To say that Paul is upset about his refrigerator would be an understatement.
8 weeks ago he bought a GE fridge from Home Depot.
According to Paul’s blog, “Over the telephone GE has repeatedly told me that my GE refrigerator is operating normally and is safe to use even though the freezer temperature goes into the 40s and the refrigerator temperature goes into the 60s.” Well, Paul. That GE CSR is completely full of crap. According to the USDA, foods held at temperatures above 40
F for more than 2 hours should not be consumed. Got that, GE?
Read Paul’s complaint inside.
Paul writes on his blog:
Eight weeks ago, we purchased a brand new GE refrigerator from Home Depot.com. Over the telephone GE has repeatedly told me that my GE refrigerator is operating normally and is safe to use even though the freezer temperature goes into the 40s and the refrigerator temperature goes into the 60s. The last GE service technician to visit said he would not use the refrigerator but could not find the problem. Given that I never know if, when, or for how long the refrigerator will fail I will not trust this unit again.
We have lost hundreds of dollars worth of food, hours worth of time, and weeks of frustration. We currently have no food that requires refrigeration or freezing.
Two service technicians have looked at our refrigerator. The first said he fixed the problem by replacing the power control board. With a few days it failed again. During the second failure the ice cream in the freezer turned to a liquid, soaked through the cardboard container and formed a puddle. I don’t know how long this takes but I would not be surprised if the freezer had been above freezing for days. (Our house has had uninterrupted power for years. If our house had lost power, several of our clocks would have needed resetting.)
Everyone I have talked to at GE says they will not help us. They say the refrigerator may never rise above the appropriate temperatures again. Our refrigerator works to GE’s standard of quality. I still can not believe this is actually the position of the GE corporation. I explicitly asked my headquarters case manager, Richard, if this just his position or if it was GE’s. He indicated it was GE’s. I said since this is a matter of my family’s safety and I found this position untenable for a respectable American corporation, I wanted it in writing. I asked the manager to fax this statement to me. He would not. I asked for it in an email or in postal mail. He said he would never put anything in writing.
Unlike most appliances, a refrigerator is responsible for the safety of our food and thus the safety of my family. When I told my headquarters case manager, that I could no longer use the refrigerator because I believe to do so at this point may endanger my family, he told me of course I could indeed use the refrigerator because anyone would be able to visually inspect the food and tell if it looked bad. After the first failure we called the product safety line of a major food manufacturer and they told us a different story. I believe my GE appliance is unsafe. He reiterated his point that my refrigerator is working fine.
I consider GE’s position appalling and unacceptable. (I have told GE’s representatives exactly this repeatedly.) If you are considering purchasing a GE refrigerator, do you expect to repeatedly lose your food in the first few weeks, be told it’s the consumer’s responsibility to continually monitor functioning of the appliance? Is this what you expect from GE’s standard of quality?
Why don’t I just sell the refrigerator and purchase a reliable brand? I believe this product may put the safety of my family at risk. I don’t see how I could sell it if it is going to put the safety of others at risk.
If I had called GE for repairs and was informed they were bankrupt, I would be disappointed but could accept the financial loss and purchase a new refrigerator. However, I am continually perplexed and aggravated because I consider their position morally bankrupt. How can a trusted American icon behave like this?
Please warn others who are considering purchasing a GE refrigerator. I am very curious to know what you think. Do you have any suggestions of what steps I should take next?
Might it be easier to deal with Home Depot? Just a thought. —MEGHANN MARCO
My GE Refrigerator – Is it safe?
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This reminded me of when my fridge burned out its defroster element or w/e, my landlord told me to go to Home Depot and get an outlet to cycle the fridge off every few hours so it would defrost…
I had a very similar problem with a Frigidair refrigerator. Tis was a vcery expensive, side by side model. The first one wouldn’t go below 45 degrees in the refrigerator and 20 degraees in the freezer. They sent me another one, and that one would get below freezing in the freezer, but onle 37 degrees in the refrig. My wife wanted to set it to 34 degrees. After going round and round with the company, my wife finally talked with one of the engineers with the company and he revealed that the company had decided to limit the temperature in the refrig because some customers had complained that their refrig got too cold. I guess they didn’t know how to raise the temperature with the controls. I finally sent the Frigidair back and bought a Kitchen Aid. No problems. Because of this stupid company policy, they lost a sale.
First) With all the monies that GE makes, treatment like this is shameful. If you recall I believe the CEO there was paid really really high.
Second) I have worked with Home Depot business to business with not much success. They are a little more accommodating with non-business customers. I would take the refrigerator there on a busy day. Take there in a truck and wheel it in with your purchase receipt. Then have the truck go away and say that your neighbors drove you there and had to go so I have no way to get this out of here. Get the store manager, talk loudly but don’t shout and I would bet that they might just return the refrigerator like they would return a broken power drill.
Third) Contact the BBB.I had faulty stove grates and I just found the corporate office of the stove manufacturer and submitted an online Better Business Form coinciding with the BBB office of the corporate office headquarters of my stove manufacturer. I filled that out online and did nothing and three weeks later my new grates arrived in the mail.
I recently decided to buy a new washer and dryer as my old ones were giving out. I’d shopped around, and finally found a decent deal on some high efficiency units at Home Depot and decided to make my purchase.
The guy who filled out my order didn’t seem as professional as the place I usually make these types of purchases. I’d pointed out to him that I live outside the city and wouldn’t need to pay city sales tax on the purchase since it’s delivered to my residence (the other store always seems to know this.) The guy took his time filling out paperwork, brought it over and I notice that he charged me the city’s tax rate even though I’d just explained the situation to him.
