[Resolved]  IFB Industries — Senator 6 kg Washing Machine

IFB Senator 6 kg washing machine; it has manufacturing defects and also spoils your floor by oozing our detergent regularly and if everything goes fine its heater will break and damage the drum and cause great danger to the lives of your loved one’s. Please don’t buy this washing machine.

We bought IFB Senator 6 kg washing machine in May 2008 from Bajaj Electronics, Punjagutta showroom in Hyderabad. We purchased this machine for our convenience as the two other washing machines we had were little smaller 4 kg, and we would have to run several washes to wash all our cloths.

The IFB Senator 6 kg washing machine was delivered to us and 2 days later a person from their service center came to our house and installed the machine, he did a test run with water and no cloths and said that it is working perfectly. Soon after the service man left, we used the new washing machine with a few cloths and Ariel washing powder, the machine worked for a few minutes before it started oozing out loads of detergent and water all over the carpet flooring in the washing room, we closed the machine and tried several times and the same thing happened. After several tries and having experience from using many front loading washing machines in the past we were convinced that Bajaj Electronics or IFB had sold us a defective product.

This was just the beginning of our worries, problems and waste of time having bought IFB washing machine.

Soon we contacted the service center number present on their website and users manual booklet, to our surprise it was not accessible and out of order and after trying several places we were able to get the service center number. We spoke to a lady and explained the problem we were facing in detail and she said that someone will come to our place in the afternoon to check the machine. No one ever came, even after following up with the service center for several days and someone only came to help us after 7 days (“1 week”).

As soon as the service man arrived, it was shocking to hear that even after us informing more than 40 times to the service center lady about our issue he did not know anything about our problem. We had to explain everything to him again and on hearing our issue, he was quick in saying he was aware of this issue as several of their customers were experiencing the same problem and he said we were using the wrong detergent (“even though we used the same type of detergent in all the front loading machines we used in our lives”) and that we need to use a detergent of the type MATIC, and then he sold us few boxes of Henko Mattic detergent and also a washing machine stand and cover, which evidently according to them is essential for IFB front loading washing machines to function correctly, (“again none of the other machine we used earlier ever needed anything of like this”) also this information was no where available in the users manual.

Soon after the man left we were able to use the machine successfully for one day and again next day we had the same problem, by this time we were convinced that we had been cheated. Again we had to try several times and wait for 1 week before someone came to resolve our issue, this time the service man new what our problem was and surprisingly without even checking anything knew that a switch inside the washing machine board was loose and faulty and he rectified it immediately and left. At this point we requested IFB to replace the washing machine since we were sold a defective product, but they refused to comply with our grievances.

After that day it was not many days before we started facing more problems with the IFB washing machine, it was less than two months since we bought the machine and one day while we were washing 2 bed sheets in it, we heard some loud sounds from the IFB washing machine and then it stopped and continued the washing process till it completed. When we opened the door and remove the bed sheets we were shocked when we saw the metal drum in which the cloths are washed was completely out of shape, it no longer looked like a cylindrical drum but looked more like a crumpled box. We contacted the service center, by now you will have guessed that it took them more than a week to come to check the problem. On reaching and seeing the machine from a distance the service man like possessing Psychic powers was most definitely sure that a coin must have been present with the cloths we were washing (“even though we said we washed 2 bed sheets”) and that it got stuck in the drum which in turn went through the process of damaging a heater which in the process went and damaged the metallic drum.

Let me give you a small description about a special feature that IFB has in their Senator 6kg model, it has a coin trap mechanism which is designed to safely capture and remove coins that are present in the cloths being washed and send it into a coin trap at the bottom of the washing machine, from where we can open and easily collect the coins.

Now coming back to our problem, however when we checked the coin trap after being explain by the service man, we did not find any coins or anything in the coin trap. But he was still curtain it was the imaginary coin that has caused the problem and said after 5 days they will take our machine to the repair center and check at their convenience and tell us the actual cause of the problem. Some how we had the idea that we were being cheated and that they will come back to us saying that it was a coin and that they had found a coin in the washing machine, which has caused all the problem and that’s exactly what we heard from then in almost a weeks time. Now they were asking us to pay for changing the entire drum and some other mechanical parts, because according to them it was our fault because we had left a coin in one of the cloths we washed. On hearing this we object and said that it was because of malfunctioning of your coin trap and it cannot be projected as out fault. Since then it’s been a month and the washing machine is still in the service centers possession. Now we want our money to be returned or the washing machine replaced. It is 21st July 2008 today and still they haven’t agreed to their manufacturing defect fault and causing great deal of inconvenience to us by wasting lots of our time and giving us the trouble of washing cloths for long hours.

Please let us know at [protected]@dafiina.com if any one has faced similar problems after purchasing IFB washing machines, we plan to take the company to court and also publish a public notice in leading newspapers in India to warn all other people from purchasing IFB products as they are cheating people.