A major appliance manufacturer has backed off charging an Auckland family more than $600 to fix a faulty fridge after questions from the Herald about their plight.
Karla Knowles was told she and her husband would be charged the hefty fee to repair their broken fridge, despite a Samsung staffer admitting it had a manufacturing fault months ago.
The mum of two paid $1000 for the vertically-stacked fridge freezer about five years ago, using it without issue until February this year when the fridge part of the unit began freezing and spoiling their food, and then stopped working altogether.
"For a fridge you'd expect it to last for at least 10 years," she said.
The young mum said she felt embarrassed complaining about the fridge issue, but months of trying to get answers from the company had left her stressed and frustrated.
Because the fridge's two-year warranty had expired, Knowles didn't contact the west Auckland appliance store she bought it from, thinking they couldn't help her.
Instead she called out one of the Samsung's technicians to have a look and was willing to pay for the service.
"But when the technician came he pulled it apart and saw a hole that shouldn't be there."
The technician said it was a manufacturing fault- something the company confirmed in an email to the Herald.
The fridge was fixed once for free, which took two months, before it started acting up again and had to be taken off for a second round of repairs in May.
Several weeks later, following many phone calls checking to see whether it was fixed yet, Knowles was told the repairs would cost $621 on June 16.
She said she was never told why a fee was added and could not get a straight answer about what exactly was wrong with the fridge in the first place.
"It's a $1000 fridge, I'm not going to pay $621 after being told it was covered by the maintenance issue."
However Knowles' fortunes took a turn this week after contacting the Herald about her trouble.
On Thursday afternoon, following questions from the Herald, a Samsung staffer called to say the company would give her a new fridge of a similar make and size to the old one.
"It must have been one of the more senior complaints resolutions people," she said.
It was the first person she had spoken to who had the power to fix the problem - although he still didn't tell her what was wrong with her old fridge.
"He said you don't need to worry about your fridge now, you're getting a new one.
"I'm really happy with this. This issue has been stressing me out for months."
In a statement, Samsung admitted there had been a fault with the old fridge.
"Samsung acknowledges that the customer's fridge was affected by a manufacturing fault.
"It appears in this case our customer service fell short of expectations and the matter was not resolved in a timely fashion. Our Service Manager has contacted the customer today and apologised for the inconvenience. Samsung has also offered her a brand new replacement fridge which customer has indicated she will accept."
KNOW YOUR RIGHTS
While Knowles' warranty for the fridge had expired, she was still covered under the Consumer Guarantees Act, which says products should be of acceptable quality.
It was reasonable to assume a fridge would work for longer than five years - Consumer NZ put the reasonable life expectancy of a fridge at 15 years or more.
Consumer adviser Maggie Edwards said it was better for people to go to retailers if they were pursuing their rights under the Consumer Guarantees Act, as the retailer had more responsibilities.
However the manufacturer was still responsible for guaranteeing acceptable quality and Knowles had the right to ask for a refund.
Because the fridge was likely worthless due to being faulty, she could ask for the full $1000 back from Samsung, Edwards said.
