Dishonesty Can Get You Into Trouble

[kwatt]

Here’s a typical example of what I see on a pretty regular basis although I have changed the names and ommitted the details that would identify the culprits…

ME! wrote:I have attended this appliance myself and, to say that I am angered and disappointed by my findings would be an understatement.

Please find attached proper photographs of the machine and the actual cause of the problem, which was not a split tank as claimed by ********* at all. In fact how the engineer missed the actual cause is absolutely beyond me as I saw it within thirty seconds of removing the lid so I can only but presume one of two things:

1. Whoever attended is incompetent

2. Whoever attended did not want to repair this appliance and deliberately lied about the cause in order to have it written off

In the case of one, well that’s for you to resolve but it is unacceptable that someone who could misdiagnose to this extent is allowed onto any customer’s property.

In the case of two, I would view this as a deliberate attempt to defraud *******, end of story. For the moment this is your problem but this will hold implications for ongoing service requirements as it is not the first time that we have suspected this sort of behaviour, just the first time we’ve proven it.

As you can see quite clearly from the numerous pictures of the soap dispenser hose where it meets the tub, it has been leaking due to overdosing of detergent. Photographs also show this CLEARLY running down the side of the tank and onto the cradle, the water has run to the lowest possible point and dripped onto the motor causing that to short and fail. I did not test but I would expect the inverter card to have failed also since it would have received a dead short from the motor. The cause of the failure is glaringly obvious.

There are no indications whatsoever that there is a split in the tank and, in fact as one photo shows, there’s never been water near the back bottom of the tank therefore a leak in that area is not possible. The water has tracked around the inside of the cradle and run out, you can se the run marks, onto the bottom surface and dripped down to the base. Ultimately at some point there’s been enough water there that allowed it to track along the cradle and then to drip onto the motor and cause it to short.

The front of the machine and soap drawer all show signs of consistent overdosing, you can see the built up soap scum and run marks.

On the photos taken by your engineer you can see that this has been a problem for months from the residues on the base plate of the machine. The residues on the motor have also been there for some time.

The detergent being used is an ******* one which is untested with these machines and is commercial in nature, which we would not recommend for use in ******* machines as it has not been tested. However, even at that you can see the detergent dosing warning, even through the soap scum, on the drawer front as per the photograph. It would appear that either training was not given or that the warnings both there and in the manual have been ignored.

During the visit I talked to both ******* ******* and ****** ******* both of whom separately told me that the attending engineer had told them that the tub was burst and it would cost over £1000 to repair and that they’d get a new machine. Obviously this is a total fabrication and it is not the way I would expect any engineer to conduct themselves as he had no right to quote pricing since he could not know that and, he also could not have known what action would be taken and it was not his place to comment in this manner.

Ongoing, ****** ****** will review every single repair before it is approved for payment.

Any high cost repairs will not be forwarded to the ******* before ****** ****** have a chance to review them personally.

Worrying also is that you were trying to force ********* into replacing this machine without the full details of what the problem actually was.

This is a classic case of either, lazy misdiagnosis on the part of the attending engineer or an attempt to fraudulently get a new machine out a manufacturer for what is, in essence, customer misuse.

This happens more than you may think.

Please, please be careful what you say about a fault and make sure that you are right because, if someone like me decides to take a trot out and look at it you could be rumbled if you told porkies or simply got it wrong.

Thankfully this one wasn’t one of our guys that attended as I’d hate to think that any of the guys selling and repairing ISE would be that stupid.

The reason I’ve posted it in here is as a cautionary tale since I know that many of you do contract work. Some of these calls are monitored and some of them are vetted to more of an extent that you may realise.

This dude obviously thought he was doing the customer a favour and has ended up losing the agency he held, not getting paid for any invoices he had in the system and blacklisted by us and the client. This means that any future work will also not be offered to him that I have a say in as, anyone that will do something like that you just can’t trust.

K.

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