Mike writes that his parents came home one day to discover that the pretty black decorative glass on their oven door had broken into thousands of tiny black decorative glass shards. The stove was out of warranty, but they tried to contact GE anyway. After Mike learned about the situation, he posted to Twitter about it, hoping that GE might have some kind of special social media team scouring the Internet for dissatisfied customers. They did. [More]
appliances
Samsung's Kafkaesque Refrigerator Executive Customer Service Runaround
By 9.9.10
Jason’s story about his Samsung refrigerator seems, for the first few paragraphs, to be a relatively mundane incident involving a customer who is (justifiably) annoyed when some relatively small features of his $2,700 refrigerator kept breaking, requiring repairs. But when the icemaker and the entire freezer began to fail, Jason’s story took a different turn. A repairman encouraged him to seek a replacement for the frequently failing fridge, which he did. Now his quest for a new fridge looks more like a part-time job, and Samsung’s executive customer service is beginning to look like … regular customer service. [More]
Haggle With The Manager Of Lowe's, Get A Great Deal On A Fridge
By 7.27.10
Rissa writes in to let us know that you can get a great deal by haggling a little bit with the manager of Lowe’s. [More]
How Many BTUs Does My Air Conditioner Need?
By 7.6.10
“It is hot up in the biznasty,” you may find yourself saying as the heat wave blankets your town in boiling sun rays. Air conditioning is your primary defense against this scourge and you may need to buy a new one or upgrade an old one. The first question is how many BTUs do you need? This handy chart helps you figure that out: [More]
Lazy Delivery Guys Left Appliances In Our Garage
By 6.28.10
Candice and Ryo hit up an Oregon Best Buy on May 2 and dropped more than $5,000 to fill their home with a range, microwave, refrigerator, dishwasher, washing machine and dryer. Now it’s almost July and due to a number of delays the couple still doesn’t have half of their appliances. Even some of the ones they do have are unusable because the delivery guys judged that the boxes were too large to fit through the door so they just left them in the garage. [More]
Need A Blender? Here Are The Ones Consumer Reports Likes
By 5.31.10
Consumer Reports recently tested the drink-making abilities of over 40 blenders, and then they passed out in a pool of frozen margarita. But seriously folks, you don’t need to spend $400 on a Blendtec “Total Blender”–there’s a $40 Oster model “did just as well.” [More]
New Twitter Friend At Sears Helps Reader Get New Dishwasher
By 4.22.10
Remember Bob? He had an extended warranty on his Kenmore dishwasher, and Sears decided that it would much rather send repairman after repairman to fix his defective dishwasher–and reimburse him to pay someone to wash his dishes. Between following Doug Moore, SVP and President of Appliances on Twitter and writing to Consumerist, Bob is getting a new dishwasher. A functioning dishwasher. [More]
Energy Star Introduces Stricter Rules In Attempt To Prevent Cheating
By 4.19.10
Last year the Department of Energy, which co-administers the Energy Star certification program with the EPA, admitted that it allows many companies to certify their goods themselves. That was somewhat worrying, but nothing like what happened earlier this year when government auditors successfully got ludicrously power-hungry designs approved for the Energy Star label. The EPA and Energy Department have responded by announcing a new, stricter certification process. [More]
Will Massachusetts' Rebate Program Last More Than A Day?
By 4.18.10
After the success of appliance rebate programs in other states, Massachusetts is giving the cash for clunkers idea a go. The state will launch its own rebate program on Earth day, April 22, in a bid to get consumers to trade in energy draining appliances for more efficient models. Similar programs in Illinois and Florida were so popular, consumers drained the allotted budgets for the rebates in 11 hours in Illinois and in Florida’s case, about two days. [More]
Sears Spares No Expense To Not Give You A New Dishwasher
By 4.16.10
Bob tells Consumerist that his Kenmore dishwasher has several times due to the same problem–caused, according to one repairman, by a design flaw. It seems that it would be more cost-effective for Sears to replace his dishwasher with one that does not randomly die. Sears does not agree, and requires that an appliance fail four times due to the same problem in the course of a year before it can be replaced. When Bob complained to Sears about his issues, they offered to reimburse him to pay someone to wash his dishes. [More]
How To Take Care Of Your Dishwasher, Washing Machine, And Oven
By 3.15.10
My friends broke the high-efficiency (H.E.) washing machine in their new apartment last year because they were using too much soap. Alina Tugend at the New York Times says it’s a common problem–one repairman told her that “most people use 10 to 15 times the amount of soap they need.” [More]
Cuisinart Decides Maine's Consumer Protection Laws Don't Apply
By 1.30.10
Cuisinart doesn’t just ignore consumer protection laws in California–reader Eatswell reports that Cuisinart has decided that the strong implied warranty laws in Maine don’t actually applied to them. Stuck with a non-working coffeemaker, Eatswell wants to fight back. [More]
Rent Out Your Household Items For Fun And Profit
By 1.28.10
What items do you keep around your house, but don’t use very often? A shovel? A laundry drying rack? A food processor? What if you could rent these items out to people in your area, and in turn rent seldom-used items from them for a few dollars? Rentalic.com is trying to make these exchanges happen nationwide. [More]
Should Home Depot Tell People This Freezer Has No Warranty?
By 1.28.10
Braxton came across a great deal while shopping for a new freezer. However, being a good Consumerist, he writes that he went home and researched the product before handing over any money. What he learned was that the freezer had no warranty…a fact that Home Depot conveniently forgot to disclose. [More]
Sears Loses Track Of Inventory, Loses Freezer Sale
By 1.24.10
Rosemarie very optimistically ordered a new freezer from Sears’ web site. She writes that she had every reason to believe that she would actually receive a freezer on the day she chose–yesterday, Saturday, January 23rd. The site told her that this particular freezer was in stock and could be delivered on the 23rd. Great! Except the freezer somehow mysteriously went out of stock in the next 24 hours, and Rosemary’s delivery was delayed for three weeks. [More]
Energy Star Program Relies On Honor System For Some Products
By 10.19.09
Your new washer, dryer, fridge, monitor, or TV set may have an Energy Star label on it, but it turns out that nobody is making sure that means anything, reports the New York Times. Our parent organization Consumer Reports pointed out that this was a problem a year ago.
Energy-Efficient Appliance Rebate Program Still Lacks Catchy Name
By 10.16.09
The main problem with the energy-efficient rebate program the federal government has planned is that it just doesn’t have a catchy enough name, editors’ and bloggers’ efforts notwithstanding. Dollars for Dishwashers? Cash for Kelvinators? Even its official acronym, SEEARP (State Energy Efficient Appliance Rebate Program) isn’t very mellifluous even if you belch it.
Best Buy: All The Appliances In Your House Must Break 4 Times Before We Replace Them
By 10.5.09
James Lileks bought some fancy-ass Electrolux appliances from Best Buy. Unfortunately. they’ve turned out to be a bit of a headache. Mr. Lileks thought perhaps since he was a valuable customer who bought fancy-ass items, Best Buy would help him out and swap the problematic dishwasher for a more reliable cheaper brand (turns out that that the washer’s control panel is susceptible to moisture, of all things.) He was wrong. They’d rather keep fixing it. Over. And Over. And Over.
