LG Canada and Dufresne–Buyer Beware

I’ve owned a brand new LG washer and dryer purchased for over $2000 cash from Dufresne for about five weeks now.

Two of those five weeks, it’s sat in my basement, unplugged and useless.

When we received a critical error message and went through the process our instruction manual gave us and realized it was broken, we were a bit irritated but not worried. It was three weeks old... we were sure we’d get an exchange. Things like this happen, sometimes you’re just unlucky, and we were sure that on such a big purchase, we would receive due help and attention.

Two weeks later, and between my husband and I we have probably spent about 4 hours on the phone trying to get this dealt with in a timely manner. I’ve hauled laundry – and two kids under the age of four, including one who had the flu – around several times. I’ve sat around waiting for a repair man, who arrived half an hour past the three hour time window we’d been given without any sort of apology, and then left half an hour later mumbling about another faulty motor and telling his dispatcher “Don’t worry about it, no, we’ll deal with it and order parts on Monday.” (this was a week and a half after our washer had broken, we’d been tugged around for a few days and told that we might get a replacement but probably a repair as that was LG’s policy, repair not replace.)

It’s been two full weeks now, and I’ve been told today that in 3 to 5 days the warranty department at LG Canada will review my case and decide if I get a replacement. In the same amount of time I will get parts in for another attempt at a repair. So by the time I can do laundry in my $2000 machines again, I’ll have owned them for 6 weeks and half of that time, they’ll have been broken.

Dufresne says they’re doing all they can and that it’s up to LG, but as the wife of a small business owner, I know that is total crap. They have buying power, and could replace our washer and fight with LG themselves. In fact, I had to call in myself and argue for a replacement after the first failed repair, and without even having to fight for it I was told my case would be considered for replacement... not in a hasty manner, unfortunately. LG Canada is equally bad; when a washer breaks three weeks after it’s purchased, it’s clearly a faulty product and the consumer should not have to deal with repairs. I would never have purchased an LG product if I had been aware of that policy. Likewise, I wouldn’t have purchased from Dufresne if I’d known I would be left to fight the battle myself. We have been treated courteously by all customer representatives from both companies, I’ll say that. (aside from the repair man, who wasn’t particularly courteous but not totally rude, but himself said that he had little experience with my washer machine so he wasn’t completely sure what he was doing. Talk about reassurance?!) But courtesy doesn’t help me when I’m elbows deep in laundry with a shiny new machine looking pretty and doing nothing in my basement.

Now that I’ve had this experience, I’ve heard from others who have had a similar experience with a TV from Dufresne and I do believe they wound up taking it to Doug Dufresne himself before they got some resolution.

Lastly, I’m particularly irked by the fact that I paid cash... I feel like if I had paid with my Visa instead, I could have used Buyer Protection through them to fight this battle. Instead I face endless frustration and on-hold music. LG care greatly about me and will PERSONALLY do their best to make sure I receive assistance in a timely manner, in case you’re curious.

We’re just about ready to go buy a Whirlpool at Best Buy and drop off our LG in the parking lot at Dufresne and go at with sledgehammers. Can I be arrested for that?

(PS, if you’re from Dufrense or LG… yes, thank you, I have in fact contacted the customer service line. If you aren’t, that’s the suggestion I get on twitter or Facebook from the reps that manage those.)