We used to have GE extended warranties for all our appliances. It used to be a good value. I even got a dead fridge replaced for shipping costs. Then, recently, I needed a repair, and found out I could no longer schedule it online, but had to call an 800 number and talk to someone not in this country. The next repair I had (OK, I confess, I will never buy another GE appliance, but I am keeping the ones I have till they die), the man in the other country (someplace where they speak Spanish) told me he could not find my contract, they would put a work order on it, and to call back in 48 hours. Well, I had paid for the warranty, I wanted the repair, my appliance was broken, but I couldn’t get any service. And, of course, they never called back. Eventually I got a supervisor, after days of calling. The supervisor said they had my warranty, but there were no providers in my area. I still naively thought I was with GE, and I knew there were many GE service people in my area — I live in DC metro, so to tell me there are no providers in my area is beyond ridiculous. I got the “call back in 48 hours” routine from them, at which point I pressed a little harder, and found out that they were no longer GE, but another company entirely, who had decided to cut their costs and NOT use high quality technicians, but whatever cheap contract labor they could find. They promised to get back to me, but before they had called me back some 6 days later, I had gotten in touch with GE, got a GE technician out, who immediately fixed the appliance. Then I began the long, hard journey of trying to get a refund on all my extended warranties (I had 5). Although I had two months on 4 of them and 6 months on one of them, my eventual refund, after hours of phone calls and several letters and e-mails, was about $10.60. When I called, they told me that was because I had actually used the warranty services several times for service calls! GE tells me that when they sold their warranty services to Assurant, they assumed that Assurant would continue using their technicians. Well, like they say, to ass-ume makes an ass out of u and me. To make it even more flagrant, I continued to get warranty sales pitches from these people in the mail, claiming it was GE warranty protection, with GE service, that would give me peace of mind. There was no fine print telling me that this was NOT GE service. I have kept these notices and all my correspondence, but it only makes me angry. They took my money, and they cheated me. I am NEVER buying a GE appliance again, and I am NEVER buying warranty service because it can apparently be sold at the drop of a hat to people who are not in your area (let alone the USA), who have no clue about what is going on, who are paid to read from a script they really don’t understand. I live within 15 miles of the nation’s capital, millions of people around us, and these folks in some country hundreds of miles away tell me there are no service providers in my area and I need to wait 48 hours before they can find someone? And I get someone 5 minutes later on my own, paying real dollars? Give me a break. DO NOT TRUST GE WARRANTIES!!! The whole thing is a scam!!!
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