Price Gouging at A & E Factory
Complaint
Elizabeth Butler
Country: United States
A & E Factory Service,a nationwide provider for Kitchenaid appliances, should not be recommended by its suppliers. I called them to have two panels replaced on my side-by-side KithenAid refrigerator. They quoted me a price of $65 for the service call and told that I will be charged for the workman time extra. The service man came and had the panels replaced in 5 minutes. He billed me for $200! I was shocked to see this price. I think they should be obligated to give a more realistic price quote before the service.
Comments
Jenn-Air, Amana and Magic-Chef has alerted all Independant dealers that we
no longer can service our customers under waranty outside of a 20 mile area. So, you (the customer) will no longer choose who will be your
servicing company. They have dictated that A&E will service all those
areas. The good news is that after your factory warranty expires you can
now contact your local servicer. (If he still exist!) Too bad but this
is the trend for service in this country ! Whirlpool thinks that the independant servicer is too expensive for them. But, what about what is good for the customer? We have been in business in Michigan for over 35 years and it is our opinion that the manufacturer realy does not care about
convenience and cost to the customer. They know that the purchaser will have to pay and like it ! THERE ARE STILL LOTS OF OTHER MANUFACTURES WHO
STILL SUPPORT THEIR CUSTOMERS WITH PROVEN SERVICE SUPPORT METHODS.
I E-mailed KitchenAid, they told me to set up a service appointment with A&E. 10 min phone call with A&E telephone person, giving details and setting up appointment. The promised reminder call never came the night before the appointment. Waited in for 4 hours on the prescribed day but service technician never came. I just called them up again and they have no record of me ever having called them. None of my phone number, name or address appears in their database.
I set up a new appointment for tomorrow. Let's see what happens...
Looks like it's a home run for A&E in this instance. On the 2nd scheduled appointment, we got a reminder call the night before as promised. On the day, the repair guy calls us when he's half hour away from our house. Turns up at 3pm (window was 1-5pm). Dismantled the offending component within 2 minutes. He had a small stash of replacement circuit boards on his van, so didn't need to order one. No charge for the repair, since it was under warranty.
The repair guy was congenial and looked like he knew about the product he was repairing. I was pleasantly surprised! From what I've read about A&E, it looks like it's a bit of a gamble whether you get sent a good technician. What we unfortunately can't see from reading these complaint forums is the ratio of good:bad experiences. In this instance, the jokers were working in the call center.
I have a six year old Kitchen-aide side by side.It just suddenly stop cooling.I called A&E and scheduled a service call.
The tech got to my house at 10:10. He very quickly dianosed the problem as a bad relay switch.He went to his truck for 15 minutes. returned,installed the part and left at 10:45. Service call time...35 minutes.
Cost: $56.00 for the part,$200 for the labor. Man that's good money.
This A&E Factory Warrentee is ripping people off on the labor cost.
The tech punches the replacement part into computer and the computer tells
him what to charge. Prices are preset by the A&E. Somebody is living large
and I bet it's not the tech.
Anyway, I thought it would be worth sharing my experience in the hopes of preventing others from going through the same thing.
