My Whirlpool warranty experience.
This nightmare began on the eve of April 30th
when I took the ice cream out of the freezer in our seasonal camp in
Maine. The ice cream was soupy.
We checked the ice – and it was water. So we moved the items
(just a couple) to our neighbors freezer and contacted Whirlpool online since
it was a Sunday and very late. The
website wouldn’t let us schedule a service appointment either. The refrigerator
was under a year old by days (May 3rd) and shouldn’t have been
broken. At that time, we thought it was
just the freezer, but we woke up to hot air blowing in the freezer and
refrigerator. Thankfully things were
still cold enough to not be spoiled, and our friend saved the day by letting us
use their refrigerator.
We called for service on May 1st. And the person
was kind enough to get a service man – but they wouldn’t be able to make it
until the 9th. Okay – well we
got the email with the service person’s name and number and I texted that it
was no longer just the freezer but the entire refrigerator. They came the very next day. Well, they don’t service the R600 sealed
system in the refrigerator.
So, we contacted Whirlpool after he left, mid-day on the 2nd. They contacted the other service people on
their lists to ask if they service the R600 sealed system. No they didn’t, so
the person escalated the ticket to a department that does searches that are
wider than the immediate service area.
That would take 7 business days. And they might call us to ask if we
wanted to find a repair man on our own and they’d reimburse us. I did tell them
at that time, that we expected Whirlpool to do the legwork on finding someone
to service their product under warrantee.
That was May 2nd.
We heard nothing for the next couple days until the 5th
when a person called to ask us just that because they were having difficulty
finding someone to service the sealed system.
Well, I said no thank you. We expected Whirlpool to find a service
person. At that point the woman said it would be seven business days from the 5th. We said nope – this was started on the second
and that’s when this escalated process clock started, so they already had three
days into that count – so they only had 4 more days before this should be
escalated for product replacement. We asked to speak to a supervisor at this
point and the request was denied.
They didn’t call again.
We called on Tuesday on the way home from the beach. And insisted on
speaking with a supervisor. Said supervisor towed the company line that we had
to wait until the 7 day service level was satisfied. So we called on the 12th after the
7 days had expired and we did not hear a peep from the company. The 7 business day mark was at the end of the
day on the 11th. We gave them
till the end of the day on the 12th.
On the 12th, they hadn’t been successful in
finding a service person who worked on the R600 sealed system. So they needed to escalate to the Product
Review team – who had 7 business days to review the case. And you guessed it – no one called.
We called on the 23rd – and it took close to 2
hours to finally get someone who looked at the case because they were trying to
tell us that they had a repair person as of the day before. Which one of the
calls, the customer service person was reaching out to the repair service to
confirm they worked on the R600 closed system. She didn’t think they did. And
that call was disconnected before we got an answer. So another call to the
Product review team and an argument with the customer service person resulted
in her looking further into it. When she
came back on the phone, she said we had waited long enough and were due a
replacement. And then proceeded to tell us the replacement process takes 3 to 4
weeks.
This is where we are today. She also indicated that if the
replacement arrives scratched or damaged, we have the prerogative to refuse delivery.
Then we’d have to call them again. I
don’t know if I am expecting another piece of garbage to be delivered to our
door or not, but the idea of having to deal with the company again has my teeth
on edge. Not with how they’ve treated us so far to date.
We had friends to lend a hand and the means to get a small refrigerator
to hold us over, but someone that does not have either of those things is at
the mercy of this horrifying process. They apologize with such empty platitudes
each call that it is absolutely sickening. They profess to know how hard it is.
They do not and it is aggravating that they continually offer empty apologies and still do nothing to help until their process SLA is fulfilled. Going 2 months without a working refrigerator is outrageous in
this day and age in the United States.
What is even more sickening is having a company that pushes out a product that has no one to service it and offers a warrantee that the company must go through this process to service. They knew on the second that no one in the service area worked on this sealed system, yet they drew this out another 21 days in the hopes that we would drop it. This is an atrocity for a company as big as Whirlpool. And it is a slight to all consumers who are lulled in by the once great product name. And this is not just something we are going through – it is all over the posts on social media.
Whirlpool pushed out a product with a manufacturers warranty that
they CANNOT support and they make the customer jump through hoops to get
service or replacement.
I will return to continue this nightmare in three weeks if we haven't heard from the company.
Until the next episode of this nightmare - Ciao.
