Paraphrased from the LiveJournal of a dear friend in Austin (this is loooong, but worth reading):
So my friend has just bought her first house, and needed a washer and dryer. Unfortunately, she went to Fry’s (which is new to the Austin area, so she didn’t know better yet) to purchase said major appliances. She found an all-in-one unit that seemed to fit the bill. Once she finally gets a salesperson to stop and speak to her, she is informed that this particular model (to quote directly from her LJ):
“1) it will do everything a regular washer and dryer will do but it is smaller and drying might take a little longer. That a load of cotton clothing could take 3 hours to dry instead of the 45 - 60 minutes that I was used to.
2) that it is lint free and I don’t have to change out the lint filter
3) that it runs just fine on 110.
4) that I don’t need a vent for it.
5) the in house warranty (for an extra fee) will provide me with repair service on the machine.”
Sounds like a decent deal, right? Well, except for that whole extended drying time issue - I might’ve balked at that, but she decides to go ahead and get it - after all, she’s been having trouble finding a machine that’ll fit in the space that’s available in her laundry room and this one seems to fit the bill. So she has the order written up. She had previously purchased a TV there, so they had her former address on file and she had trouble getting them to change the address. They even asked if it would be ok just to go ahead and deliver it to her old address…
It gets better from here.
She washes her first load of laundry, and it comes out smelling bad. She calls the appliance dept at Fry’s and asks about it. They tell her she should wash a smaller load next time, and the smell will go away. She also notices that the dryer doesn’t seem to do anything with wet clothes. She tries making the load smaller and smaller, and running each load multiple times. Finally she runs it empty, and finds water in it when it stops.
She calls service and they refuse to send anyone out until she agrees to wash smaller loads.
The next dryer load consists of two pairs of panties. Three hours later they are still wet.
I’ll quote the next part directly from her LJ: * "I call for service. They send me around the store to 6 different people before I end up at the automobile electronics installation dept. (yeah - that made sense) However, they get me to the right people. Who it turns out were people I had talked to earlier. They just sent me to another dept because their supervisor wasn’t available to talk to me right then. (ummm… ever heard of putting someone on hold or giving them a number and time to call back?)
Finally, it is arranged and a repair person will come to my house but it could be a week or two… Is that okay???"*
Well, I wouldn’t have said it was okay either…finally she gets someone to come out the next day.
They send out their delivery supervisor to make sure it’s plugged in correctly. She correctly identifies the standing water in the dryer. She opens the lint screen - the one my friend was informed didn’t exist - and there is no lint in it, there is water. (Of course, she wasn’t given an owner’s manual with the machine, so she had no reason to believe she’d been misled about the existance of a lint filter…) The delivery supervisor declares the machine to be broken and sets up a visit from the repairman.
The repairman, on arrival, looks at the machine and comments that a 110 plug will never get it hot enough to dry clothes. My friend replies that she was told it would. For whatever reason, the repair man has to call tech support. He reports that tech support doesn’t work on weekends, and he’ll have to come back Monday. Rather than doing this, he calls her on Monday and informs her that her washer/dryer is working exactly as it should, and he has therefore closed the work ticket. This, of course, is a bald-faced lie since the washer still has standing (smelly) water in it.
My friend calls back to try to talk to the delivery supervisor from before who seemed to have a clue. She is informed (after being transferred to various incorrect departments) that that person is out for the day, but she is able to speak with somebody who works with her. This person agrees to get the appliance manager to talk to my friend, saying she will put her on hold. Rather than being on hold, my friend hears a couple of minutes of background office noise, and then the phone is hung up.
My friend, somewhat less than cheerful at this point, calls the number back and explains who she is and who she was talking to. She is informed that the person she was talking to, who had supposedly put her on hold before hanging up on her mere moments before, has gone to lunch. The person who delivers this news helps her get in touch with the appliance supervisor.
I’ll let my friend’s words cover that conversation: “I am told that nothing can be done since the repair man said that the thing works fine. No they will not send out a new repairman, no they will not take the unit back, no they will not exchange it for another. No I cannot talk to the store manager.”
Furious, and late for an appointment, she hangs up and calls back some time later. She speaks to a different manager, who seems to think he can take it back and switch it out for a different machine. He’s pretty sure, however, that he can’t refund the delivery charge, the warranty, or a reasonable amount of the price difference between what she got and a different machine.
She comes into the store, and with the help of a salesman who knows nothing about the washing machines, picks out a new machine to replace the broken one, and goes home, fuming.
The next day, she finally speaks to the appliance manager and is informed that she can’t have any of the money she spent on warranty and delivery back, and Fry’s will not cover any of the cost difference for the new machine, because “the machine works fine”. The repair man said so, so it must be true.
At this point, my friend has resolved to mention this matter to the Better Business Bureau and the Attorney General’s office.
Arrangements are made for pick-up of the old machine and delivery of the new one - they’ll try to do it Friday (tomorrow, it so happens). Later, she receives a call from one of the managers to set up a second time for the truck to come - apparently it is impossible to pick up a machine and deliver a machine with the same truck. They ask if they can do the pick-up on Thursday (today).
My friend works for a software company, and today was one of their “milestones” - the busiest work day for any employee of the company when everyone must be there to make sure the milestone is met. It is a crunch time like no other. Of course she can’t be at home waiting for a truck from Fry’s - she explains this, and goes into detail about why she can’t be there today.
This morning just before 9am, my friend receives a call from Fry’s to ask if she’ll be home today so they can pick up the washer/dryer. Apparently, mere minutes after ending the phone conversation yesterday and assuring my friend that delivery would not be scheduled for today, the manager arranged pickup for this morning. Fortunately, my friend’s boyfriend is willing to wait around at her house to get this taken care of. They are supposed to arrive between 9 and 11am. She receives a call from said boyfriend a few minutes after noon to inform her that the machine is gone.
Tomorrow, she gets to find out if they’ll actually be delivering the new machine when it was promised - frankly, with their record of customer satisfaction where my friend is concerned, I doubt it.
Folks, my friend is a pleasant, tiny woman who is one of the sweetest people I know. She was repeatedly, over a series of days, treated like shit by Fry’s because they were unwilling to admit that they sold her a lemon. Don’t let this happen to you.
Mods, if repeatedly mentioning the store by name in this tale of woe and incompetence could potentially cause problems for the SDMB, please let me know and please take whatever action is necessary to modify or delete this thread - I’ll understand. I just want to make sure that as many people as possible know how business is done at Fry’s.