Warning don't buy Indesit/Hotpoint!

bionic_woman · 15 July 2009 at 11:27AM

I purchased an Indesit dishwasher in August 2008. Within 6 months the product had failed miserably. Without going into every single detail of all of the events, dealing with Indesit has been an absolute nightmare. Thecustomer service assistants are rude, incompetent, and inconsistent with their information.

It doesn't matter that you book and confirm an appointment, the service engineers turn up whenever it suits them. The service engineers are incredibly incompetent, rude & very disrespectful.

I have complained time & time again to Indesit about the fact that I've confirmed a morning or afternoon appointment for the service engineer and then the service engineer has turned up whenever it suits even though there's no one at the property - as it's not the time we've agreed & confirmed!

Indesit claim they have no control over agreed appointments, which they can't do anything about and basically no one wants at Indesit wants to take responsibility for these appointments!

With regards to the actual repair - the service engineer on his first visit sold my dad (who rushed to the property at short notice due to the engineer appearing when he wanted as oppose to the time planned) cleaning products - claiming the dishwasher needed de-scaling!

On his second visit, the following week, when I asked Indesit to send someone out to repair the ongoing problem, the same guy returned & said yeah it’s not working and ordered a new part. The guy was very rude, really arrogant especially when I asked him why yet again he had turned up when it suited him rather than when was actually confirmed.

I called Indesit after his visit and requested that a note be put on the system that I do not wish this Service Engineer to be sent to my property in the future ever again, which they said they’d do.

A week later a service engineer was booked to return with the new part and it was the same engineer - who they had promised not to send out to me again! He claimed that now, the dishwasher also needed another new part!

The same service engineer was sent again to fix the machine and I return home to find my new kitchen badly damaged by the engineer’s handiwork and the place was mess; a towel was taken and left soaking wet thrown on the floor, old dishwasher parts left lying around the kitchen. Every other company engineer/service guy I've had in to do work has always cleared up after themselves so why do Indesit think it’s acceptable to leave someone’s home in such a mess?

Needless to say the dishwasher doesn’t work and then goes on to flood my kitchen. I speak to the retailer Tesco who agree it's faulty and take it away. I call Indesit to inform them of the damage & they said they're going to send out a service engineer to assess the damage in fact the same one who did the damage!
I request for the FIFTH time in 2 months, that they DO NOT send out the same service engineer as I find him rude, incompetent, useless and unreliable. Indesit promise they won't and I even change the day & time of the appointment to accommodate this.

Lo & behold - the day of the appointment the Service Engineer turns up at a different time to the allocated appointment and it's THE SAME GUY who did the damage who I had specifically requested NOT to come back to my property ever again! He didn’t know why he was there and was embarrassed when I told him he was there to assess the damage he had done to my new kitchen.

He admitted he had left a hole and dent in my new fridge freezer but didn't realise the damage he had also done to my kitchen units! You can imagine how angry I am.

I have called Indesit again and again since demanding to speak to a manager and have been fobbed off with promises of someone 'senior will call you back within 4 working hours/by the end of the day.' No one has bothered to call me back and I have never experienced such an incompetent and useless company as Indesit/Hotpoint.

Needless to say I am fuming; I've wasted months on this problem, money on their greedy 0845/0844 customer phone lines & have had to deal with spoken to poorly trained staff that are just useless and couldn’t care less, dealt with rude & arrogant service engineer who has caused more trouble than you can imagine as well as damage to my property and am now stuck trying to get Indesit to repair the damage. I'm self employed and have lost quite a few days work waiting for the Indesit Service Engineer and having to rearrange my day and appointments because he's turned up when it suits him and not when the appointment was booked. Why do companies think it's okay to behave like this & that they can get away with it?

Please, don't waste your time, money or energy on Indesit/Hotpoint products as their aftercare and customer service is appalling. The products are pretty poor quality too. I was only using my dishwasher 2 -3 times a week and it stopped working after just 6 months!

I have now bought a dishwasher from John Lewis; the price was competitive, and I will now only buy products from there as the customer service is amazing and is not matched by any other company.

I'm now seeking legal advice as I'm not letting Indesit get away with the damage to personal property and to being messed about so much by the abysmal excuse for a company.

I am furious and also believe that retailers such as Tesco (who have been fair & dealt & have taken the faulty dishwasher away) be aware of the poor level of customer service and after care offered by the manufacturers of the products they are selling. If I was a retailer I would be appalled to think that this was the customer service I was passing onto my customers.

