If you are a rehabber or a landlord there is a high likelihood that you buy appliances from the big box stores. If that’s the case, I want to tell you about a recent experience with a dishwasher purchase that went sideways, and a big lesson we learned from it.
Before we get started, I want emphasize the reason I’m telling you about this situation is not to vent my spleen or complain. We learned a valuable lesson and I think you should know it too. So with that, let’s get started.
We found ourselves in need of a dishwasher recently. A lot of the time we just go to social media marketplaces to find used ones. But in this case, we needed one right then and there — meaning we didn’t have time to shop. That’s because it was in my personal house.
We checked with the two big box stores on what they had in-stock. You see, once upon a time these stores always had multiple units in stock. These days, however, almost everything has to be ordered and delivered from the distribution center. But sometimes they carry a very small selection in the store.
Well, the big blue store did have a nice looking Midea unit in stock. Now I had never heard of that brand. But as it turns out, Midea is the company that manufactures many of the other brand dishwashers. It looked nice, had great features, was priced well, which was Ashley approved. So off to the store we went.
I got the unit picked up that evening and installed it the next day with no issues. I tested it, the water and lights came on, and it looked pretty sharp, too.
That night we started loading the dishwasher and noticed an issue. This unit came equipped with a third tray for silverware. And when I pulled that tray forward to put silverware in, the spray head above it dropped down such that we could not put the tray back in. Upon inspection, it looked as if we had a faulty clip.
That was no big deal I thought. We could just handle it tomorrow. So, we loaded up everything we could, pulled the top tray all the way out and ran a load with no issue. In the morning we unloaded the clean dishes and had enough to put another load in. (see why I needed it A.S.A.P?) When we turned this load on, it ran half a cycle, stopped and then started blinking an error code.
I thought this would be no big deal since it was a brand-new unit, and I called the big blue box store to see what needed to be done.
I didn’t get good news.
The appliance rep told me I would need to take it up with the manufacturer even though I just bought it there. I asked to speak with the manager. She was very professional but told me the same. I explained that it came out of the box broken from the store. She told me that if I had opened the box, I had to take it up with the manufacture. I then asked her how I would know if it
was broken if we didn’t take it out of the box. There was a thoughtful pause, and then she told me all she could say was that I had to talk to the manufacturer.
I thought this whole scenario was odd since I just purchased it from them and it was broken right out of the box. But I contacted Midea and I was pleased to find out they had really good customer service. I got a real person on the phone in less than 5 minutes. They walked through scenarios with me and we decided it best to get a repair man on site.
That took a little over a week since it was during the week of the Fourth. Having a non-functional dishwasher for that long was not ideal, but we dealt with it.
When the repairman showed up, he pulled the dishwasher out and discovered the problem. The stainless-steel tub itself was damaged where the metal seamed together. It was leaking and causing a sensor to trip that shut down the cycle. He determined it was not fixable and left.
That was a month and half ago. That dishwasher is still sitting in my yard. The big blue box store won’t refund my money and the manufacturer has not contacted me back.
So this is a pretty crappy situation.
Now for the lesson.
The only recourse we had was because we put the purchase on our credit card. And it was not a store credit card either. I don’t know what would have happened if it had been. But what we were able to do was go dispute this charge. Our credit card company accepted the dispute, refunded the charge and did it rather quickly.
This was something I wished we had known earlier because we had a similar situation happen with the big orange store. But it was during the thrust of COVID shutdowns, and the manufacturer literally had a voicemail set up that said they could not be reached… and then hung up the phone. That dishwasher is still sitting in my storage building today.
So if you are going to be buying appliances from big box stores, and I know you are, I really suggest putting it on a credit card rather than using store cards or debit cards. Because if it is broken out of the box, you may find that disputing through your credit card company is your only recourse.
Joe and Ashley English buy houses and mobile homes in Northwest Georgia. For more information or to ask a question, go to www.cashflowwithjoe.com or call Joe at 678-986-6813.
www.daily-tribune.com
https://www.daily-tribune.com/chatsworth_times/news/business/real-estate-appliance-faux-pas/article_b516b024-3ca7-57e9-8a08-27720e64db45.html
