ComplaintsforColumbia Appliance

• Initial Complaint

  12/29/2021

  Complaint Type:

  Product Issues

  Status:

  Answered

  More info

  Online message sent thru store contact us form most recently. Multiple calls and other vm or messages have been sent since speaking with original sales associate as well as her brother who also happens to be the store service manager?! I helped pay for a recent kitchen aid $3k range on behalf of ******* **** ******* in on or about Sep 29 which was not ready for pickup until mid or late October which was before we expected which was a pleasant surprise! ******* was able to pickup her new range in November since your store would not deliver it even after we paid as much as we did in full without delay or any problems! January was our sales associate and was very helpful and knowledgeable during our sale but since we have had nothing but problems with quality and service including questioning by your staff as to who installed our range after your store couldnt deliver it to us?! I am beyond disappointed as well as insulted that a family owned business can do so little or be so inept in customer care after the sale?! The range has had to have 2 separate service calls since pick up and yet still it is not working and now is in need of an APU replacement and possibly more i am unsure from last service call?! The converter modification to propane since our range is dual fuel was installed by your store service team but yet when ******* got it home and attempted to plug it in and or hook it up to propane by qualified installers they discovered wires were not even properly connected and loose even though the install instructions provided by your store from ********* clearly showed how to have them connected by service personnel?! The range has been in ******* possession for a little over 30 days total and yet she has been unable to use the full compliment of her brand new $3k purchase?! Furthermore ******* called the store when the first problem happened and spoke to an associate who gave her the number to the qualified service pro

  Business response

  01/18/2022

  To whom it may concern,

  In reference to ID # ********: Ms. ******* ordered a new range from us on Sept 29, 2021. The range she wanted was on back order as a lot of appliances currently are. Due to Covid, manufactures are struggling to produce new products. At that time they were unable to find this range anywhere else either. We had one on order with an ETA of late November 2021. Ms. ******* lives in Dixon MO. That is 86 miles from Columbia. When I met with her I explained that she was too far away from Columbia to be in our delivery or service area. I told her that multiple times before she chose to make the purchase. I did tell her that since she was purchasing the product from us and planned on picking it up here if there was ever an issue with the product she was always welcome to bring it in to our shop and we would take care of it for her here. I explained to Ms. ******* that if she wanted to purchase the range from us she would have to pick it up here when the product came in. She said that would be no problem. Our business hours are 8-5 Monday through Friday. She works in Jeff City and to try to accommodate her busy schedule, we allowed her to pick up her range before business hours and even loaded it for her at that time. When the range left our building it was in perfect working order. Because we did not install the product, we have no way to know what was done to it or if it was installed properly.

  A week or so later she contacted our company to say the oven control board was giving her an error code. We told her if she wanted to bring it in to our shop we would be happy to look at it for her. She said she did not want to bring it to our location. We told her once more that we were unable to go to her location. All new products come with a one year parts & labor warranty from the manufacture. In this case Whirlpool. It is their warranty and manufactures have protocols as to the process on how those warranties work. A warranty call must be conducted by a ********* authorized servicer such as us. ********* will not allow us to go outside of our allocated 40 mile service area radius. Since she did not want to bring it to us we contacted ********* for her and got the name of a ********* authorized certified servicer in her area that could do a warranty call for her. That servicer came out to find she had a bad control board. Again, no way for us to know if it was caused by ******* or was a factory defect. Once the board was replaced. The servicer determined there were a couple more parts also requiring replacement. They replaced one of those but the other one is on backorder with the manufacture.

  Mr. ******* ****** contacted our business at that time. The product is not in his home but he is a friend of Ms. ******* and was the one that paid for her product. He was upset the part they needed was on backorder. I explained to him once again that I was very sorry they were experiencing a problem with the new product. We do value our customers. He insisted we needed to look at it. I again explained that we would be happy to do so but the product would have to be brought to us as I explained to them many times prior to them making the purchase. However, if the part needed was on backorder through the manufacture we would be unable to repair it in our shop until the part was available. He stated they did not want to bring it in to our shop. I once again advised them that we are not authorized by ********* to go that far and we could not come to them. And if the part was already ordered by the servicer they had been working with they would get it sooner than I would placing an order two weeks later. They fill orders in the order they are placed. Mr. ****** did contact ********* at our suggestion

  and they did agree to extend their warranty free of charge as they had these issues early on as a clear factory defect had occurred. We did our best to help them within the parameters allowed by the manufactures warranty. We also went out of our way to find them someone in their area that could help them with their issue.

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