Home Depot Extended Warranty on washer - Nightmare!

[Cheryl C.]

Hey all,

Anyone have experience in dealing with HD on an extended warranty?  They use a 3rd Party Company "Asurion".  This has been a "Twilight Zone" like nightmare.  Anyone else have the same experience?  Is this a one-off?  I don't think so after reading reviews.  Recommend you save your money and use it to hire a decent repair company.  I'm almost at 3 months without a working machine.  I've spent 10's of thousands at HD and won't be spending another dime.

[Chris T.]

@Cheryl C.

Agreed with your recommendation in regards to saving money for repairs, rather than buy an extended warranty or home warranty. 

Have you been shopping at the same HD store? if so, reach out to their manager, maybe they can pull some strings for you. If not reach out to their corporate office? 

Unfortunately, since it's 3rd party vendor, it's not technically HD's fault but you can ask them for assistance for a long time customer. 

[Cheryl C.]

Hey Chris,

I'm going to visit the store manager Monday.  The thing is ... it is HD that I bought this warranty from and they should stand behind it.  HD contracts with Asurion.  So it is HD's responsibility. It's been a shockingly unbelievable ordeal.  I've found no way to contact corporate.  I just finished buying a new machine from Lowes.  I'm just mad at myself for wasting so much time and energy on this.  Just awful treatment/delays/incompetence.  The repairmen Asurion contracts with are really bad.  I've been an HD customer for decades.  I'm just speechless at how horrible this experience has been.  Makes me question what is going on with HD.

[Sam Shueh]

Never buy extended warranty or use their subcontractors.  I hire one for plantation shutters installation, they brought a crew of 3 staff to hang 4 panels.  Two sat around the leader told me my window is not perfectly square. I fired that group and hang them myself. I also wrote to HD requesting them to remove the group who can not work with clients.

You are better off call a local appliance man with standard warranty.

[Gail K.]

Extended warranties stink.  I bought a four year warranty on dishwasher from Lowes for my own home.  Fourteen months after owning it the control board went out.   That was two months "into" the four year warranty since the dishwasher had a 1 year warranty already.

Since the cost of the new control board was more than I had paid for the dishwasher (I had purchased it through a Black Friday sale), all Lowes did was refund the original cost of the dishwasher; no repair, no replacement...and I lost the remaining 3 year, 10 months left of the warranty.

I was supposed to be eternally grateful to them for doing this after having spent many, many thousands of dollars at BLowes for my 16 rental properties.

Gail

[Jeff Bridges]

are you in year two of your ownership or longer? If you are under 24 months, you can call your credit card company as many double your factory warranty and will pay for repair labor (if this costs less than replacing) or replacement if you provide them with a diagnosis from a repairman of your choosing. Between the first year manufacturer warranty and 2nd year credit card matching warranty, thats good enough coverage for me to skip the extended warranty.

[Rolph Anderson]

