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KV – My new fridge-freezer and it’s warranty

Summary:
I bought a new Hoover fridge freezer which has a 1 year warranty and 10 year parts warranty. To register the product for the 10 year parts warranty I had to ring up a number. A huge card which came with the manual tells me to do this and there is also a big red sticker on the fridge door. I rang the number, and a lady took my details who then told me about the Hoover labour charges at 129.99 per hour. WTF! No wonder they are happy to offer a 10-year free parts warranty. She said if I use another engineer the parts warranty is void. Fair enough, but I'm locked into a hoover 129.99 hourly labour charge if I want the free parts warranty.  After frightening me with that, she told me all the things I'm not covered for - accidental damage, knobs and handles, leaving the fridge door open,

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I bought a new Hoover fridge freezer which has a 1 year warranty and 10 year parts warranty. To register the product for the 10 year parts warranty I had to ring up a number. A huge card which came with the manual tells me to do this and there is also a big red sticker on the fridge door.

I rang the number, and a lady took my details who then told me about the Hoover labour charges at 129.99 per hour. WTF! No wonder they are happy to offer a 10-year free parts warranty. She said if I use another engineer the parts warranty is void. Fair enough, but I'm locked into a hoover 129.99 hourly labour charge if I want the free parts warranty. 

After frightening me with that, she told me all the things I'm not covered for - accidental damage, knobs and handles, leaving the fridge door open, which can over work the motor, etc. It took ages, and then she tried to sell me insurance for £3.79 per month. I have a free one-year warranty but she said she couldn't guarantee the low price later on in the year. I declined, and then after trying to get me to reconsider, she gave me a Hoover number to contact because I said the motor was noisy. 

So, I hadn't rung up hoover at all, just an insurance company, and the hoover 10-year parts warranty comes with a whopping £129.99 hourly charge, which means that after just two and a half hours labour it would have been cheaper to have bought a new fridge-freezer. 

And if my motor is noisy, chances are the service engineer will say its not noisy enough to come under the warranty. 

So, I wasted 20 minutes talking to an operative who did not work for hoover at all, or someone who deals with their warranty or registration. It was just an insurance company, which turns out to be Domestic and General, as they rung me up right afterwards to ask me to take part in a survey.

Yeah, and that's the other thing, the lady never once mentioned Domestic and General, so I was left believing I was talking to Hoover. 


Now I have to ring up Hoover and go all through it again. 

From this video it seems that my fridge-freezer may be okay, as I suspected, as the motor does not sound faulty, just very loud for a fridge-freezer. My old one is whisper quite, but it is not frost-free, so it doesn't have a fan. But fans are normally whisper quite too. My boiler is slightly noisier and I never notice that, so maybe it's about getting used to it.

Fridge noises by Hotpoint

Mike Norman
Mike Norman is an economist and veteran trader whose career has spanned over 30 years on Wall Street. He is a former member and trader on the CME, NYMEX, COMEX and NYFE and he managed money for one of the largest hedge funds and ran a prop trading desk for Credit Suisse.

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