Woman Waits… And Waits For Fridge Repair

BALTIMORE -- A Catonsville woman said she's frustrated at the hoops she's been forced to jump through to get her refrigerator repaired, even though she had a warranty on it.

Lisa Robinson Reports

Dorothy Kielman, 86, said she has more than 30 people to cook for this Thanksgiving and she's worried about getting it done with a broken refrigerator.

Kielman has been waiting two months for the Complete Appliance Service of Pasadena to fix her refrigerator.

She said she buys a $45 warranty from its manufacturer, Frigidaire, every year. When she called the company in September, it told her to contact Complete Appliance.

"I'm getting tired of this waiting and waiting. Why are they treating me this way?" she told 11 News I-Team reporter Lisa Robinson.

"On Oct. 7, the man came out and said, 'It's not the relay, it's the condenser, and that would take 10 days.' The days went on, then it went up to 50 days, and now it's almost 60 days," Kielman said.

She said it's hard for her to go up and down the stairs to an old refrigerator in the basement. She said repeated attempts to get the company to fix it went unanswered.

The service contract said parts would be ordered in three to five days if they were in stock and seven to 10 days if they were on backorder.

"The last I heard from them, the condenser was on someone's truck and he couldn't come," Kielman said.

The I-Team called Complete Appliance, and it said that it's unfortunate that the refrigerator has been down that long. The company said it has to order from Frigidaire and it had to wait until the part became available.

Complete Appliance insisted it didn't do anything wrong and that it would be out to fix Kielman's refrigerator on Thursday. The company said Frigidaire held the job up in getting the part to them.

Even though Kielman's warranty was not expensive, the Better Business Bureau said to take a close look at any warranty to see if it's going to create more headaches than solutions.

"How much do they cost? Because appliances break in the third to fifth year. What is the deductible? What does it cover? If it doesn't cover normal wear and tear, you may be paying for something that may not help," said BBB spokeswoman Angie Barnett.

The I-Team contacted Frigidaire. It said it was sorry Kielman had a problem and said it would look into the problem and try to prevent it from happening to anyone in the future.