Michael Kimb Jones

I’ve had a Hotpoint fridge freezer for about 6 months now. I love it. Its big, energy efficient and has an auto defrost function meaning I don’t have to melt it out every so often.

It broke about 2 months ago

When I say it broke, the fridge part (top part) stopped working. The Freezer has worked fine throughout.

So I called Hotpoint, they were happy to help and sent out an engineer (lets call him ‘Number 1′) to fix it.

‘Number 1′ did a good job and it all seemed fine until 3 weeks later when it gradually became aware that it was not fixed at all.

£100s worth of food went south and worst of all, my Beer went warm

So I called Hotpoint again, they were again happy to help and a week later an engineer (lets call him ‘Number 2′) came to fix it.

It appeared that ‘Number 2′ was a little bit confused as he could see nothing wrong with the system and therefore assumed it would need “Regassing” and that this would take a week to order. It would also mean that a new engineer (’Number 3′) would have to be called out.

1 week and 1 day later ‘Number 3′ arrived and laughed off the idea of “Regassing” as a joke!

You see, as detailed on the “www.fridgerepairs.com” website:

Q: Does my Refrigerator ever need Regassing?
A: No! This is a major misconception. Refrigerators if they don’t leak the gas will last forever in the system. Refrigerators only need to be regassed in the event of a leak or leaks (in component parts or copper/aluminium/bundy tubes used to carry the refrigerant gas).

‘Number 3′ spent almost 2 hours cleaning the freezer out of excess ice, raised the height of the door and then fitted a new electrical unit, the reason he gave for this was simply: “I may as well while I am here”, “GREAT!” I replied.

The next day it was obvious that ‘Number 3′ had not fixed anything. So I called up Hotpoint again. One angry phone call later and another engineer was called out! How nice!

The engineer arrived a few hours later, guess who! It was my old friend ‘Number 2′! You remember ‘Number 2′, he ordered the “Regassing” procedure which was of course NOT required.

I said to ‘Number 2′ “Hey man, lets just be honest here, if you cant fix it this time I need a replacement right?” he agreed!

So he got on the phone and after some bickering and confusion he said “Sorry mate”

Turns out I cant have a replacement! They have to send ANOTHER engineer out to try again. I felt a little sorry for ‘Number 2′ he seemed nice enough but this was the final straw.

‘Number 2′ suggested I “call them and complain” as he could not understand why a replacement had not been ordered yet.

So, I placed on my “Mr Angry Hat” and called Hotpoint again (I would like to note at this point that there phone number is NOT freephone).

20 minutes later (19m 46s to be precise) I was still nowhere towards a getting a replacement.

You see, Hotpoint have the policy that they will ‘try and fix’ any faulty device before you are allowed a replacement.

I had trouble understanding this, they had ‘tried to fix it’ 4 times now. Just how many times do they need to ‘try’ before they realise its beyond repair?

At one point the lovely lady on the other end of the line said “do you have to be so rude?”, “rude?” I said “you try living without a fridge for almost a month and spending £100s on take away food and see if you can keep your head!”. Pretty sure this tone didn’t help my cause, but I was too far gone to take a step back.

So here we are, another engineer has been ordered for ASAP (at least a week in Hotpoint land). Also, it turns out that the ‘NEW’ engineer is ‘Number 3′ who came a few days ago, laughed off the “Regassing” idea and did nothing to fix it!

Hotpoint, Hotpoint, Hotpoint.. What a mess this is.

On top of the fridge freezer I have a Hotpoint dishwasher and Hotpoint washing machine. They are, as I thought. A good, honest, hardworking company!

I live in hope that they will prove me wrong and sort this mess out by sending me a new, working fridge. If they don’t, I have no idea what else can happen. Its broken, pure and simple.

Maybe they will send out an-engineer-a-week (’Number 4, 5, 6, 7?’) until the 12 months guarantee eventually runs out and then promptly turn around with 2 fingers held aloft and tell me to bugger off!

Who knows?? I sure don’t. All I know is an England match kicks off in 3 hours and I have NO way to keep beer cold.

So to summarise: Hotpoint = Wan**rs