- 注册
- 2002-10-07
- 消息
- 402,179
- 荣誉分数
- 76
- 声望点数
- 0
Marina Mancini spent $2,000 on a high-end stove in November 2014.
Today, she’s ready to drag the thing from her kitchen and leave it at the end of the driveway, where it can die a quiet death in deepest Orléans. “Horrible,” she calls it.
In this hi-tech, gadget-filled world, just about everybody is at war with a device or two. Because they break. But Mancini’s trials with the Kenmore Elite take the cake, which she can’t bake, because the oven doesn’t work, because the outer glass broke as the technician was fixing the broken fan — and the broken oven-door handle — because she had to duct-tape it back on, after burning her hands on the stove top, because the hot-element indicator was broken.
“I’m done with it,” she said Tuesday.
It is a long story — her summary (even, in point form) — is 2,993 words. So, we just had to visit the black-hearted beast.
The problems began a year after she purchased the stove, which a dark glass top and a control console from Apollo 13. The stove stop is supposed to indicate “HE” during the cooling period after the element is off.
This is a precaution so the user doesn’t put a hand on the hot surface. The warning wasn’t working. So she accidentally scorched her hand, twice. Then her son, using the overhead microwave, put an oven mitt on the supposedly cold surface until the mitt began to smoulder.
She called Regional Appliance to have it repaired. The first technician replaced a rear electrical panel but noticed an internal fan wasn’t working. A second technician arrived Dec. 15, according to her notes (and she keeps careful ones). Turns out it was more than just the fan, but possibly another computer panel, which he couldn’t fix that day.
She was told not to use the oven. Small problem: Christmas was coming up and 28 guests were invited. Mancini, 55, said she made numerous calls to Regional between Dec. 15 and 24, when it became clear Santa was getting no cookies from this oven.
“It was really embarrasing,” she said, of her fall-back plan. One girlfriend cooked a ham, another cooked a turkey, and various family members cooked in their homes, with all the courses airlifted to her home for Christmas dinner. “About all I could do was boil potatoes.”
The so-called “third tech” showed up in January, but with only half the required parts. There were further miscommunications and delays in ordering broken panels.
On March 29, the front door handle came off entirely. On April 1 — and it had to be April Fool’s Day — the “third tech” arrived to temporarily repair the handle and work on the other unfixable issues. While pushing the stove back, the front glass shattered.
“We spent 45 minutes cleaning up shards of glass that I am still finding to this day.”
And, guess what? The stove still didn’t work properly. To this day, the HE warning does not always come on.
Mancini, a high-tech worker, had by now seen enough. She wanted Sears to replace the stove. Think of it: it was almost six months after the first problem surfaced, she had gone 55 days without an oven, there had been at least five visits by technicians, at least 29 phone calls, and she still didn’t feel safe using the appliance.
She pleaded with Sears, which sells under the Kenmore badge. She had been a loyal customer for about 30 years and had spent close to $10,000 in the preceeding 18 months on new appliances (stove, fridge, dishwasher, microwave, vacuum cleaner, washer, dryer).
Did she not deserve better?
Thereupon followed a game of ping-pong between Regional, Sears, “buy out” and customer service departments, all in an effort to rid herself of this lemon.
“I have expended much effort, numerous hours off work, (including missed or having to reschedule business meetings), and hours on the phone, just trying to get a resolution to this problem,” she writes.
She ended her plea by asking for a full refund of $2,258.87 and expressing a desire never to buy an appliance at Sears again, despite her previous good experience with the store.
Well, miracles never cease, do they? A couple of hours after the Citizen left her home, a representative from executive alley was on the phone with Mancini, offering her a brand new, five-burner Kenmore Elite. It should be delivered next week.
Meanwhile, there’s this good news. “At least it’s barbecue season.”
To contact Kelly Egan, please call 613-726-5896 or email kegan@postmedia.com
查看原文...
Today, she’s ready to drag the thing from her kitchen and leave it at the end of the driveway, where it can die a quiet death in deepest Orléans. “Horrible,” she calls it.
In this hi-tech, gadget-filled world, just about everybody is at war with a device or two. Because they break. But Mancini’s trials with the Kenmore Elite take the cake, which she can’t bake, because the oven doesn’t work, because the outer glass broke as the technician was fixing the broken fan — and the broken oven-door handle — because she had to duct-tape it back on, after burning her hands on the stove top, because the hot-element indicator was broken.
“I’m done with it,” she said Tuesday.
It is a long story — her summary (even, in point form) — is 2,993 words. So, we just had to visit the black-hearted beast.
The problems began a year after she purchased the stove, which a dark glass top and a control console from Apollo 13. The stove stop is supposed to indicate “HE” during the cooling period after the element is off.
This is a precaution so the user doesn’t put a hand on the hot surface. The warning wasn’t working. So she accidentally scorched her hand, twice. Then her son, using the overhead microwave, put an oven mitt on the supposedly cold surface until the mitt began to smoulder.
She called Regional Appliance to have it repaired. The first technician replaced a rear electrical panel but noticed an internal fan wasn’t working. A second technician arrived Dec. 15, according to her notes (and she keeps careful ones). Turns out it was more than just the fan, but possibly another computer panel, which he couldn’t fix that day.
She was told not to use the oven. Small problem: Christmas was coming up and 28 guests were invited. Mancini, 55, said she made numerous calls to Regional between Dec. 15 and 24, when it became clear Santa was getting no cookies from this oven.
“It was really embarrasing,” she said, of her fall-back plan. One girlfriend cooked a ham, another cooked a turkey, and various family members cooked in their homes, with all the courses airlifted to her home for Christmas dinner. “About all I could do was boil potatoes.”
The so-called “third tech” showed up in January, but with only half the required parts. There were further miscommunications and delays in ordering broken panels.
On March 29, the front door handle came off entirely. On April 1 — and it had to be April Fool’s Day — the “third tech” arrived to temporarily repair the handle and work on the other unfixable issues. While pushing the stove back, the front glass shattered.
“We spent 45 minutes cleaning up shards of glass that I am still finding to this day.”
And, guess what? The stove still didn’t work properly. To this day, the HE warning does not always come on.
Mancini, a high-tech worker, had by now seen enough. She wanted Sears to replace the stove. Think of it: it was almost six months after the first problem surfaced, she had gone 55 days without an oven, there had been at least five visits by technicians, at least 29 phone calls, and she still didn’t feel safe using the appliance.
She pleaded with Sears, which sells under the Kenmore badge. She had been a loyal customer for about 30 years and had spent close to $10,000 in the preceeding 18 months on new appliances (stove, fridge, dishwasher, microwave, vacuum cleaner, washer, dryer).
Did she not deserve better?
Thereupon followed a game of ping-pong between Regional, Sears, “buy out” and customer service departments, all in an effort to rid herself of this lemon.
“I have expended much effort, numerous hours off work, (including missed or having to reschedule business meetings), and hours on the phone, just trying to get a resolution to this problem,” she writes.
She ended her plea by asking for a full refund of $2,258.87 and expressing a desire never to buy an appliance at Sears again, despite her previous good experience with the store.
Well, miracles never cease, do they? A couple of hours after the Citizen left her home, a representative from executive alley was on the phone with Mancini, offering her a brand new, five-burner Kenmore Elite. It should be delivered next week.
Meanwhile, there’s this good news. “At least it’s barbecue season.”
To contact Kelly Egan, please call 613-726-5896 or email kegan@postmedia.com
查看原文...
