Damage caused by engineer

[whatamess]

Hi

 

Not sure if i have come to the correct group for this. I bought a tumble dryer from hoover 6 months ago and something went wrong with it last week so i called out an engineer. After taking the whole dryer apart the engineer discovered the problem and ordered a part. When the engineer left i noticed a lot of deep big scratces along the sides of the dryer which wasnt there before, my dryer is stand alone and doesnt touch any sides so it couldnt be scratched any other way. the enginner didnt use blankets or anything and i have a tiled floor which would easily scratch a shiney black surface. I wrote a letter to complain and someone came to take photos of the dryer. I got an email back today to say that they ask the customers to pull thier own appliances out so there is no damage caused by the engineer and basically fobbed me off.

I have written back to them asking when did they ask me to pull out my own dryer and also do they ask the customer to take thier appliances apart as well, its a ridicuals answer to my complaint.

 

Is there anything else i can do? Im quite upset that i can spend so much on a dryer and they cause the damage and i have to just put up and shut up.

 

Thanks

[BankFodder]

Before you have any further dealings with anyone on the telephone, please read our customer services guide.

 

Which is the company that sent out the engineer?

 

Please could you post up the email that they sent you.

 

What is the value of the tumble dryer new? Please would you post good photographs of the damage.

 

There is no doubt that the company which employed the engineer is liable and if necessary you can sue them in the Small Claims Court. The question will be as to what remedy you will get.

 

Of course, you would like to have a new tumble dryer because you are justifiably concerned about the aesthetics of it which have now been affected.

 

The company would prefer to say that you are simply entitled to a measure of compensation because the functionality of the tumble dryer is completely unchanged. They would want to say that it is simply cosmetic damage.

 

I think that in addition to photographs of the damage it would be worth seeing photographs of the tumble dryer in situ. Is it in a kitchen? Is it in a utility room?

 

If the tumble dryer is in a kitchen where people normally have access to and that it is clearly a bit of an eyesore, then given the fact that the tumble dryer is fairly new, you have a good case for a replacement – or a refund of most of the money you paid.

 

If on the other hand the tumble dryer is in a utility room or garage so that it is not really part of the decor, then it may well be that you would have to accept some compensation for cosmetic damage.

[whatamess]

Its Hoover/Candy that sent the engineer out to me.

 

I think the tumble dryer was about £380 i need to have a look for the exact amount.

 

I have tried taking photos but because its shiney and black they dont come out very good, they did send an engineer out on Monday who took photos.

 

The dryer is in my kitchen.

 

I spoke to Citizen advice and doesnt look like i have a leg to stand on.

 

Here are the emails, sorry it makes this post very long

 

My first email to complain:

 

I would like to make a complaint about the customer service i have recently experienced from Hoover. I called customer services on 26th Jan to book for an engineer to come out to my home to repair my washing machine and my tumble dryer which are both under 6 months old. When the engineer turned up on Friday 30th Jan he told me that only my washing machine was booked in. I called customer services to complain and to find out why, and they confirmed that only 1 appliance had been booked in. I asked if the calls were recorded and could they please listen to the call i made on 26th Jan. Which they said they are recorded and they will investigate, I am still waiting for a reply from that. The engineer did manage to book in my dryer for repair on the same day but didn't have the part to repair it that day after taking the whole dryer apart. When the engineer left I noticed that both sides of my dryer where badly scratched which i believe happened when the engineer took the machine apart. When i called back customer services to complain i had to hold on for 27 minutes before someone answered the phone. The message was " we are very busy with other calls at the moment please hold on for a few more minutes and we will answer your call" when i eventually got through to someone i told him how long i had waited for him to answer and he told me " oh that's strange as our call centre isn't busy and we are all waiting for the phone to ring". Now that call has probably cost me in the region of £5 as i believe the premium was 12p per minute. This tells me that Hoover are ripping off customers by making them hang on the line when there are people in the call centre free and ready to take calls. I do hope you have my call recorded? Before buying my washing machine and tumble dryer from Hoover i had never bought a Hoover product and after my experience on Friday i will never buy another product from Hoover again. Please can you look into my complaint, and i look forward to hearing from someone soon.

Reply:

Good Morning,

Thank you for your email,

We were indeed sorry to learn of the issues you have raised and apologies for any inconvenience experienced, with regards to our internal investigation we are not obliged to advise you of the outcome, however we can assure you we take our complaints serious.

With regards to the scratches on the side of the appliance after the service engineer has left we do advise customer should take out their own appliances, so no damage can be done to customer’s appliances we were sorry to learn that you waited 27 minutes on our telephone line and when the operator answered the telephone said they were waiting for calls this has been escalated to the call centre manager, however as a gesture of goodwill we would like to offer £30.00 for the inconvenience caused, if you would like to accept this offer please let us know whom to make the cheque payable to.

Your return visit for the service engineer to fit spare parts has been made for Tuesday 10/02/15, job reference number 1125574. Once again please accept our sincere apologies for the obvious inconvenience caused, assuring of our best attention at all times.

Kind Regards

Customer Correspondence Team

My reply:

Hi

Thank you for your email. I'm quite concerned that you advise customers to take out their own appliances, please can you tell me at what point is the customer told to take their own appliances out? I was never advised to do that. I'm also wondering do you also advise customers to take the appliances apart for the engineer? If you read my first email I said the damage was done when the engineer took the machine apart and the scratches where caused probably due to the parts being scraped along my kitchen floor. I feel you have pushed that part of my complaint aside by offering me £30 compensation which is not good enough, in the mean time I have a 6 month old dryer which is now cosmetically not acceptable because one of your engineers didn't take good enough care of it. Can you please let me know what you intend to do about the cosmetic damage to my dryer?

Hoover reply:

Good Morning,

Thank you for your email,

We can only apologies for the damage of the scratches made by the service engineer, whilst he was repairing your appliance, unfortunately as this in only cosmetic there is nothing we can do as it doesn’t stop the workings of the machine, but we have reported this to his manager. We would never advise our customer to take there appliances apart as this would void your warranty. The offer of £30.00 is our full and final offer.

Once again please accept our apologies for any inconvenience caused.

Kind regards

Customer Correspondence Team

[Conniff]

You couldn't buy wet and dry, aerosol primer and topcoat for that let alone the expertise to do it.

[BankFodder]

On what basis do citizens advice so that you don't have a leg to stand on? They are completely wrong.

 

In terms of your photographs, have you been using flash? If you have then this would explain the bounceback into the camera lens. Most digital photography does not need to be done with the use of flash. The only time you really need to use flash with digital photography is when the scene is backlit – meaning, for instance when the sun or a very reflective surface such as the sea is behind your subject so that your subject will be in silhouette. Then you use flash to balance the backlighting.

 

As you're taking photographs indoors, please take them without flash and you should notice a difference.

[whatamess]

On what basis do citizens advice so that you don't have a leg to stand on? They are completely wrong.

 

In terms of your photographs, have you been using flash? If you have then this would explain the bounceback into the camera lens. Most digital photography does not need to be done with the use of flash. The only time you really need to use flash with digital photography is when the scene is backlit – meaning, for instance when the sun or a very reflective surface such as the sea is behind your subject so that your subject will be in silhouette. Then you use flash to balance the backlighting.

 

As you're taking photographs indoors, please take them without flash and you should notice a difference.

 

They emailed me again to say I can take photos and send them to the liability dept who will deal with my complaint. I will try the photos again today. Not sure why they didn't give me that option in the first place. Or are they just passing the buck again? Shocking.