Disappointing premium brand

<p>I have a 10 month old upright freezer Fridge unit.</p> <p>These units have a 2 year warranty & are supposed to be frost free.</p> <p>After 6 months the freezer started to malfunction & over freeze, this has occurred on two occasions within 2 months.</p> <p> </p> <p>When the first fault was logged, the unit was only checked after 48 hrs & then there was a wait for spares. The unit was only repaired after 9 days & I was asked to switch the unit off completely to be defrosted. No alternative unit was provided for the inconvenience & all my perishables in the freezer was ruined without a claim for loss.</p> <p> </p> <p>When the second fault was reported, the response was the same as above. It is now currently 10 day from report date, and I am told there are no spares currently available. I requested a service manager to contact me & was promised but twice but no senior has called me. I was told I will not be compensated for losses & no loaned unit could be provided.</p> <p> </p> <p>To summarise Whirlpool are in the wrong market.</p> <p>They cannot support the African market, firstly due to no availability of spares.</p> <p>They cannot support a market for perishable related products, due to poor service level time of 10 to 15 days.</p> <p>The fact that they are using local agents, they are using 3rd party service providers who are not directly linked to their core business & are therefore not customer focused. The 3rd party service providers are clock watchers very traditional to SA culture. They do no accommodate the customer who has been inconvenienced at the end of the day. Very bad at communication, phone you 10 minutes before they arrive don’t work after 4pm. Whirlpool service sucks.</p> <p> </p> <p>I paid a premium for a brand which I thought was reliable. I could have s purchased a locally produced freezer & paid a quarter of the price than a Whirlpool product. A local product will have spares available, in experience with from the local products I have owned over the past 25 years I am pleased with local products. To pay a premium for a Whirlpool product & receive the amount of customer abuse it was really worth the premium.</p> <p>To Summarise I have a useless 10 month old Whirlpool freezer in my possession currently & really out of pocket.</p>