Offer of replacement for broken machine turned into a total headache

MY four year old Beko washing machine had smoke coming from it about six weeks ago. I reported the fault to Beko immediately.

Beko sent an engineer, who said it needed a new drum. He came back with one but it was damaged. The same happened to the next drum.

Beko then said it could not be repaired and would be replaced. But because I had bought the original from Argos, it said I had to go back to Argos and arrange a delivery. It gave me a code number to quote.

Unfortunately, Argos did not seem to understand what was needed. I ran up a phone bill fortune being kept on hold and then having to go through everything again and again as I never spoke to the same person twice and they did not seem to remember my previous calls. Is there any way you can help? Michelle C WHICH? SAYS: BEKO acted well in speedily coming to your aid, although it believes that the smoke was not toxic. Exactly why only broken parts were made available to the engineer is not clear.

So Beko did well again when it decided that a repair was no longer an option. Under current consumer law, retailers and others involved with electric goods can no longer wash their hands of machines once they are out of their official warranty period.

Now their responsibility runs for six years – some might offer part of your purchase price back on out of guarantee items. Beko went better in promising a new machine.

It seemed to Beko that the easiest solution was to get the retailer (Argos) to deliver the replacement washing machine. And it should have been. But somewhere along the line, communications broke down.

It’s unclear where or why this happened although for you, it was a frustration – you felt like a ping-pong ball batted between two big companies. We asked Beko to take a fresh look at your problem. It agreed to do so, and decided that it would be easier to deliver a new machine to your home.

It has also agreed to take away the broken machine, including the concrete block the first engineer removed.