General manager, customer reltions
ge appliances, appliance park
louisville, ky 40225
Dear Sirs:
I am the current owner of four GE appliances in my home. I have your water heater, refrigerator and two dishwashers. I am old enough to remember the time when the name General Electric was synonymous with a quality product. Can you explain to me what has happened?
I bought first from home depot an electric water heater with a generous warranty. It was precisely because of the warranty that I did buy this water heater. After approximately one year it gave out (our old one lasted 20 years). I called and was assured that this was under warranty. Someone came out to look at it and said we need to replace it. All we needed to do was bring in the old one and get a new one. My husband is in his mid 70s. There was no way we could strap it to our car and haul it in. We got a new water heater and had to pay the service person $250.00 for installation and to remove the old one, which was just dollars short of what we paid for it in the first place. So obviously the "warranty" is only valuable if you happen to be a strong, strapping plumber.
We then needed a new refrigerator. Our old one lasted about 18 years. I was away and my husband went back to Home Depot and bought one for approximately $1,000.00. I never liked it. It never seemed to run right, however after only 3 1/2 years, I found that milk I had bought the day before had curdled and my butter was soft. The freezer section had thawed out food in it. I immediately called GE, certain that it probably was the compressor and happily the compressor had a warranty for five years. To your credit, a service man came the next day, replaced a computer board that controlled the self defrost mechanism and told us not to plug it back in for 24 hours. It was not the compressor. That 20-minute visit and repair cost us almost $300.00. When I complained that this was one-third the price we paid for it, he suggested I buy a service contract for about that same amount. My husband and I are retired. WE
cannot afford to pay $1000.00 for a refrigerator and then another $600.00 to keep it running. That weekend, after shopping for the week, we went away for four days certain that the refrigerator was working well. When we got back, about $100.00 worth of groceries was rotting away in my hot refrigerator. I called Service immediately. Apparently the first person did not notice that the "sensor" was the real problem and this new man replaced that. This morning I woke up to a freezer with ice in it despite the new self-defrosting computer chip. Probably I can keep calling until someone admits it probably is the compressor and replace it rather than trying to get out of the warranty.
I find these practices intolerable. These expensive items should last for over 3 years and if they aren't made to last, then the consumer should be told so we can find a product that is decently made.
My story is not over. Eight months ago I bought two new dishwashers (one had lasted 30 years, the other just under 18). One dishwasher became increasingly difficult to close the door on until I couldn't get it to run at all. The other one had too much water left in the tub at the end of each cycle. Fortunately, I was still under Warranty and to your credit again, someone came right out. He readjusted some things claiming they weren't put in right, blaming it on the installers. I did not have to pay, but he did inform me that if they weren't under warranty, I would have paid $120.00 EACH machine just for him to do about 5 minutes worth of readjusting. Needless to say, I will never buy another GE product. Maybe this is not a big loss to your company, but I am not going to leave it there. I think we consumers are lemmings.
I intend to send a copy of this letter to my congressmen, to ARRP and maybe start a class action suit against the unfair hidden costs of owning an appliance from GE such as Warranties that cover nothing, outrageous service contract prices and most of all the inferior nature of all products. I think I should be paid for the extra monies I have had to put out because I chose to believe you made a good product, not to mention the loss of my groceries and my time and inconvenience. I consider your advertising fraudulent. You make a substandard product and don't stand behind it. I just read where your CEO makes 20 million a year in bonuses. He does not deserve it!!!
The best thing I can say about your company is that your service department responds rapidly, but then why not, they are making a bundle out of every product you sale. SINCERELY, LUCIA D’ANGELO
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