Hirsch’s poor retail sales experience, product reliability and after-sales service

I am a very unhappy customer! Hirsch’s have let me down as a customer from day one - from the retail sales experience through to product reliability and after-sales service.

Previously we owned a Bosch side-by-side fridge freezer, which we owned with no problems for close to 14 years. When these two units finally needed replacing we wanted something with the same quality and life expectancy - we were advised by Hirsch’s salesperson that Grundig would be a good choice, and of the same level, so we made the purchase. We took delivery of these two units at the end of 2019. Both units come with a 5-year warranty.

on delivery, the back plastic foot of the fridge unit was damaged, making the fridge unbalanced and unable to move smoothly when trying to move.

since day one the fridge has been overflowing at the back, with the water being a deep iron rust colour. And we had to constantly move the fridge out to drain and mop up the water over flow.

We initially called this in and had a technician come out within the first 6 months to access the overflowing at the back of the ridge unit. He advised that this was fixed, however, this was not the case, it continued to overflow. At the same time as accessing this, he replaced the missing back plastic foot with a metal one, which is not ideal as it does not slide smoothly on our floor and scratches when moved.

On the 9th January 2022, the freezer unit suddenly stopped working - a call was made to Hirsch’s on this day, and at the same time, I used this moment to re-explain the situation about the fridge overflowing and the missing foot.

On the 13th of January 2022, 4 days later without a freezer, both units were collected.

For the next 8 days, I was not kept informed as to what was happening with my fridge and freezer and had to follow up myself each time not getting through to the correct contact person, having to leave messages with long delays in getting a callback or not getting a call back at all.

During this time I was continuously told that they (Hirsch’s) were dealing with Defy to get these repairs done, and kept passing the blame onto Defy. Why Defy I asked? Just to be clear I did not purchase these two units from Defy, I purchased a reputable international brand (German) directly from Hirsch’s, so I expected to deal with Hirsch’s and not their local service supplier.

On the 21st of January, the units were delivered back to my home, and this was where my patience started to wear very thin - both units were delivered back without any plastic feet, all off on both units. So getting them to slide smoothly on my floors without damaging the surface and getting them to align equally next to each other is impossible. The fridge had a nice new scratch on the left side and a few other small scratches on both units were visible. When the delivery guys offloaded and brought the units into my home they carried the units on their sides and not up-right. The guy carrying at the back was holding the unit by the radiator panel. After waiting an hour before switching the units on, as advised by the delivery guy, the fridge unit immediately started making a disturbing buzzing sound that hasn’t stopped. Before they were collected and repaired they ran without any sound.

So another call was made on the same day to explain the missing feet on both units and the new sound that was coming out of the fridge.

It is now the 5th February 2022, 15 days later since they delivered them back and over a month since the initial call was made - I am still fighting with Hirsch’s to sort this all out.