 I purchased a Maytag washer and dryer from Home Depot for a total of $2,200, which included $300 for a five-year extended warranty ($150 for each appliance). Recently, just before the holidays, the rubber gasket that fits against the front loading washer door got a split in it and the washer began to leak badly from the loading door.  On my extended warranty contract, I couldn't find a number to call for service, so I called Home Depot and was given a telephone number that turned out to be for Whirlpool that manufactures Maytag appliances which seemed to make sense.  Whirlpool arranged an appointment to send out a repairperson but not until two weeks into the new year of 2020 which was after my extended warranty expiration date on December 26, 2019.  However, since I had reported the problem before my five-year extended warranty expired, I thought there would be no problem about coverage.  When repairperson came out, he was driving a truck that was obviously a third party because the advertising on the truck didn't say anything about Maytag, Whirlpool, or Home Depot.  This repairman spent a few seconds looking at my washer and said the cost would be about $400. Having paid only about $800 for the Maytag washer when it was purchased from Home Depot, I thought thank goodness the repair is covered by my five-year extended warranty which I showed the repairman.  He looked at my warranty information and said: "Your warranty ran out over two weeks ago."  Well, I declined the approximate $400 repair thinking it might be better to buy a new washer.  Upset, the repairman asked me to sign a blank page of a computer pad to pay for his service call which was higher than the $99 fee when he had quoted before arriving at my house. Without knowing what I was signing, I refused to sign the computer pad and told him to give me a bill to sign.  He refused and left my house in a huff, then sat in his repair truck outside my house for about a half hour.  His continued presence in front of my house bothered me, especially since I'm a senior citizen who lives alone. Going online at the Better Business Bureau, I learned that this appliance repair company has horrendous reviews, only one positive review with all other reviews being only one out of five with many people saying they would give this company less than one if that was an option. Well, the next day I called my local Home Depot store, briefly summarized my experience, and was given another number to call which turned out to be a scam attempt as the person who answered the phone told me that, if I was over 50, I was the lucky winner of a personal safety monitoring device, then asked "Can you hear me?"  Without thinking I said "yes," which one of my neighbors later told me is a sure sign of a scam, and that I had probably been signed up for something I didn't want even though I told the caller on the phone that I didn't want the "free" monitoring device which no doubt included a monthly service fee that wasn't mentioned.  Fortunately, I didn't give my credit card information which I hoped prevented the scam but I'm still not sure. I called my local Home Depot again and told them about my experience and was told me that I probably dialed the wrong number.  So, they gave me the number again which I called and the robot answering the phone said that there was heavier volume than usual and that the wait would be over an hour.  However, I could leave my home telephone number and they would call me ASAP.  I left my home phone number and waited all-day for the call-back which didn't come until the next day around mid-morning, so the wait was over 20 hours. Unfortunately, I had gone out that morning to get a few groceries, so I wasn't home when the call-back came.  Since I had missed the call-back and didn't want to go through the interminable wait again, I called my local Home Depot store again and the person in the appliance department told me about a special Home Depot number to call about extended warranties.  I called that special number and someone answered that number within a few minutes and listened to my story, then very politely but firmly told me that my warranty had expired on December 26, 2019, so she couldn't help me. I reminded her that I had scheduled the service call before the five-year extended warranty ran out, but she said: Sorry, I can't help because you scheduled through Whirlpool, the manufacturer of Maytag, and their warranty ran out 12 months after your purchase.  I replied that Home Depot gave me that number when I couldn't find a number to call on my Home Depot five-year extended warranty contract. But, that didn't seem to register with her as a legitimate complaint that Home Depot should care about. Apparently, Home Depot's business priority is to sell products, and customer satisfaction that brings repeat purchases are not a priority for them.  It's obvious to me after my experience with Home Depot that they consider honoring extended warranties is a third party problem.  Well, I have learned my lesson, never, never ever buy an extended warranty when you purchase appliances at a big box store like Home Depot because those warranties are farmed out to a third party for repair, and Home Depot don't seem to care much about your warranty problems.  Believe me, all my future appliance purchases will be from trusted local appliance dealers that can be relied upon to honor their extended warranties with their own repair team -- not some third party with questionable ethics.  All I can do at this point is share my experiences with as many people as possible to keep them from wasting their money by making the mistake of buying extended warranties from Home Depot.  My family, neighbors, friends have all agreed with me that it's much better to pay a little more upfront by buying appliances from a locally owned store, especially if you plan to buy an extended warranty with the purchase of any appliance.  

[Rolph Anderson]

[Jim K.]

Adding my voice to the chorus here. Extended warranties on appliances home warranties are a waste of money. This has been repeatedly shown and verified here in the forums. Questionable ethics, unsavory tactics, whatever we say here doesn't matter. The things are so profitable in their current business model that no amount of outcry is going to change anything in the near future.

[Mike Mosee]

FYI

Having been in the appliance industry for over 50 years....Most local independents will price match to Home Depot or Lowes if given the opportunity & service will be much better before, during & after

[Morgan Eriksson]

I know this won't help your situation with HD, but i've had really good experience with a 3rd party warranty company called upsie. you can buy your electroncis, applicances from anywhere and their warranties are drastically cheaper, and the service is amazing. https://upsie.com/appliance-wa...