DO NOT BUY THIS PRODUCT

In March, 2005, we purchased a GE over-the-stove microwave from the store. We had it professionally installed by the store. We purchased an extended warranty contract directly with GE, not a third party. This microwave acted up from the beginning; when you shut the door, sometimes the fan would run and the light came on, but no cooking happened. Then the door cracked. We contacted GE for warranty service.

By the time the warranty repairman showed up the first time, it had started a new problem: it randomly stopped cooking in the middle of a cycle. This especially seemed to show up when we were cooking popcorn. When it did this, it made us re-enter the date and time into the touch pad before you could do anything else.

Because we couldn’t reproduce this problem when the technician was on site, this issue wasn’t addressed. He nicely ordered a new door. One week later, he showed up and replaced the door, only to see that the problem still existed that it would run with the door shut, but not cook. He ordered a new latch.

One week later, the same nice technician showed up and replaced the latch. By this time, the problem with the microwave stopping and us having to reenter the date and time was consistent and he saw it. He ordered the parts he thought necessary. This was January 2.

The parts came in and a new technician named Ricky showed up the following week. On January 8, this new technician came in, heard the problem, said the problem was with the magnetron and the parts that had been ordered wouldn’t help the problem. He said he normally had a magnetron on his truck, but he was completely out. He said he would be back in a couple of days, Saturday at the latest to fix it. I specifically asked if I should re-enter the service call with GE. He said no, he would take care of it. Before he left, because I questioned the process, I told him I thought I should enter a service call anyway, just to make sure. He said definitely not to, that it would mess up the system. This technician was never heard from again. He vanished.

All this time, we can’t use our microwave. This is an appliance that is used daily in our household and it is causing daily annoyance. After a week goes by and I realize that I’ve been had by the last technician who lied to me, I place another service call.

I have the email confirmation of these calls, and on every one of them, it reads: “On the evening before your scheduled repair appointment, General Electric will call at your primary phone number to confirm your appointment. On the day of your appointment, you will also receive a call from a General Electric Service technician to confirm the appointment details and verify that someone over 18 is at the appliance location. If the technician cannot reach you at your primary phone number, the alternate phone number (if applicable) will be used.”

So keep in mind that I put my home phone number as the primary, and my cell phone number as my secondary/alternate number. The work order also confirmed that the phone numbers were correct. GE will only call you from a machine, and they will give you phone numbers to call back on that are to a machine. Getting to talk to a human is next to impossible. And talking to a human that cared, or a human that took any responsibility, was definitely impossible, and did not ever happen through the upcoming course of events.

I had appointments the next day and could not sit home and wait for GE to show up. I had my cell phone with me. They never called me. Ever. I got home and there was a card hanging on the doorknob saying they had come by. Also, when you sign up for service (online is the only way to do it that I can find) you can request times for them to come…such as earlier in the allotted time, later, etc. I requested “as late in the day as possible” since I was scheduled for between 1 and 5:00. They showed up apparently at 2:50 p.m. without calling me first.

I again rescheduled the appointment through the online system. It was scheduled for 3 days later, from 1:00 – 5:00. Again, the email sent to me said they would call. This time I called a bunch of phone numbers until I was able to push random buttons, including Δ many times and finally got an answering machine on the end of the phone. This was the closest I had come to a human so far. Someone named “Jenny” or “Ginny” or “Janine” in customer service left a message on my machine saying “we made a note to call your alternate phone number 30 minutes ahead of time as you requested”, and then she scheduled it for two weeks out. I called back on the number they left, and got a machine again. I said that two weeks away wasn’t acceptable. She called back and said that they could “fit me in the next day” between 1:00 and 5:00. She also said “we have two phone numbers that we can contact you at”. Since I have a life, I wasn’t able to sit home and wait on the repairman. I made the mistake of trusting that they would be what they said they would do. Of course, I never got a call.

I came home in the middle of that time period, and there was a message on my home machine from the GE machine voice saying that since I wasn’t home, they would reschedule my appointment. I went livid. I began calling every GE phone number I could find and it literally took me 11 phone calls and 45 minutes to reach a person. That person listened for less than one minute, and transferred me without saying anything to the same recordings I had been calling!!!!!!!!!!

I called that person back, who said that she didn’t work in that department and she was just helping them answer phone and she couldn’t help me. One person informed me that they didn’t have phone numbers for me (strange, the software confirmation shows the numbers), and that the technicians didn’t have my numbers either (see quote from the email confirmation above). I spent 2 ? hours on the phone, just trying to reach a local dispatcher who could reach the technician who hadn’t bothered to call or show up. At the end of the day, the last person I talked to said that they texted the technician, and he said he would call me. I sat by the phone, wasting more time, and never got a call. All through this horrible ordeal, not one person that I talked to took any responsibility for fixing the problem. Every single one of them transferred me to someone else and blamed someone else.

Today, I never left the house and carried my phone in my hand throughout the day. A machine called me at one point to tell me that the technician was in my area and would be by sometime between 1:00 and 5:00. Woohoo, that really narrowed it down for me.

The technician did actually show up, and this time it was the original tech. He was surprised when I told him I needed the magnetron replaced, because the worthless technician that showed up and didn’t do anything had actually put in a work order indicating that he had replaced it and the machine was working properly now! And this guy still has a job!

So the good technician replaced the magnetron, which he had on his truck as he was supposed to. He said when he took it out, it hadn’t been installed correctly at the factory and had been working improperly the entire time. I hope we haven’t been slowly nuked in our home. Right now, it appears to be working, however, this saga may continue as it hasn’t been used in daily use yet.

The moral of the story: we will NEVER purchase anything from GE again. And without a doubt, we will NEVER spend any money or time with GE warranty purchases. This company is a joke, the products are poor quality, and the service is abusive to my time and money. I have spent over 20 hours of my time sitting at home and waiting on GE to show up. We want to alert as many people as possible to this company and the lack of responsibility, caring, or concern by any employee.