this time its lg...customer service failure

I was gonna wait until this was all resolved before blogging about it. Yeah...no. Fuck that.

Last year I had an extended headache with AT&T and its customer service. I wrote about that -- after all was said and done -- here.

Anyway, now I'm having trouble with LG. It's not on the order of what I went through with AT&T. At this point, I don't think that I'm the victim of theft. That may change, depending on how things go. But for now it's really about red tape and slavish adherence to protocol. And, BTW, Home Depot isn't coming out smelling like a rose either.

The TL:DR version: Nearly three weeks after I bought a brand new LG air conditioner, I have a useless piece of crap in my window. I doubt that I'll have a working air conditioner until more than a month after I paid for one.

Here's the detailed version:

On June 20, Blair and I bought an LG air conditioner from Home Depot. 14,000 BTUs. Yay us. It was delivered on the 21st and we had it installed on the 22nd. We powered it up and it worked for less than an hour before shutting off and displaying an error code CH38. Blair looked that up. It means that there's no refrigerant.

I called Home Depot, and was told that I had two options:

1. I could pull the AC out of the window and schlep it back to Home Depot for a refund. They would also refund the delivery charge, but not the cost of installation.
2. Since it's under warranty I could call LG and have them deal with it.

I really didn't want to eat the cost of installation, so I went with option 2.

Blair called LG and explained the issue. The customer service representative (CSR from now on) didn't take the issue seriously, told her how to reset the unit and said to call back if the problem persisted.

The next couple of days were pretty cool so we didn't run the unit until the evening of the 25 (which was a Friday). Same problem. I called customer service and they agreed to have technicians come and deal with the problem. But now that we were in the weekend, I wouldn't hear from anyone until Monday or Tuesday.

Monday morning I got a text that the repair would be handled by "Park Avenue Appliance Repair." Cool! I had hope. I figured that PAAR would reach out to schedule the repair. I didn't hear from them on Monday. But I remembered the words of the CSR who said that I would hear on Monday or Tuesday. By early Tuesday afternoon I still hadn't heard from PAAR, so I called them I got a guy who said he'd call back in a half hour. More than two hours later I hadn't heard, so I called back. He said he hadn't been back in the office but he'd call me back. By early evening, he hadn't reached out, so I called LG customer service. They cancelled Park Avenue, and set me up with an appointment with one of their service people. Note that this person would be an LG employee -- not an independent contractor. The downside is that it would be more than a week away.

So, yesterday -- July 8, the appointed day -- LG's technician showed up as promised. Before starting, he explained to me that if it's an issue with no refrigerant, he would be unable to fix it. Most likely, LG would replace the unit. This brought me down. I had been expecting that the technician would fix the problem and by the time he left I'd have a working air conditioner. Now my hopes were dashed. I should note at this point that I have no beef with the technician. He reached out when he was on his way. He arrived as promised, and was very professional in his demeanor. It's not his fault that protocol dictates what it does. But that all leaves me with no working air conditioner. He gave me a case number and said that LG would reach out in 48 to 72 hours. Of course, since that was a Thursday, "48 to 72 hours" means Monday or Tuesday next week.

So now I have to wait until next week so LG can call and schedule to have someone replace the nonworking piece of crap that I have in my window now. I suspect that, when all is said and done, it won't happen until after the 20th, which means it will have been more than a month between my purchase of an air conditioner and actually having one. I also note that we have been experiencing a severe heat wave during this time.

Throughout this ordeal, I have been having a Twitter conversation with LG customer service. I suspect that they prefer having a conversation in DM so that their unwillingness to help me isn't shown for the whole world to see. The most infuriating part is their repeated apologies. "I sincerely apologize." "I'm sorry for the inconvenience." These apologies, interspersed with texts about being unable to do anything for me... They don't help and are, in fact infuriating. Should I be happy that some faceless person -- who probably doesn't really give a shit -- says he's sorry? It's not like he's losing sleep, up at night thinking "I sure hope we can resolve Marc Whinston's issue as soon as possible. It's terrible that we, as a company are failing him and his family." And if he is, that doesn't really do me any good anyway.

So there are two big questions:
1) When will I have a working air conditioner?
2) Next time I want to buy an appliance -- any appliance -- is there a reason to buy LG?