better Business Bureau. I submitted our story to the local ABC station's "7 On Your Side" consumer-protection segment. I wrote to our homebuilder about our problems with GE. I spoke with Diane at GE Consumer Relations on the same day. I explained the situation and told her that I thought GE is only trying to delay the service process and that they already knew about the non-performance of their technicians. I was worried that the technician would not even arrive. Diane said that if the technician did not show up, the issue would be automatically forwarded to the Exchange Team for evaluation. The seventh service appointment was supposed to have been between 1:00pm and 5:00pm on Monday, February 14, 2005. The technician never showed up and never called any of the phone numbers we registered with GE. We have CallerID and call-waiting and there is no record of any attempts being made to let us know that the technician would not be there. I called GE Consumer Relations again and spoke with Karen. Diane had already gone home for the day. Karen read the notes and followed Diane's instructions to forward our case to the Exchange Team. On Tuesday, February 15, 2005 I emailed members of the Virginia Chamber of Commerce about our problem with GE. I spoke with a member of the Greater Louisville Chamber of Commerce who said that he would do his best to get in touch with GE. I emailed him the information I had up to that point about this case. One of Steve's suggestions was to contact the local newspaper, so I submitted this problem to the "Washington Post" and "Loudoun Easterner" newspapers. I also contacted "Dateline NBC", "60 Minutes", "60 Minutes II", "20/20", and "Primetime Live" with information about how GE is mishandling our situation. On February 15, 2005 at 10:38am EST I called Consumer Relations and spoke with Shirley. She reviewed the notes and confirmed that a request for exchange had been sent out because the technician did not come to our house for the February 14th service appointment. Shirley said it would take the Exchange Team 24 to 48 hours to process the request. On February 15, 2005 at 3:18pm EST I called Consumer Relations and spoke with Barbara. She told me that the exchange was denied and that they had scheduled an eighth service appointment for us for tomorrow (February 16); no one had called me to let me know that they went ahead to schedule yet another service call. She put in a note for the technician to call the engineers while he was in our home inspecting the refrigerator. I once again expressed my concern that the technician (Bob, technician 551) would once again not show up. Again, all we could do was call Consumer Relations and reschedule if the technician failed to show up. Our eighth service appointment was on February 16, 2005 at approximately 12:30pm. When he showed up, the freezer temperature was over 34 degrees. I measured the temperature of the existing compressor using an infrared thermometer; it read 175 degrees Fahrenheit on its surface. He replaced the compressor and slowly the temperature went down to a low of 13 degrees. Within less than four hours after the repair completion, the temperature began to rise again even though the compressor was running. I called Consumer Relations yet again and explained that the eighth service repair attempt was again a failure. At the time of the call, the freezer temperature was over 40 degrees and rising (even with the refrigerator running); fourteen hours after the phone call the temperature had risen to almost 60 degrees in the freezer. Consumer Relations once again denied a refrigerator replacement and said that they would need to send out a technician to call the engineers. I explained again that the technicians had refused to do that the last four times even though it was specifically noted to them by Consumer Relations and I even reminded them to do so. All they would do was schedule a ninth appointment for Friday, February 18, 2005. We have done everything we can to explain our plight to GE. Their solution is clearly not working and yet they will do nothing else. It has now been almost four weeks since our refrigerator failed and still no word from GE about what the problem is our what they will do about it. I think they want to drag this out as long as possible until we cave in under the financial and emotional stress and simply buy a new refrigerator. Unfortunately we do not have that kind of extra money. I wrote this because I am dissatisfied with not only the poor reliability of our GE refrigerator, but also the poor treatment that we have been given. GE does not want to face the problem and does not care that it has taken almost a month and eight service appointments to get nowhere with our refrigerator. GE realizes that the technicians are not showing up and when they do, they do not follow their procedures. Yet GE refuses to do anything more than send technicians who obviously cannot and will not do the work. My wife is getting further along in her pregnancy and going out to eat all the time is not a good option (health-wise, time-wise, and financially). We're desperate for a resolution. I know that we will never, ever purchase GE appliances for the rest of our lives knowing what we have to go through to have an in-warranty problem worked on. What should we do? Please respond in newsgroups or by email to me ). Thanks in advance. Write a brief letter to the CEO of GE (see www.ge.com). Send it by FedEx or another way that you can verify delivery. Ask for a new refrigerator to be delivered promptly plus some compensation for spoiled food (be fair) and enclose the journal record above. It's time for GE management to get involved with your situation and a letter to the CEO will do it. Unfortunately, you are the victim of some incompetent service people and others (like the schedulers) who are too far away from the situation to understand it properly. I've had GE appliances for 40+ years. They have worked well with minimal service calls and those have been handled competently and promptly. But, as usual, when the local contact person makes a mistake or doesn't follow-up properly, things go downhill fast. TKM |
