Q: I bought a Frigidaire wall oven from Lowe’s recently, and it’s been a disaster. The temperature swings wildly, burning one batch of cupcakes and undercooking another.
Frigidaire has sent four technicians over the last two months, but none of them fixed the issue. One was a no-show. Another repairman had a full mailbox and was impossible to reach. And another admitted he “didn’t understand” the oven’s technology.
I’ve contacted the California Department of Consumer Affairs and posted negative reviews, but Frigidaire keeps pushing more repairs. I’m exhausted. At what point does Frigidaire take responsibility and refund me?
— Cynthia Alviso, Livermore, Calif.
A: Frigidaire should have fixed your oven promptly under its warranty or offered a refund after repeated failed repairs. The Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act requires companies to honor warranties within a reasonable number of repair attempts, and four unsuccessful visits likely qualify.
You did the right thing by documenting every interaction. A paper trail is so important in a case like this. I might have reached out sooner to one of the Frigidaire executive contacts. I list them on my consumer advocacy site, Elliott.org. Make sure you mention California’s Song-Beverly Consumer Warranty Act, which protects your refund rights for defective products.
Your case underscores the importance of conducting research before buying any appliance. It looks like your oven was on sale at Lowe’s, and it’s possible the retailer was trying to get rid of unwanted appliances because they were unreliable. Always do your homework, and if there’s any doubt, it’s better to move on. After all, you’re going to be stuck with that oven for a while (even if it doesn’t work right).
I asked you about the research, and you said you checked out the reviews, which were mostly positive. “One other reviewer had similar issues, and I thought that was most likely a one-off,” you told me.
Lowe’s was also a dead end for resolving this, since you were past the 30-day warranty it offers and hadn’t purchased its extended protection.
But to be clear, an oven with that kind of mood swings is completely unacceptable. Frigidaire’s claims that it was fixed are absurd. (Maybe you should have offered the technicians some of your burnt cupcakes? I think that would have settled it.)
I contacted Frigidaire on your behalf. A representative contacted you and agreed to process a refund, but there was a catch. You had to dispose of the old oven, and the refund wasn’t enough to buy a replacement oven because you’d received a sizable discount when you purchased the oven through Lowe’s. But in the end, you got every penny of your purchase price back, and that’s as much as I could have hoped for.
Christopher Elliott is the founder of Elliott Advocacy, a nonprofit organization that helps consumers solve their problems. Email him at chris@elliott.org or get help by contacting him at the nonprofit’s site.