Samsung Service an Insult

shayg1971

My Samsung fridge packed in with a 'known design fault' for which Samsung have extended their paltry 24 month warranty to 5 years. But when you actually try to get service out of them, you realize why you need top stick to 'appliance brands' for stuff you rely on every day and steer away from this crowd.

I logged a call with their service center in the UK at 8.00am yesterday. Agent informed me the call would be passed to their service agent in Ireland, Dimpco, who would "call me witin 24 hours". Fair enough.

36 hours later no call, so I call Samsung. "Oh, that's unusual, have you called Dompco?". Eh? why am I calling your subcontractor? Anyway give me the number...

After two dropped calls by Dimco, I get a live agent who informs me they have no record of the call. "Ok" says I, "here's the reference number. Get on the phone to Samsung and get it sorted. In the meantime, can we shedule a call out?"

"Ah no, I can't do that. That's a Samsung reference number. Get on the phone to them and get a '300' number". By the way, there's approximately a business 4 day wait after we get the call from Samsung". WTF again? I've had next day service on a washing machine and diswasher from a proper appliance maufacturer.

Anyway, back on the phone to Samusng. They phone Dimco, confirm the f**k up and come back to me to open a new call. No allowance for the delay, I'm at the end of the queue. And by the way, 24 hours was incorrect for the callback. It's up to 48..

So looks like no fridge for a week at least. Food in the bin. But it's not the worst of it. The Samsung agent told me that the service delay was "partly caused by the high incidents of faults". So if you parse that out, what he said was "our service is c**p becaue our product is c**p".

I asked Samsung (well ok, their call-centre contractor - Sykes or Stream or whoever) for a customer complaint/ comment line or email. So I could register the experience. "No, we don't have one of them". I.e. don't give a fig what you think (or anybody else once we get your money).

So there you have it. Save yourself some pain. Samsung for disposable luxuries or whatever, but don't buy anything from them that you or your family might rely on.

mumhaabu

This was a major article on BBC's Watchdog programme, you can read about it here. I'd recommend suing, there is some macabre satisfaction in it.

luketitz

I've had trouble with my samsung TV in the past and was quite impressed with the way samsung handled it, it Dimpco I had the problems with! they're customer service is abrasive and feckin useless, complete shambles of an organisation imho

Nody

mumhaabu wrote: »

I'd recommend suing, there is some macabre satisfaction in it.

I'd strongly advice listening to this person as he appears to be quite trigger happy with out a proper grasp of law. This is of course beyond the fact you'd be hard pressed to find something to sue under as Samsung is fixing the problem only not as fast as you want them to.

Now the funny thing is if Samsung had told you that you'd have a call back with in 3 days you'd probably be here throwing roses their way. Only goes to show how important perception is when it comes to giving deadlines and why I prefer using Scotty deadlines (expect time x3) in any I give :pac:.

shayg1971

if Samsung had told you that you'd have a call back with in 3 days you'd probably be here throwing roses their way

Thing is they were never going to call, because Dimpco lost the case. BTW, I still have had no call back. So make that 10 days with no fridge...

luketitz

I was 19 days without my telly due to Dimpcos complete lack of urgency over the whole thing.

foggy_lad

they are supposed to repair replace or refund and this should really be done promptly so possibly try the small claims court for a refund from the shop you bought the fridge as they should be handling this!

Sam Vimes

but it's being fixed.........

craichoe

luketitz wrote: »

I was 19 days without my telly due to Dimpcos complete lack of urgency over the whole thing.

Jesus ... how many episodes of EastEnders did you miss.

shayg1971

6 days later and no call from Dimpco. Called them early this afternoon. Non-plussed, agent said that she'd get my engineer to call me. End of day. No call. After all these years of the 'full Irish' customer service experience, the only surprise would be if I was surprised.

luketitz

craichoe wrote: »

Jesus ... how many episodes of EastEnders did you miss.

Eh, not quite sure, a lot probably!! Was more concerned about the footy as it was right at the end of the last premiership season! Needless to say i had to watch the last few games down the boozer! Dimpco should refund all that excess cash I spent on pints due to not having a feckin telly for 19 days!

shayg1971

Well, 11 days later Dimpco have never actually called me. But I have ascertained from chasing them and Samsung that 130 people in Ireland are awaiting this repair - and they have no parts. So this develops into a farly stunning indictment on Samsung.

Rather than recall (preemptively fix) this fault, they've adopted the cheaper 'fix on fail' approach. So the least you could expect is that they'd have the parts to carry this out, in a reasonably timely manner.

"We have 28 days to do this according to the terms of our warranty" say Samsung. At this stage I'm hoping they actually miss the deadline to give me some recourse. But they'll probably fix it on day 27.

foggy_lad

so a big company like Samsung is happy to leave their customers without a fridge just because it is in the warranty? they are hoping that people will just give up and get another fridge and forget about getting it fixed but just throw their rubbish in a skip!