Doug just wants his dishwasher to burn his house down. He adds an expletive before house in his letter, but this is a family blog, after all. The CPSC sent Doug a letter telling him to contact GE as he had a dishwasher affected by the recall. One case of the dishwasher catching on fire and causing minor property damage was reported, but GE didn’t seem to care much, submitting Doug to a byzantine maze of rotting phone trees and callous reps. It was only after Doug lied to the phone tree was he able to get traction on his issue.

He also sent us the CPSC letter, click on it to expand, which includes his notes he took as he proceeded through the six maddening calls, which gave us a schadenfreude chuckle inside in our blackened heart. Read his letter inside.

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Doug writes:

“Greeting Consumerist!

I have had a wonderful time this AM trying to get GE to take care of a little problem with my dishwasher that could burn my fucking house down. It only took six phone calls to find out I would have to wait for the part to be shipped to me and a local shop is supposedly going to contact me to install the new part.

Attached is the CPSC letter regarding the small flaw that could burn my fucking house down. Starting early today, I called the GE 800 number provided, I danced through a number of menus narrowing down the model is question. I of course had to repeat all of this when I actually got a human on the line. Dee was friendly enough but she told me that there is no GE service center in my area (Boise, ID) so I would have to call another number “that opens in half an hour” to get a local authorized center to perform the work. Turns out Dee was wrong about both the number and time of opening (an hour and a half later) but I guess she has to go with what they give her.

My frustration at this second number being closed could have been abated by the GE “Cutting Edge” automated service call system. If cutting edge means that music runs over the menus and the computer could not understand my inputs, then cutting edge it is. I rolled the dice and hit the “0” ending up in a call queue, which my computerized friend told me of a wait of no more than five minutes, which ended up being about ten.

Paola who eventually answered was the low point. After reciting my basic info, it became obvious that they had all for the info in their database… well about me at least. Paola seemed willfully ignorant of the 75 Thousand dishwashers affected by this recall. She then proceeded to grill me about the service contract she could tell from her database I did not have. No contract, no service. WTF? So I gently advised her that I had a letter from the United States Government telling me GE would fix this little problem that could burn my fucking house down. She the informed me that it is actually Consumer Relations that handles out of warranty-no service contract-recall issues and would transfer me, and she promptly hung up on me.

I took a deep breath, wandered around my desk muttering about GE, hopeful that Paola would recognize here error and call me back since she had confirmed my phone number moments before. No such luck. After taking a few to compose myself, since I had wasted about 30 minutes on this I called back and tried the automated system again. The computer told me that there was no one in my area to service me and hung up on me. Shit.

Trying yet again, sixth call (and seriously considering going out an just buying another damn dishwasher) I managed to fool that old computer by using the “already have a service scheduled” prompt. I was lucky to get William who, unlike Paola, was clear on the situation. He managed to transfer me to Customer Relations successfully but he had given me the direct number as well, just in case.

10 minutes on hold, 15, 20… Lenice in Customer Relations picked up, and I go through my spiel again, Lenice just needs phone, model and serial number. I am told for the umpteenth time that GE has no service in my area and the local authorized dealer is… wait for it… The Moth Shop? Lenice informs me she will forward my request to The Moth Shop, but the replacement part will be shipped to me since ‘They don’t like to get the parts”. “They” being independent service centers. So now I wait for parts and moths.

Over an hour of my time wasted and I still have no idea when my dishwasher will not burn my fucking house down (sorry, just love writing that). Is it really so impossible to A. Have humans answer the goddamn phone and B. Have the people on the phone know WTF they are doing? Because I’d really like to know.

Best,

D”

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