Among the things that you probably can’t live without is a working refrigerator. One of our viewers went more than three months without one until she called our NBC10 Boston Responds team for help.
Patty Park has been using her pricey LG refrigerator for storage. It stopped working months ago.
“End of November we noticed some issues with it - melty ice cream,” said Park. “It got worse and worse and worse. And then we realized the refrigerator started to lose coolness. It would be off by 20/30 degrees.”
The refrigerator was not even two and a half years old, but it had a ten year LG warranty, so Patty called the company.
“They gave me the name of a company that came and they determined that it was leaking coolant, and unfortunately they could not fix it, because they are not a sealed system service repair company, and that started the whole impossible ball rolling because finding a tech who is a sealed system tech is very, very difficult,” said Park.
Patty called all of the companies that LG recommended, but none of them could do the cooling system repair on her refrigerator. She says they told her they either didn’t work on these systems, or she was outside of their service area, or they only fixed refrigerators that they sold.
“I have spent hours with technicians, hours on the phone scheduling with technicians, hours on hold with LG, hours on hold with customer service and then speaking with customer service going nowhere fast,” said Park.
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“They couldn’t find anyone. If a company cannot even provide someone to fix your fridge, then they should replace it, and it should not be so hard to either replace or refund the money.”
Frustrated, after three months without a refrigerator, and with no resolution in sight, Patty contacted NBC10 Boston Responds for help. We reached out to LG and asked them to take a look at Patty’s complaint. Within a week, LG got back to her, offering a full refund.
LG tells NBC10 Boston: ‘Thank you to NBC10 Boston Responds for calling Ms. Park’s issue to our attention. While it’s not our policy to comment publicly on details involving individual customer cases, we hope that this issue was resolved to her satisfaction.”
Patty got a check for $2,969.68 and she now has a new Frigidaire Pro.
“They did the right thing in the end, but it was a very long process, and it shouldn’t be this long and this hard,” said Park. “I’m glad to have one of the big ticket items on my pain in the neck list removed, so thank you NBC.”
Patty says she has learned a lot from this experience: Before you buy an expensive appliance, compare the details of the store’s extended warranty versus the manufacturer’s warranty; ask a lot of questions; and be sure to check online product reviews, looking specifically for customer service feedback.
