Twitter: @homedepot
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/homedepot
Mr. Frank Blake
CEO Home Depot
Dear Mr. Blake:
Thank you in advance for reading this letter. As an
executive who earns over $10.6 million a year, I would guess you are a busy
man. I earn far less, but rest assured,
I am just as busy as you are, so since I’ve taken the time out of my life to
have this experience with your company, I would appreciate you taking the time
out of yours to read it.
Last year, I bought a new LG dishwasher from the Home Depot
store in Maple Grove . The
dishwasher had a price tag of $1,099.
I felt like it was a really high price to pay for a unit, but I had
previously bought an LG front loading washer and LG front loading dryer (to the
tune of $1,000 each, also from the same Home Depot store) several years prior
and love them, so figured my loyalty was well placed.
When I made the purchase, I also purchased the extended
warranty. I do not recall off hand how much this was, but it wasn’t cheap.
One morning a few short months later, I stepped into my
kitchen to find our recycled tobacco barn wood floors soaking wet. You can imagine my dismay. I ran downstairs to the basement, to find
water had been running down the walls and all over the floor. The obvious culprit was the dishwasher.
I called Home Depot, and was immediately put in contact with
the warranty division. Yay! The odd thing was, I learned that day that
Home Depot actually sells the service contract that I entered into with Home
Depot to another company. No worries,
I’m sure it was in the fine print of the warranty contract (boo!). Two weeks
later, a repairman came out on September
15, 2011 , and could not find the problem. It was odd, because the dishwasher did quit
leaking at that time, but then REALLY leaked again less than two months later
in November of 2011. Water once again
went everywhere.
By this time, our floors had started to rot, and the planks
had swollen when wet and pushed other boards out of alignment, bad enough that
our pantry door would no longer shut.
Eventually they dried out, which means that they are now warped and
misshapened.
Again, the repairman came, looked around, looked under the
unit, but did not take anything apart.
His diagnosis this time was that there was a small inexpensive part that
had failed, and he replaced it.
Fast forward to 2012, and the dishwasher started leaking
again. Continuously. Once again, our floors have been soaked. At this point, I became quite
frustrated. I called again, and was told
that there had to be three service calls made before a unit could be deemed unfixable. Fine.
The repairman came out again. Still
couldn’t find anything wrong. Right
before Easter, it happened again. I
called again. This time it was a
different tech from the same company, and he couldn’t find the records of their
previous visits. His diagnosis was that
the unit was not level, which was causing the leaking.
Three days later, on a Saturday morning, the dishwasher
started leaking on the floors and down the walls again. I called and was told that another repair
visit would need to be scheduled, and although this was now going to be our
fifth repair visit for the same issue, it could not be deemed unfixable unless
the repairman made that call while he was there. Because that’s the policy, and policies mean
that’s just the way it is, regardless of the circumstances, right?
I very angrily questioned why four visits are required (and
we had already hit that number) when the Home Depot policy listed three, and I
was told that A & E (the company that services the Home Depot extended
warranty contracts) policy is four visits and that it “supercedes” the Home
Depot Policy that I purchased.
Really!
In reality, five visits are required, because a claim could
not be made until the repairman is out at the site, which means he had to come
back again.
Well, I’ve wasted yet another half a day. The tech arrived early, was polite, etc.,
etc., and this time he actually took apart the door. First time in five service calls that anyone
has actually done this. He says he has
found the leak. Sounds good, but I’ve
heard this before!
Next step? He has to
call at least four different people while at my home to argue about who is
going to pay for the part and who is going to pay for the labor, because in the
end, no one wants to. He’s uncomfortable,
frustrated and so am I.
Now, here we sit again, because the part has to be shipped
and the earliest they can come after delivery is Friday, May 4th.
So in the year that I have had this dishwasher that I paid
over $1,000 for, plus more than that when you include the extended warranty, I
have an estimated damage to my kitchen floors for nearly $3,000, and I have
approximately seven months out of that year where the dishwasher has either
been leaking or we couldn’t use it because we were waiting for service.
I cannot even begin to tell you how disappointed, disgusted,
mad, angry, frustrated and just plain old ticked off I am about all of
this. I completely feel like this whole
extended warranty is a scam, and that all of you just hope that we get
frustrated enough that we will just go buy a new dishwasher. Every time I even think about this my blood
pressure rises and I get upset.
I feel that throughout this entire process, the customer is
the one who matters the least. Customer
service calls are sent to India or some other country, and the person on the
other end of the line has absolutely no ability or authority to actually fix my
problem, they can only repeat the policies that make no sense, that do not take
anything into consideration other than “the fine print”, and it is frustrating
beyond belief.
I am pleading with you to make this experience
different. After five service calls
within one year of a major purchase that INCLUDED an extended warranty, I
deserve to be treated better than this.
I wouldn’t even ask to have our floors fixed (and by the way we are glad
we haven’t had them fixed yet anyway, because they would just be getting ruined
repeatedly), but I do expect Home Depot to stand behind their warranty and
replace my barely one year old lemon of a dishwasher with either a credit for
the full price plus the warranty and sales tax, or a brand new (not
refurbished) replacement dishwasher.
Before I spend another two weeks washing every dish and glass for a
family of four by hand.
Sincerely,
Maris Murphy Ehlers
Disappointed Home Depot Customer
763-370-4704 (763-498-7509 home)
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