Samsung

Dear Angie’s List, I am in need of your assistance, please. I wish to put Samsung Appliances in your Penalty Box, and my refrigerator story follows to explain. My story contains “The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly.” Lowe’s Home Improvement is “The Good.” Frigidaire is “The Bad.” Samsung is “The Ugly.” In April of 2010, I purchased a suite of appliances from Lowe’s in Dublin, OH. This included a Frigidaire refrigerator, oven/stove, and dishwasher plus a GE microwave. In June of 2010, I noticed that the hardwood floors around the refrigerator were turning black. I felt the floor around and under the refrigerator, and discovered that the refrigerator was leaking water, but not enough at a time to flow out where I could see it. It had been soaking into my kitchen floor for two months, and the black discoloring was black mold. During the subsequent visit from the Frigidaire-designated repairman, it was determined that the refrigerator had a manufacturing defect, and was not repairable. After also having to have multiple flooring repair companies assess the damage caused by this refrigerator, my floor was also determined not to be repairable. After much fighting with Frigidaire, Lowes was finally authorized to bring me a new refrigerator in August (yes, the refrigerator continued to leak that entire time, in spite of my efforts to stop it and to minimize more floor damage.). At that time, Lowe’s upgraded me to a newly manufactured Samsung refrigerator so that I wouldn’t have to take another Frigidaire. On Memorial Day of this year (2011) and a day and a half after loading both the refrigerator and freezer sections of the Samsung refrigerator with food from a trip to Costco, the 10-month-old Samsung refrigerator quit working completely, and causing the ice in the freezer to melt and leak all over the floor as well as all the food contained within to spoil. After calling Samsung’s customer service, we were told by their designated repair company that the earliest appointment available to fix the refrigerator was two weeks away. As we had no choice, we accepted the appointment, which was to occur within a four-hour window of time. The repair company “no-showed” this appointment (they called after the four hour window had past), then told us they wouldn’t be able to make another appointment for this repair for additional week. I called Lowe’s, and they were willing to swap out the broken refrigerator with a new one of the same Samsung model, but wouldn’t have one available for another week. I agreed. I talked with Samsung’s customer service, and the only approved a credit at Lowe’s for the purchase price of the original Frigidaire, and did not agree to provide a replacement refrigerator. Lowe’s did the best they could to help me with this situation, and I appreciate their efforts. I talked with Samsung’s customer service during this time about compensating me for all of the food lost due to the defective refrigerator. I was instructed to email an itemized list of food lost to them with the cost of each item for reimbursement. I informed the Samsung customer service representative (Yvette) that I had the Costco receipt, and, although additional food was lost, I was only asking to be reimbursed for the food for which I had the receipt. After emailing this receipt to Yvette at Samsung, I was told by her that I sent it to the wrong email address, and that I would have to start the entire process of requesting reimbursement from the beginning. This is silly, and I told the Samsung representative this (nicely, but directly) via email. I can send the email content from all communications with Samsung as a PDF file, if you would like to read them. What I want from Samsung is reimbursement of $500 for the itemized food items lost because of their defective refrigerator and compensation for the time and effort I’ve had to spend (this doesn’t even include the expense and hassle of not having a refrigerator at all for three weeks in June!). Although $500 is not a lot to a huge corporation, such as Samsung, it is more than an inconvenience and a hardship for me and my family. I take extreme offense to Samsung’s less than honest dealings with me, and want them to do what is right. I assume they believe that I will give up on my pursuit to be compensated for the losses caused by their faulty product, and I consider that an injustice. Again, I would greatly appreciate your assistance to resolve the situation, and to make this a public battle so that others are aware of my experience with Samsung. Thank you very much!

I had a terrible experience with them. I had a four year warranty on my card that had expired and he was charging me $400 dollars to repair it and I ended up buying a new one for $800. The biggest problem was that Samsung can be repaired by only Samsung authorized repair men. So not one company in Woodlands had authorized Samsung and I had to call the 800 number and they told me that they could get someone else within two weeks. I was already been without laundry facility for a week because I couldn’t get through them. Their service centre is in Stafford which is one and half hour from Woodland. The folks in the service centre told me that they would be scheduling the Woodlands last because it is so far away and they don’t know why they didn’t put up a centre there. So bottom line was that I didn’t have Samsung to come and look at the machine. I finally found someone else who was authorized to look at the machine and he said that the computer system was broken and it would cost $450. He also said that it was not worth to repair it and to opt and buy a new machine and that is what I did. It took me 11 days to get a new washing machine because Samsung was so unresponsive. I had called the 800 number that they gave me and it was Pennsylvania service centre and I had repeatedly told them that I stay in eastern Texas but in spite of that the number they gave me was wrong and it is not acceptable at all. I would never use them again in the future.

I can not believe that they sold me this refrigerator even though they know the climate I live in and they know that the refrigerator should not be in this climate. They told me that if I move to Arizona this refrigerator would work just fine. I cannot believe they are not willing to try and fix this problem.