Black smoke billowed into my utility room – but they tried to blame ME
REBECCA Robinson said Whirlpool tried to pressure her not to report a tumble dryer fire which happened a year after it was supposedly made safe.
Smoke billowed out and an electrical burning smell filled her utility room during the blaze in October. Mrs Robinson, 32, a school communications manager, said the Hotpoint engineer who later came told her: ‘It shouldn’t happen like that on a modified one.’
But when he phoned his head office from her home to report it the firm kept trying to pass the blame on to Mrs Robinson, implying that she had not kept the dryer clean.
They also warned her she might lose her dryer if she didn’t agree to have a ‘fix on the fix’ rather than replacement machine – which would also mean the engineer would not have to write an official incident report on the fire. But she refused, preferring to risk having no dryer than one that might burn her house down.
The Hotpoint engineer’s report, dated October 30 2018, described the cause as ‘lint build-ups on the heater element and burn signs on the rear panel’ – the exact thing that Whirpool’s modification was designed to stop.
Mrs Robinson, who lives with husband Ben, 33, near Newton Abbot in Devon, said: ‘It was frightening. There was a really strong smell of electrical burning.’ She added: ‘The way [Whirlpool] acted really triggered a concern.
‘I felt like tactics were coming into play and they were trying to pass the blame.’