Fix for shattered oven door a two-month campaign
Initial compensation attempts were denied by General Electric, but dogged persistence paid off
My mother loved GE appliances, so I have many GE appliances at home.
My faith in the brand was shaken when my oven’s glass door shattered after three years of light use.
GE agreed to a no-cost repair, which I described in a 2012 column. But a recent case showed the company is taking a harder line.
Konstantinos Gus Luizos has a GE oven that is rarely used. His wife is a nurse who works night shifts, while he makes dinners for his two kids with the help of a toaster oven and microwave.
On a recent Sunday, he was cooking food at a medium temperature (350 F), when he heard a noise and saw the oven-door glass shattered over the floor.
“This is a hazard to my children, age 3 and 5. Glass keeps falling on the floor. If the glass from the defective door injures my kids, I will take legal action,” he told Mabe Canada, which handles GE repairs.
Luizos used social media to publicize his plight. GE Appliances Canada blocked him on Twitter, while Mabe ignored his calls for a week.
If you do a Google search, you will find reports of exploding ovens across North America.
The appliance maker often pays for repairs even after the warranty runs out, but Mabe stood firm in denying coverage.
“They claimed I must have done something to cause the oven door to shatter,” Luizos said. “But this doesn’t make sense. We use the oven a couple of times a year, maybe eight times in total since we bought it.”
I went back to GE several times, asking to escalate the case with Mabe’s customer service team. But he couldn’t get free repairs because his oven was four years old.
“The customer’s range is no longer within the manufacturer’s warranty and we have declined his request,” said Michelle Richard, customer service leader at Mabe’s Moncton operations.
“We have explained our use of tempered glass, which is also known as safety glass, and how it is designed to break safely in the event of such a rare occurrence.”
Luizos didn’t buy the story and said some pieces were “razor sharp.”
When his babysitter cut her finger trying to clean up the falling glass, he took photos and sent them to Mabe.
In the meantime, I went to the retailer that sold the oven, asking it to join the fight. Best Buy Canada was sympathetic and keen to help.
“Since the GE unit is discontinued, sourcing the glass window has proven difficult or even impossible to do in a timely manner,” Best Buy told Luizos, offering him a $250 credit on the purchase of a new oven (up from $100 at first).
I couldn’t leave the case alone. Neither could Best Buy. We both kept asking Mabe to change its inflexible stance.
The campaign worked. Almost two months after the door shattered, Luizos received the answer he wanted.
“We are confident this is not a safety issue, but we understand that some consumers are concerned when such an incident happens. Based on further review and discussions, we will cover the cost of parts and labour for this service request,” Richard said.
Once Mabe agreed to a repair, it sent a technician to his home to inspect the oven.
Luizos was told it was unlikely he damaged the glass through misuse. There were three panes of glass on his door – and only the middle pane had shattered. My advice: Persistence pays off.
That’s a lesson to take from this story. Keep asking for what you think is deserved. Tangerine tightens credit card benefits
Find allies to put pressure on a company. Social media can go so far. You will go further with a large retail chain and a large media outlet on your side.
Tangerine Bank has scaled back some benefits on its money-back credit card and raised the foreign exchange fee. The announcement came less than a year after the card was introduced.
“The changes reflect what our clients value most and allow us to maintain a competitive product with industryleading features, such as no annual fee and no limit on the rewards you can earn,” said Tangerine spokesperson Buket Oktem.
If you are a Tangerine cardholder, please let me know what you think. Ellen Roseman appears in Smart Money. You can reach her at eroseman@thestar.ca.