In Feb. 2008 we had a repair person come to our home from A & E Factory Service (Citrus Heights). The technician informed us that the problem was the compressor and it would take them 10 days to get the part. We let the technician know that we were going to try to find a company to replace the part sooner since we could not go without a fridge for that long. The technician informed us that we owed $72 for the diagnostic (telling us the problem was compressor). We then called a second company who informed us that the compressor was a local part and could be received in less than 24 hours. So, we had the 2nd company come out and look at our fridge. They came out and informed us that the problem was NOT the compressor, that the problem was the overload relay capacitor. They replaced the overload relay capacitor and the fridge now works fine. So, we called A & E asking for a refund on their incorrect diagnostic. They proceeded to give us the biggest run around that I have ever witnessed. My husband was directed to multiple different numbers and was told we can't refund your money. Then he looked up the company on the BBB website and reached a man in Texas who took his info and then had another person, Paula, called him back from Citrus Heights. She told him to fax the copy of the 2nd companies diagnostic to her. The fax number she gave him did not work. After several more phone calls and wasted time he was able to obtain a 2nd fax number. When he called to make sure they had received the fax they had no record of it and told him to call Paula the next day. The next day when he attempted to call the main number he was given refused to transfer him to the Citrus Heights office and told him it was closed. When he looked up the Citrus Heights number on the internet and called, miraculously they were open and he was told Paula was on the other line. He was told that Paula would call him back before she left but when he called an hour later he was told that she had left for the day. In addition, he was told that they had no such fax and he should fax the 2nd company work order again. It is starting to look like their mode of operation is to make it so difficult to receive any assistance that eventually people will give up and just go away. In addition, calls that we made from our home phone number (the one on record with the A & E) do not seem to go through to the company anymore (whether placed on hold and then hug up on, or just not going through)and so we must call from other phones if we want our calls to be answered. We are waiting to hear back from the Better Business Bureau and from my credit card company in hopes of a refund. At this point is has nothing to do with the $72. It is the principle of the matter. This is an awful company with no customer service and a policy of giving people the run around. Truly shocking.
I spoke to KitchenAid about this and they simply don't care, so I am now replacing the refrigerator and it will not be with a Kitchen Aid, because I never want to deal with A & E again. They do not return phone calls, you cannot talk to a manager, and I too will be reporting them to the BBB.
Now a first point that speaks well for A&E: their repairman showed up exactly on time. Moreover, he was very friendly/helpful and pointed out that the washer needed substantial repairs. Even more, he noted that the parts were still under warranty (but not the washer itself, so we couldn’t just get a replacement.) He'd order them for us, and someone would come back next week to fix the unit.
Then the problems start. The next repair visit is rescheduled since the parts aren't going to come in on time. Then we find out that the parts are back-ordered with a ship date 2 weeks in the future. "OK," I think. "Even with two kids I can deal for a couple weeks." (I know, I know, as a renter, I should've just gotten a new washer at this point, but I'm an optimist and, I like to think, a nice guy who doesn’t want to screw his great landlord if the washer is under warranty.)
After two weeks, the status of the parts switches to back-ordered with an unknown ship date. I talked to numerous people at A&E, all of whom were very friendly and helpful (again, a check mark for A&E's service in my opinion.) But none of them could give me any idea about the ship date for the parts.
After six weeks (and two trips to Philly to do laundry at my sister's house), I called Maytag directly to find out if they had the parts. Again, to A&E's credit, Maytag gave the same answer - the parts weren't available and their availability date was unknown.
At this point, we ordered a new washer.
Now the fun begins. A&E ships parts directly to the person who needs service. After getting the new washer, we didn't need/want those parts, so I kept trying to cancel future shipment of the back-ordered parts. This turns out to be hard to do (and I'm still not sure that they won't show up on our doorstep sometime in the future.)
Even worse, we paid up front for future service by A&E (I'm not sure why, but I assumed that this reflected a "deposit" on future work and was their policy.) It turns out that getting that deposit back is like pulling teeth. Although everyone that I've ever talked to at A&E has been very polite and helpful, none of them have been helpful enough to get my money back to me.
Of course, I'll probably just forward that bill on to my landlord. But since I'm a nice guy, I don't like to screw my landlord when I get screwed. It's a shame that A&E puts me in a position where I have to do so.
In my experience, A&E doesn't seem to be staffed with rude and/or incompetent people. But things just aren't very smooth with them.
I did notice that all the prices were built into his laptop and he really couldn't make up any of his own. He seems like a regular guy who is frequently abused by customers about things beyond his control.
I would like to pass on some advice for everyone for future reference. When you purchase any appliance, staple the receipt to the owners manual and write the model number and serial number down inside the manual. When things break,familiarize yourself with the appliance and parts list, even if you don't understand how it works. Most appliance repairs are simple and many parts are readily available. If you do decide to try and tackle some problem, follow all safety warnings and remember that the appliance was assembled by someone and you simply have to reverse the assembly process until you get to the bad part. Also, reading the manual can frequently point you is the right direction and save a haedache and $$$.
Remember, if all else fails, read the directions!