A Cautionary Tale

A while back, last year actually, we had a chap on with an ISE who was, basically, overdosing and overloading the machine. The result, in the end, has yet to fully unfold but I’m going to tell the story with the details anonymised to protect the parties involved.

My hope is that some might learn from it and perhaps understand a little better why some things are the way they are and, why manufacturers rely on getting to the truth of the matter.

The Start

This machine was bought in 2008, a year or so later there was a call placed for an “intermittent leak”.

The attending engineer sealed up both the dispenser and vent hoses and replaced the motor as water had leaked onto that as well.

For now, that was it.

Serious Problems

Called back to the machine in August of 2013, different engineer attends.

Same issue, leak onto the base, electrical errors and so on but this time the customer reported it as “not heating”.

Engineer attends and decides that the machine has been leaking onto the base but can’t find any cause of this. Replaces the heater, gets it to work and leaves.

Recalled again, this time overheating to the point of boiling.

Dispenser front replaced, thermistor replaced.

This time, we ask for photos of the machine as this was just getting beyond a joke with the sheer amount of parts being asked for.

Within an hour the customer texts the engineer saying that the machine has overfilled and flooded the house. Engineer returns.

No obvious fault but it will fill continually bypassing the pressure sensor and the overfill pressure switch. Decides it needs a module and sensor, replaced later after the machine taken to the engineer’s workshop and it works again.

After this various pinging back and forward, more parts thrown at the machine.

Then the guys starts for real.

Insurance Claim

Now he says that the flooring is damaged and, of course it’s Amtico and it’s near enough £7000 worth of flooring. But of course he wants damages and all of that as well so he’s seeking upwards of £14,000 from us or the engineer.

Wants to claim ISE for this obviously. Bear in mind, that’s more than ISE’s annual profits!

At this point I get involved.

Turns out that our insurer states that it is the attending engineer’s responsibility and that their liability should cover it and, if not, they could be facing a big hefty bill. Interestingly what the guy said was that, fi they paid it and it was a third party they may consider pursuing the engineer for costs, that bit I thought you’d all better know about.

So, down to the engineer then.

Ah but then he comes after ISE again, which we don’t quite get.

Then it all goes quiet. I let sleeping dogs lie.

Six to eight months later in rolls a letter from a solicitor wanting copies of images (what the guy has) taken by the second engineer to help diagnose the problem. We filed it and hoped it went away.

Two months later in comes the request by email and we sen the images via upload as they were too large for email, you can view them here:

http://s1368.photobucket.com/user/kwatt … sort=3&o=0

The Real Cause

The real cause of all this is pretty darned obvious, a trained chimp could see that it’s been leaking like a sieve.

But from the soap box front and the top hoses, with no evidence of any damage or holes anywhere?

There can only be one explanation and, it ain’t got nothing to do with a mechanical reason to do with the machine. What irked me a bit was that both engineers failed to diagnose the actual cause or, they were trying to cover for the customer. All they did was throw parts at it until they got lucky.

So that leaves me to think that they’re a bit rubbish, just plain old incompetent or that they were culpable in fraud as much as the customer, take your pick.

I settled on option A. And, this is very sad, it gets my goat not that they made a mistake at all as we all do on occasion but, that it was such an obvious one.

The electrics were soaked and it was doing mad things, it would continue to do so until it dried out or the damaged items replaced. The electrics were soaked because the stupid customer soaked them through misuse.

Ergo, as we could *prove* that we could defend the claims.

Had we not been given the evidence that we were, we could not have done.

The Response

I’ll spare you all the garbage and cut this down to the reply I gave this guy that essentially tells him to go away but to protect the two attending engineers as well in the process.

kwatt wrote:I am not aware of anyone else that covers the area that I would recommend outside of the agents that we tried.

The images are available here:

http://s1368.photobucket.com/user/kwatt … sort=3&o=0

They were too large to email but you can see the level of corrosion and the detergent residues quite clearly. There was little in the way of reports sent by Ernie at the time, essentially just a worksheet that is used for internal purposes in tracking any calls, they would offer you no more insight as they are extremely brief, more or less just a list of parts used.

As I said, the only way for there to be leaks across that sort of area to that degree is from either a physical hole in a hose or the tank, both of which would be blindingly obvious to any service engineer or by the way described which is far more subtle. Unfortunately the evidence clearly shows that the machine has been used in the manner suggested previously, there is no other possible explanation and, given the level of corrosion and the sheer amount of residue it is also very apparent that this has been happening for a considerable period of time, quite probably since installation.

It is possible that it was caused by a poor quality detergent being used that was overfoaming both in the drawer (causing the corrosion there) and also causing the leaks but, in any event, the machine cannot possibly have a problem that would cause oxidation to form on the bottom plate as well as the drawer area which also completely rules out the notion of a leak caused through failure as gravity dictates that the water would run down to the base. However, even thinking along those lines, then there would be no evidence of the leak at the hose cuffs as water cannot “jump” from the drawer front to the tank, that simply is not possible.

From the drawer water would run down and “pool” at the baseplate, leak from the front left leg and if was severe enough from the joint between the cabinet and the base, it would not and could not possibly have run across the entire base as shown in the images. Moreover, severe enough to accomplish even the circumstances described it would have been obviously leaking from the front to the user either during or after use.

The fact that we have signs of residue in at least two distinctly separate areas leaves only the possibility of overdosing, a poor or incorrect detergent being used almost certainly in conjunction with overloading, which is the only explanation for the leak at the hose cuffs as, other than that there should never be enough water in that area to cause any leakage at all. If there were water there to that degree you would have seen the issue immediately as, even to a user, it would have been very obviously wrong. However on that machine it isn’t ordinarily possible as there is overfill protection that would have activated and the machine halted with an error.

Where the FSE’s get an issue that they cannot figure out, i.e. it isn’t obvious such as these sorts of issues, it is often almost like a forensic examination of the evidence and that is the reason that we will often ask for photos of the machine to try to determine cause. This we see on a semi-regular basis is commercial installations such as Premier Travel Inns and so on where staff overload a lot and they tend to use commercial grade detergent not designed for a domestic machine so this sort of thing is well known to us but not so much to the FSEs and not something that they would normally look for straight away in a domestic dwelling. Often this is due to the FSEs that cover domestic and commercial are different agents or some larger companies have their own in-house maintenance.

Sorry, that’s probably not what you wanted to hear but it is the only possible explanations for the damage in evidence.

Because we had the evidence in the photos we can prove that this is not a fault with the machine and has been a case of misuse/abuse, we can kick out the claim on both us and the engineers involved and just as a by the way, we can cancel the warranty as well. If we hadn’t had that, then the engineer could have been facing a huge claim or a load of hassle that was completely silly.

The Conclusion

This is why we ask for images and this is why we need to be able to see what is going on and where as, if it all goes South, without it not only can we not defend the engineers, they can’t defend themselves either.

All too often we get images that are bordering on useless. You see close ups of a broken something, often blurry and out of situ which makes it impossible to use in this way. So, just so you are aware, these are the sorts of images that might just save your neck one day on problem calls.

You may think that this kind of thing is all often for no reason but, that one time you need it to all be in place and correct, might just be the one that saves everyone an absolute heap of grief.

And before anyone says it, yes I have seen this or very similar happen on other brands as well, it’s not just ISE and I’ve seen stuff like this on other products. It’s not about the product it’s about the mentality of the parties involved, diagnostic skills and highlighting that you *NEED* public liability insurance in this day and age. Without it, you might just be playing Financial Russian Ro-ule=tte.

K.