Statewide Appliance Services

When we moved to our new house, we immediately noticed that the oven was not heating properly. Even when we set the dial to 550 F, the oven would get only medium warm. Food was taking twice as long to cook as it should. We bought an oven thermometer, and this confirmed that the temperature was only reaching about 300. We contacted our home warranty company, and they arranged for Statewide to service the oven. A technician named Alex was sent out. When I told him about the problem, he immediately said (without even touching the oven) that the oven was heating fine, it was just my oven thermometer that was off. I told him we were certain the thermometer was not the problem. He then tried turning the oven on and off three times, leaving it on for a few seconds each time, and announced that the ignitor was working find and he didn't see a problem. I repeated that the problem was not with the ignitor, the problem was that the oven wasn't heating to the right temperature. He informed me that when you open the oven door, the heat comes out, so maybe I should open the oven door less. I asked about replacing the thermostat and he said that wouldn't help. I asked in exasperation, "so there's no way to get this oven to heat above 300?" and he again suggested that my oven thermometer wasn't calibrated right. He then tried to collect a $60 service fee for coming out. I refused to pay. At no point during the service call did he actually try heating the oven to a particular temperature to see if it worked. Overall, this was the most bizarre interaction I have ever had with a service technician. The following week, the home warranty company sent a technician from another company, who spent about 5 minutes and found that the control panel was not functioning properly (possibly some loose connections), so he went on to order a replacement panel. Statewide's technician never even considered the control panel.