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wrote in message oups.com... Our refrigerator (GE model number GSS25KGMD-WW) failed on or before January 21, 2005. To this day GE has failed to repair the unit successfully; all diagnostics and repair work point to the in-warranty sealed system. Since the initial failure we had scheduled eight service appointments. At one of the appointments the technician refused to perform any diagnostics. At one appointment the technician refused to even come to the house. At another appointment the technician failed to show up or even call. GE Consumer Relations (1-800-386-1215, based in Louisville, Kentucky and Norfolk, Virginia) still does not know what is wrong with our refrigerator and refuses to replace it with a new one. They keep saying that they need to follow procedure but they admit that their technicians are not performing the steps that were specifically noted to them (the same instructions I personally asked them to carry out when they were in our home). This is Turtle. File in small claims court on G/E or known as frigidaire Corp. now days. Name the president of G/E and frigidaire as part of the case for you need them as experts in the business you are filing on because they could answer all question about the G/E corp. return and repair policy. If they don't show up, you win. TURTLE |
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TURTLE wrote: wrote in message oups.com... Our refrigerator (GE model number GSS25KGMD-WW) failed on or before January 21, 2005. To this day GE has failed to repair the unit successfully; all diagnostics and repair work point to the in-warranty sealed system. Since the initial failure we had scheduled eight service appointments. At one of the appointments the technician refused to perform any diagnostics. At one appointment the technician refused to even come to the house. At another appointment the technician failed to show up or even call. GE Consumer Relations (1-800-386-1215, based in Louisville, Kentucky and Norfolk, Virginia) still does not know what is wrong with our refrigerator and refuses to replace it with a new one. They keep saying that they need to follow procedure but they admit that their technicians are not performing the steps that were specifically noted to them (the same instructions I personally asked them to carry out when they were in our home). This is Turtle. File in small claims court on G/E or known as frigidaire Corp. now days. Name the president of G/E and frigidaire as part of the case for you need them as experts in the business you are filing on because they could answer all question about the G/E corp. return and repair policy. If they don't show up, you win. TURTLE Your response is almost too silly to comment on. Small claims court does not work that way. GE has attorneys. No corporation is required to continue an action in small claims. Do not seek or observe any legal advice from a newsgroup. |
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"Al Bundy" wrote in message ups.com... TURTLE wrote: wrote in message oups.com... Our refrigerator (GE model number GSS25KGMD-WW) failed on or before January 21, 2005. To this day GE has failed to repair the unit successfully; all diagnostics and repair work point to the in-warranty sealed system. Since the initial failure we had scheduled eight service appointments. At one of the appointments the technician refused to perform any diagnostics. At one appointment the technician refused to even come to the house. At another appointment the technician failed to show up or even call. GE Consumer Relations (1-800-386-1215, based in Louisville, Kentucky and Norfolk, Virginia) still does not know what is wrong with our refrigerator and refuses to replace it with a new one. They keep saying that they need to follow procedure but they admit that their technicians are not performing the steps that were specifically noted to them (the same instructions I personally asked them to carry out when they were in our home). This is Turtle. File in small claims court on G/E or known as frigidaire Corp. now days. Name the president of G/E and frigidaire as part of the case for you need them as experts in the business you are filing on because they could answer all question about the G/E corp. return and repair policy. If they don't show up, you win. TURTLE Your response is almost too silly to comment on. Small claims court does not work that way. GE has attorneys. No corporation is required to continue an action in small claims. Do not seek or observe any legal advice from a newsgroup. This is Turtle. If you did not know it , G/E or Frigidaire is not showing up in small claims court over a refrigerator repair or replacement. TURTLE |
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