Warning to all others out there: do not make a major purchase from homedepot.com or Amana/Maytag/Whirlpool (these last three are all one company). I just purchased an Amana refrigerator through homedepot.com because I could not find the model I wanted (as highly recommended in Consumer Reports) in any store I called in Austin, Texas. The refrigerator was delivered and installed in a timely fashion, but that is where the good news ends.
The refrigerator never cooled. I called the next day (a Saturday) to report this to Home Depot. After I escalated to a supervisor, they told me that because the unit was not dented, scratched, etc., I could not return it to Home Depot and had to go through the manufacturer's warranty.
I spoke to the folks at Amana et al., who told me that they would not replace the brand-new unit and that my only option was a service call. They also told me that it sometimes took up to 48 hours for a unit to cool and that I did not even really know that I had a problem (although someone else later told me that I had to report a problem within 24 hours).
They sent their authorized repair company to my home on Monday. Although I called first thing Monday morning to ask for a window of time for the repair, they did not let me know until 10:30 that they would be there between 1:00 and 3:00 - chalk up a day off of work. The technician who arrived was not a certified refrigerator repair tech and told me that he had told Amana that he could not fix it. Without talking to me, they set up an appointment for someone to come out the next day - again I was left with a full-day window - chalk up day two off from work.
Needless to say, I was displeased and called Amana to let them know that they needed to replace this brand-new unit, as I had been told that they would have to cut into the sealed system - something my research tells me can drastically increase the potential for future problems. The customer service rep at Amana et al. could not believe that their service company sent someone who was not qualified to fix the problems I had described to them (the air blew and the lights worked, but it was not cooling). Contrary to what a previous rep had told me, she stated that the unit should have been considered dead on arrival and immediately replaced. She also told me that I should initially have been given the number of a Home Depot specialist to deal with my problem. This did not happen, despite my initial escalation to a supervisor.
She told me that she was going to work to get the unit replaced and that I should ignore the service call the next day. So I canceled the service call, only to be told later that because the service had been started (not my fault), Home Depot now would not replace the unit, so I needed a service call. I then had to reschedule the service call.
The owner of the service company came out personally to try to fix the refrigerator. He recharged it and told me that if it did not have ice by morning, my unit should be considered unrepairable and I should get a new unit. You guessed it, no ice in the morning.
Of course, when I called Amana to get help, they told me that they could not get me the service rep I had been dealing with. She had given me her employee ID number to locate her, but that meant nothing to the four people I spoke with. They finally got me to someone who not only refused to help but said that I needed yet another service call to verify that the unit was, indeed, unrepairable (despite the word of the owner of their service company). I asked for his supervisor. He repeatedly told me that he had no supervisor. When I pushed again and again, he magically had a supervisor who could talk to me. She was no better. When I asked for her superior, she refused to give me a name or a telephone number and stated only that she could give me a physical address where I could mail a complaint.
I then got the number for the national headquarters off of the internet and started making calls. I finally got someone in the executive offices of Amana whose job, apparently, is to keep calls like mine from actually making it to an executive. She was an administrative assistant working in the executive offices. She was as unhelpful as the other folks I had been dealing with. I then asked to be transferred to the legal department. Multiple phone calls later, I finally got to speak with a secretary in the legal department. I left a message.
A little while later, the lady from the executive offices called back and was ready to replace the refrigerator without yet another service call. However, it would take two weeks, and there was allegedly no way to expedite the process (despite my understanding that the original order was drop-shipped from the manufacturer and could have been delivered within two days). She also refused to honor their previous offer to extend my warranty for an extra year (because this is a new unit). All in all, they are unwilling to do anything to make up for the fact that I have missed three days of work and spent over six hours on the phone with various representatives trying to deal with this.
Never again!
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