Be warned and save yourself a lot of stress – DON’T BUY Indesit/Hotpoint. :mad:

Smashing · 15 July 2009 at 11:31AM

Totally agree. Having a total nightmare with a fridge/freezer at the moment. Broken twice within 5 months and no chance of an engineer coming out for at least a week each time.

Great. :rolleyes:

Older_but_not_wiser_2 · 15 July 2009 at 11:41AM

Got to say that we had our Indesit washing machine for 7 years, only broke down 2 weeks ago, and that's with being on at least once a day for the past 7 years. (how can children go through so much clothes?)

Got a Hotpoint one now, so hoping for the same reliability as the Indesit one.

Maybe we were just lucky.

Halloway · 15 July 2009 at 12:06PM

My Hotpoint Aquarius d/w finally died on Sunday after six years of intensive use. I'd say that it lasted pretty well considering how it was abused.

soolin · 15 July 2009 at 1:18PM

Just over 2 years ago I bought my first ever Hotpoint item, a washer dryer. It was trouble from the day it was delivered and I bitterly regret buying it.

I saw this thread as the repair man has just left, he said the older hotpoints were great and never broke down but the newer ones are just trouble. My one has a design fault that means lint from the dryer gets stuck in the outlook pipe, on other machines you can reach the filters are the front and clear them out on the Hotpoint you have to take the back off and disconenct all the pipes and replace nuts etc just to get the lint out.

Oh and the repair man, an Independent, has smashed a cupboard door by sitting on when he tried to pull the machine out and the hinges have pulled from the door and broken the side of the cupboard under the sink.

spuds_2 · 15 July 2009 at 5:54PM

We had an Indesit washer which lasted 20 years, but I don't think their reputation is what it was. My local repair man recommended Bosch. However, next time I buy a new one I am going to look at John Lewis' own brand - they are made by AEG and have a 3 year guarantee, though all washers from them seem to have 2 years as standard anyway.

bionic_woman · 15 July 2009 at 5:55PM

Hey Soolin

Sorry to hear you're having such a nightmare too. Make sure you complain to Indesit about the damage to your property. These companies are insured against this kind of thing & the engineers they send round couldn't care less what state they leave your property. Don't let them fob you off with promises of a phone call - this, as I found out will drag on & on, unless you put your foot down with them.

I spoke to Indesit today after insisting they put me through to a manager. They say they're sending out a letter to me asking me to provide a quote for the repair to the damage. I will aslo be billing them for wasting my time, earnings for loss of wages while waiting for the poor excuse of a repair man. :mad:

You've been lucky if your Indesit appliance hasn't broken down yet but more than anything also very lucky that you've not had to suffer Indesit/Hotpoint's appalling after care, terrible customer service and the lack of regard & urgency to fix their faulty products. Honestly spend a few more pounds & buy a different brand of white goods or go to John Lewis - then you won't have to go endure this poor excuse for a company.

bionic_woman · 15 July 2009 at 5:57PM

Hey Spuds

I've just ordered a Bosch dishwasher from John Lewis and was very tempted by their own brand. The salesman said I would be happy with either model but did say the Bosch was made by the guys who Miele etc and was slighltly better but was sure I'd be happy with either.

gunsandbanjos · 15 July 2009 at 7:16PM

soolin wrote: »

Just over 2 years ago I bought my first ever Hotpoint item, a washer dryer. It was trouble from the day it was delivered and I bitterly regret buying it.

I had a Hotpoint washer dryer and it was the bane of my life:mad: So many problems with it, really glad i took out the 5 year warranty on it, hate to think what it would have cost me in repairs if i didn't.

Recently replaced it with a Miele washer dryer and it is amazing:D

bionic_woman wrote: »

I've just ordered a Bosch dishwasher from John Lewis and was very tempted by their own brand. The salesman said I would be happy with either model but did say the Bosch was made by the guys who Miele etc and was slighltly better but was sure I'd be happy with either.

John Lewis own brand is meant to be very good.

whitegoods_engineer · 15 July 2009 at 8:55PM

Well what a tirade from Bionic Woman.

So we are all idiots and just turn up when we want to!

I wish that people would not make such stupid comments.

I'm sure that Bionic Woman is one of those people who think that the engineer sits waiting by the phone, ready to rush to her aid when her appliance breaks down. Oh what a luxury that would be!

