Refrigerator Hell! Buyer Beware on Service Contracts

On 4/28/2016 I bought a whirlpool refrigerator at HR Gregg. The first year I had two calls under warranty. The issue was my freezer kept frosting. At this point my fridge was under the manufacturer warranty. The man that came out twice told me “Refrigerators are not what they are suppose to be.” “You bought a cheap refrigerator” Twice he did something. Twice the issue came back. I was told “Nothing to worry about. You have a service contract so you are all set.

When I moved into my house 8 years ago the fridge was ancient. The first thing I did was order a new refrigerator.

It lived until the end of the five year contract. It broke. I called. It got fixed. Then it died.

This time around I chose a smaller model. I figured it would be better on electricity. I thought “How much food does one person need?”

I’m very simple. Keep the food cold and frozen and all will be well.

Seals and gaskets were fixed but it never got better. It makes knocking noises and sounds like an old man dying a long hard death.

A refrigerator should do two things. Refrigerate and freeze. For a year and half I have not been able to have a small container of Ben and Jerrys or freeze soup. Or freeze anything. Even the Ice Cubes are messed up.

Then in the second year there were 8 calls for the same issue. This time to Warrentech.

I actually had to track them down as the phone number HR Greg gave me was no longer working.

I had 8 calls in one year and the last three at the insistence of Warrentech. They wanted to try a few things. They even replaced the seal for a second time.

All this time the refrigerate part of the refrigerator stopped working. When I told people they just argued with me.

I have lost hundreds of dollars worth of food.

A dear friend brought me a little fridge so I can have coffee cream and a few meals in there.

I love that little fridge.

Every call I asked – When do you ask for a new fridge? After all this started in the first year when it was covered by the manufacturer supposedly.

This was what I bought supposedly- a no lemon guarantee-if the product had more than 3 repairs it was to be replaced. Here it is in black and white.

At the last call I was told the fridge could not be fixed. They put in to either buy me a new fridge or send me a check. They said it would be done in five business days.

It took a month for the check to arrive.

A check for 72.81.

When I called Warrentech they told me it was because of all the service calls I had. SO essentially I paid 179.00 for a service plan of service people who did not fix my fridge.

Huh?

A long, long time ago my Grampa Jack owned an appliance store in Boston. He died when I was young. My uncles and my cousins ran it for years. When I told them what was happening they were appalled but not surprised. They encouraged me to call Whirlpool because HR Greg went out of business. They said Whirlpool would advocate for me.

I did. A while back and they said there was nothing they could do even though it was broken in the first year.

I called Whirlpool again today and spoke to Tim 6751. He very sadly told me that noting is perfect and because human make refrigerators they sometimes do not work.

This needs to be the new tag line for Whirlpool. “Humans make our products so they may or may not work.”

I had a complete meltdown. I’m sorry. A year and a half is way too long to go without Ben and Jerrys.

To be clear I had no expectation that they would buy me a fridge but simply advocate for me. Because HR Gregg went out of business I have no one to turn to.

I sat down and wrote my letter to the department of agriculture/ consumer

I went to Home Depot and bought a new fridge. There was a nice looking whirlpool on the floor of the store. I declined. I also declined a service contract.

My next hurdle is I was told I could put in for up 250 dollars worth of food. I need that in writing. Two people told me I could do this. I do not believe them.

I wrote this for two reasons. I wrote it because i’d like to know if anyone has had a similar issue. You can email me at clenz@mac.com .

You can also leave a comment if you wish.

We simply cannot be treated this way. Us. All of us.

The second reason is to simply document this and I will follow up with anything that might happen.

Like these thoughts and prayers