[Resolved]  Whirlpool — Faulty Product

This is the second complaint which I am bound to register in reference to same aspect. I don’t know if this is the policy which Whirlpool as a company follows or is it that we were the unlucky ones. Repeating the same story again; my parents who are very old stay in Trivandrum where power cuts are a daily affair so for them I had bought a Inverter which when I had bought initially itself started giving troubles and since calls to so called “customer service centers” were not working I had to bother people in the higher management of Whirlpool to help me out. Now again it has started giving trouble and all the calls to service centers are falling to deaf ears. The inverter started giving trouble on Dec 24 2011 and my parents had duly called up the customer service and informed them. Instead of having a personnel sent across to have it checked they informed to get the Inverter to their service centre. My father took the inverter to Whirlpools authorized service centre in Trivandrum (Hi Tech Solutions). Mr. Shibu who introduced himself as the manager informed my father to leave the inverter at the service station as the technicians were not available and they had to do a through check. Mr. Shibu also informed that once the inverter was rectified it would be delivered to our residence by a personnel from Whirlpool and he would also assemble the inverter. Mr. Shibu provided my father with the work order number (work order no. H1061) and informed to use the work order number for future reference. The inverter was with them till the 30th of Dec and only after my father enquired with them it was informed to him by Mr. Shibu that there was nothing wrong with the inverter and it was the battery which was faulty. My father at that point of time informed Mr. Shibu that the warranty of the inverter was expiring on 05th Jan 2012 so it was better if they had run a through check. Mr. Shibu very confidently informed my father that they had checked the inverter and it was working fine. Mr. Shibu at that point informed that it would not be possible to have the inverter delivered to our residence because it was too heavy and they could not get it on a motorcycle and told my father to come and collect it himself. My father again went to the service centre and collected the inverter and had the battery checked and it was in perfect condition. The same was informed to Mr. Shibu who promised that they would send personnel to come and have a look. Since even after a week no one turned up my father once again called up Mr. Shibu and enquired about the status, on doing so Mr. Shibu informed our house was too far for them so he gave an alternate number ([protected]) and told my father to call up this number and lodge a complain and they would come and do the needful. Mr. Shibu informed that the personnel on the given number were not responding to his call so it was better if my father was to call directly. My father called up the given number and finally after three days some one did pick who refused to divulge his name and was very rude and informed my father if any of his personnel was going that way they would come and have a look. Since then they have stopped answer to the calls and Mr. Shibu has washed off his hands. So we are sitting with an inverter worth INR 19000/- which doesn’t work at home. And not to mention with its warranty expired. I work in Bangalore and my parents are 70+. It not easy for them to carry the inverter along with its battery which weighs more than 30 kilos to places where these guys say to have it checked every now and then. Isn’t it the policy of Whirlpool to have door to door service? Or is it just another marketing gimmick because that was what was promised to me when I bought the inverter. Everything has been going wrong with that thing from day one and nobody from Whirlpool bothers or gives a damn. I think Whirlpool’s only strategy is to sell a product to the customer and then forget about both the customer and the product. I don’t even know why you have the so called “customer service centers” if they can’t help out their customers? The least that is expected from the agents sitting out there is them to be polite. Is that too much to ask? If you can’t deliver what you promise, then don’t promise rather than promising the world when the customer is shelling out cash and not even bothering to respond to a complaint for over a month. I can’t understand how people like Mr. Shibu who call themselves managers be so curt? I really think people like Mr. Shibu are not fit for such industries. How can he even say he can’t deliver the inverter since it is too heavy? Didn’t he know that when he promised to have it sent across? Or does he expect a person who is 70+ to come and do his job? Why can’t they accept that the inverter they sold to us was faulty and have it replaced? You people should learn a lesson from LG service centers, no matter how minor the problem is or what the problem is, if a need arises I get a person at my door step within 24 hrs. Hats off to their prompt service. I too need an inverter for my house in Bangalore, thanks to this horrible experience I now know which one not to buy. I work for a hospitality industry which uses a lot of Whirlpool, LG, Sony, Samsung, Bose and most of the world’s famous brands when it comes to refrigerators, television sets, speakers etc in a very large scale and this kind of response from Whirlpool does not give me a very positive feeling. I will definitely make sure that not only my company and its sister concerns but a lot of other companies think twice before they go for your product if this problem is not resolved at the earliest. I apologize if the complaint is too harsh or is hurting anybody’s feeling I assure my intentions are not so, it’s just that I am too frustrated with the “carefree, not my problem” attitude of the Whirlpool’s service personnel’s. As mentioned earlier the inverter is in Trivandrum so the best person to get in touch would be my father at +91 [protected]/+91 [protected].

Raghu.S

Mobile: +91 [protected]

E-Mail – raghu.[protected]@gmail.com