Well you need to be aware that however hard it is for you that your machine has broken down, you are just ONE of a list of customers that the engineer will attend that day, and your call is no more important nor has a higher priority than any other!

In the whitegoods trade, major manufacturers and retailers have an engineering workforce who carry out a large number of calls every year. I myself do approximately 2,500 visits per year.

The engineers start the day with a big list of calls, usually in a wide geographic area (3 or 4 hours actual driving during the course of the day, let alone repairing appliances!) It is not uncommon for engineers to set out each day with 14 plus jobs, all of whom expect us to accommodate their school runs, shopping trips, doctors appointments etc.

I do 10 + jobs a day currently and I call each of my customers with an estimate of when I will be with them. I say “between 1 and 4” or between “11 and 2” etc etc. I always stipulate that this is purely an estimate since I cannot tell what time I will be at the customer's house until I am walking up their garden path! So If I tell a customer it will be between 10 and 1, it is not a promise, it is not a guarantee, it is an estimate. I will get there as soon as I can, but don't expect me to give you a precise time as it is simply IMPOSSIBLE!

Almost every day when I say, for example, “I estimate that I will be there between 1 and 4”, somebody will say “can you narrow it down?” or, “ will it be nearer 1 or nearer 4?”
I DON'T KNOW, AND IT'S JUST AN ESTIMATE, THATS WHY I GAVE A 3 HOUR SLOT!!!

Then I get there at 4:10 and the customer says “You're late” NO I'M NOT LATE, IT WAS AN ESTIMATED TIME!!!!!!

We simply do not have the luxury of being able to give customers times since each repair we go to is unique and takes varying amounts of time to complete.

As for repairs, like any other job, we are not perfect. We sometimes get it wrong, sometimes we damage floors or units, but in the 2,500 visits I make a year, with the best of care, I will occasionally damage a floor or something, that's life unfortunately, and it would be a miracle if in doing that many calls no damage ever occurred!

Again with diagnosis we can't always get it right 100 percent of the time. Sometimes faults are not self evident or are intermittent, with the appliance behaving perfectly during the engineer's visit. Often it is the customer, overloading machines, failing to do the basic maintenance required. The vast majority of the time, as proven by the stats produced by every whitegoods organisation I have ever worked for, we get it right, and the customer gets a working appliance.

We get a snapshot visit of each appliance we attend. I wish I had a pound for every time I've been told that the 'noise happens every few weeks'. (I know, I'll move in with them and wait then!) We're not miracle workers, we do the best that we can in the limited time we are able to devote to your appliance.

The comment on buying from John Lewis made me laugh, Do you think the nice man from John Lewis (who gave such great service) who sold you the appliance will come out and fix it then? No, it will be the manufacturer!

To say we are all idiots is just so insulting.

Oh and the comment from you that the engineers don't care what state they leave your property in, what a stupid statement!

soolin · 16 July 2009 at 7:50AM

I'll try to answer everything in one go!

My engineer wasn't from Indesit he was Independent and i think frankly he had enough of being an enginner as he was fairly angry about washing machines in general.

He also advised me to go to Bosch in future, my last machine was a Bosch and apart from the fact it had quite a small drum I liked it and it did me for 5 years.

I also did have a 5 year warranty with the current machine and previously Hotpoint themselves were fixing it and they were very nice. However when Empire Direct went down Hotpoint would no longer honour the service details as they said Empire had used an odd system for insurance and not through a third party so they no longer got paid.

Whitegoods-engineer, you have just reminded me why I will never take an extended warranty again. I used to have them as I am heavy on machines but the repair companies hold you to ransom. For instance when my current machine used to be fixed by Hotpoint it was not unusual to have to wait 2 weeks for a call out and even then it would be a 5 hour slot and often cancelled half way through that slot as engineer had broken down . (I had a lot of engineers break down?). I even had some not turn up at all and when I phoned Hotpoint just got fobbed off with 'oh he was ill, did we forget to tell you?. As I am self employed all those wasted hours of cost me money.

I prefer to use an independent as I am in control as I am paying. I can ask for a time slot that suits me, my man yesterday was only booked th emorning before. Cost wise it is cheaper fo rme to pay £40 on average for a repair man of my choice rather than get 'free' repairs on an expensive warranty where I wait weeks. Defintely no more warranties for me.

Warning don't buy Indesit/Hotpoint!

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