It has been reported in “Woman’s Own” magazine that a Servis customer, Therese O’Dell of Whetton in Derbyshire, held an engineer hostage as she had to wait six weeks to a resolution to her problem with a broken washing machine bought from Currys. Whilst not a terribly unusual story these days for this industry, it is unusual for a customer to be driven to such extraordinary lengths to effect a repair or replacement appliance.
Mrs O’Dell apparently had awaited an initial visit three weeks in advance of the initial callout and on the day that the engineer was scheduled to arrive he did not turn up. She called the Servis call centre and received a rescheduled appointment for a week later.
This time the engineer did arrive and diagnosed that the drum bearings had failed on the appliance and that a further call would be required with the spares. Although no mention is made in the article as to how old the machine was it was obviously still within its twelve month warranty period and still suffered this major failure.
Two weeks later another engineer arrived with the spares, they were incorrect. At this point Mrs O’Dell snapped and barricaded the engineer’s van in and refused to release him until the matter was resolved. And apparently according to the old tag line, “Servis Cares” which I now note has been changed to “designed to make life easier”.
It is actually illegal to do this and should you try this tactic please remember that you are breaking the law by forcibly holding someone against their will, you could be in serious trouble and, as happened in this case, the police are obliged to become involved. However, happily in this instance a resolution was found without any legal unpleasantness and Mrs O’Dell received a replacement appliance.
What we at UK Whitegoods do not want to see is a rise in instances such as these as independent repairers can do little, if anything, to encourage a replacement appliance in most instances.
In the case of Servis appliances, Servis (Phone: 0121-568-8333) use their own engineers as well as independent repairers at this time through a company called GBDAR (GB Domestic Appliance Repairs ““ Phone: 01942-601604) and it could well be an independent repairer that calls to such an appliance. However he is only acting on behalf of the manufacturer and holds no sway in the decision to replace an appliance and we would always suggest that if you wish an appliance replaced that you contact the retailer.
In light of recent reports of poor manufacturer service from various companies please use the web-links section to locate the manufacturer as all the major UK and many global manufacturers contact details will be there.
To complain about Servis products the actual manufacturer and owner of the company can be found on the Antonio Merloni website and Servis UK’s website can be found using this link.
This was actually in Charlton Mackrell near Yeovil in 2000. She was in my area but I was in Cyprus and read about it in the paper. When I got back I was asked to go and discovered that National Homecare (his van was blocked) had been out several times but the fault was that the machine was on a piece of wood and was bouncing around. The machine was moved to solid floor and was ok. I think Servis exchanged it for goodwill but there was nothing I could find wrong. Mrs O”Dell was a lovely lady who was messed around by Homecare and just was at the end of her tether. I spent 2 hours there and left very amicably.
Rob Bradford
hello Rob Bradford. This is Therese O”Dells daughter (the woman in question), your information is also wrong. As it was certainly not on a peice of wood, we lived in a converted barn in Welham nr Charlton Mackerell, this stone floor was flat and the real problem with the washing machine was the fact that the drum was egg shaped instead of round.
My mother was messed around by Homecare but was NOT at the end of her tether she took her customer care into her own hands. The period was actually 6 weeks.
Servis did not exchange the machine for goodwil, as it was certain they should have already paid us for compensation. This washing machine flooded our house twice, and ate our underwear.
Glad that i have put your facts straight.
Jessica O”Dell – daughter of Therese
p.s the engineers” name was Eddie