I pointed out his error and he said he would guarantee me that nobody in the store knew how to run the software correctly to change the tax rate, so he put in some sort of wacky rebate into the system to make up the difference and reprinted the paperwork.
When I went up front to pay, they couldn’t ring it up correctly because their system said I was supposed to have a coupon. (As it turns out, this wasn’t the instead-of-tax rebate that was asking for the coupon, it was the sale they were having. And, no, there was no actual coupon.) I was bounced to the service desk, and they eventually brought over a manager who did manage to re-fill out the order so that it was all entered correctly. That took way too long, and I was really not impressed with the general cluelessness of everyone I was talking to about how to properly sell large appliances.
Finally, as I’m just about ready to leave, the girl at the service desk tells me I’ll have to re-sign the contract here on the third (or fourth or whatever) order that they’ve printed up. I looked at her. “Re-sign? What is this?”
Apparently the original salesperson was supposed to have had me sign this document. It was a contract including things like how I had X business days to rescind the purchase after which time if I decided to return the appliances I’d be stuck with a hefty re-stocking fee. And a good number of other items.
Let’s just say I’m pretty non-plussed when people try to slip me contracts to quickly sign at the last minute… I did sign it, though.
I left the store with a pretty bad taste in my mouth. That night I was thinking about it. If they can’t even figure out how to enter orders… do I really want to trust them to move, set-up, and, if necessary, support my new appliances?
Since their paperwork had put the idea into my mind, I decided to go back the very next day, cancel my order, and get the charge on my credit card reversed. (I don’t know if they work on commissions… but nobody there deserved one.) Thankfully, I didn’t have to deal with any of the myriad of employees I’d dealt with the day before. After I repeated forcefully to a service desk minion that I NEEDED TO CANCEL THIS ORDER he decided to do just that for me (he seemed reluctant to do so at first.)
I generally don’t like to make returns, and that really stands alone as the only sort of large purchase I’ve gone back on. Sorry, Home Depot. If you want me to have any confidence in you, it would help if you’d try to display an air of professionalism and competence.
GE Refrigerator: GSH22JFTA
I would NOT recommend purchasing this refrigerator from anywhere. We had the frig delivered and phoned the Home Depot in Blue Ridge after two weeks to come and pick it up. They would not honor their return policy according to the manager of the store. These are the things we had a problem with and are still having a problem with. Clear plastic came out of the ice maker with the ice into drink glasses!!!!! Then, metal pieces started coming out. Parts of the frig are so cold, you dare not put vegetables other than in the drawer, otherwise they will be frozen, even on the second to warmest setting! Then, forget using the snack drawer. The stuff goes bad in half the time as our old frig’s deli/snack drawer! Oh, and forget the electricity savings you’re supposed to get. We had a 15-year-old frig, same size as the new one, and our electricity bill is $20 more per month! We never added any new electronics, but our usage has gone up enough to impact our bill by $20 a month! So much for “saving” money on electricity every month! And, lastly, every time I open the frig door, something falls out. The rounded shelves do not give you an optimum place to put things. So, if anything is on the edge between the glass and the white plastic edging, forget it… it WILL fall out when you open the door. This thing is a piece of junk. I am sorry I bought this frig and didn’t fix the old one. We spent $1,000 on this piece of crap! And, we made sure to get the four-year extended warranty, because who knows what is going to happen to it next!
We are currently going through an unbelievably bad experience with our GE profile 3 door stainless steel piece of crap. We purchased it just over a year ago at Home Depot. It quit working at 13 months. We also purchased an extended warranty which we usually do not do. The Profile line is supposed to have a 10 year warranty on the sealed system–twice the 5 year on their regular line. Warranty is not worth ****. Also the extended warranty is useless. The temperatures started going up and the freezer would not freeze. After 7 service calls(2 power boards, compressor, drier, etc.) and going on 8 weeks the stupid thing is still not working. Last repairman said it was going to be replaced and that GE would call in a couple of days. He said there was a restriction in the coolant tube just above the compressor and it could not be fixed without taking the whole sealed system out and that wasn’t a field job. GE called and said that they were going to try to fix it again. My husband blew up and went to Home Depot. They calmed him down, gave him a tiny dorm fridge and said that they’d take care of this. Is the dorm frige my replacement? They got on the phone and talked with GE and set another appointment for another repair person to come out to see if it was junk or not. GE has absolutely no record of the last repairman coming to our house or the fact that he said it was junk. WHAT??? I submitted our complaint to the Attorney General and got a form letter telling us that we needed a lawyer and they couldn’t help us. Duh. I have had countless hours of wasted time waiting for RUDE repairmen saying that they’d be there between 8am and 5pm.Two out of seven were polite. One of them sent the first set of parts back because my husband called him after a week to see if he was still coming out. I’ve also been frustrated to the point of tears trying to get this matter resolved for the last 8 weeks and nothing has changed. We have suffered through the hottest months of the year without a fridge or ice. The worst part of this whole scenario is the fact that I purchased 6 matching GE Profile appliances to do our kitchen remodel and we are now using a dorm fridge. What happens when the other 5 go out? Guess it’ll be a matched set of junk. Totally frustrated. I am once again waiting for the next set of repair people to come out today to try to fix this broken thing that is in even worse shape than it was before they started to fix it. The door has a small dent in it now, and one of the brackets on the back is broken off from being taken apart so much, and the copper pipe with the restriction has sawed off and taken away by a repairman that GE has no record of. Waiting again.