I am out about 450 dollars and currently on hold for my second hour with LG because these guys are crooks.
They were sent to me as part of the LG flat-rate repair system. LG puts a hold on your money and then release it to the technician they have on contract when the job is done.
Unfortunately, the job went to Dial Appliance.
The technician Dial Appliance sent spent 3 minutes in my home, opened the fridge, closed it, said "you need a new board. I need to order it." When I asked him, with some surprise if he didn't have to look in the back, he said something like, "no, I know from my experience [or expertise]." I said ok. I also pointed out to him that the spot in our kitchen where the fridge was was tight, so it would require some effort to get the fridge out to service it at the back . It can be moved, but doing so requires some thought and expertise. He said nothing, asked me to sign on his phone to prove he had been there, and said he'd be back when the part came in.
When I phoned the next day to get an update on when the part would come in, I was told that the technician claimed the fridge was irreparable because it was improperly installed. I was shocked at this outright lie, and so phoned LG right away to report that this company was dishonest, and clearly trying to take my money without doing the work. (I would add that installation of this fridge involves putting it in place and plugging it in. There is no real "installation" issue. Having just watched some techs remove it in order to install my new fridge, I was reminded of how weird it is for them to talk about it this way--except doing so allows them to try to keep my money.)
When LG phoned the company themselves they just repeated the lie. When the manager phoned me while I was on the phone with LG he called me a liar. I would add that my wife was home when their tech came, so it is not like I don't have a witness--aside from the fact that I have no reason to lie.
As far as I can tell, the business model of these guys is they get paid for driving over and climbing some stairs, and then just lying on the phone a few times. It's a way to do things, but not an honest one.
I would add that of course it is possible that what appears from my point of view to be dishonesty is due to some extraordinary misunderstanding. In that case, the honorable thing to do would be to say something like it's too bad we had this misunderstanding, clearly it makes no sense to charge you for a 3-minute visit involving no work on the part of our technician. We have cancelled all charges. None of this happened. Instead, the manager doubled down on calling me a liar.
In short: I would not recommend you hire these guys if your appliance breaks down. And do not allow an appliance company to send you to them for any repairs. read more