No Lake Appliance Repair Tech Here

So on 12/16 I called the Whirlpool eXperience Center to set up an appointment to get the washer repaired; it had stopped working on 12/14. (They are closed on the weekend.) An appointment was set up with Lake Appliance Repair for 12/24 between 12 noon & 4 pm. When I asked where the tech was coming from I was told from Kihei ... which is on Maui. I questioned that & was told perhaps that was the main office & they had techs on Hawaiʻi Island. I called the number I was given, got a phone tree that said to text them. So I did, the response on 12/17 said, yes they had a tech on Hawaiʻi Island; in fact, they said the tech was in my town. Sounds good!

On 12/20, while driving back from Kona, I got a phone call from Lake Appliance. They said they needed me to pay their service fee that day in order for the tech to show up; if I did not pay within 24 hours the appointment would be cancelled. So I got on line that evening & paid the fee. 

They sent this because I would not pay while driving.

On 12/23 I got an email from Lake reminding me of my appointment the following day. So far so good! I could not wait to have the washer repaired since the laundromat fees are outrageous, not to mention having to drive 45 minutes to get there. It was now 9 days since I was able to use the washer.

On Christmas eve no one showed up between 12 noon and 4 pm; I waited until 4:30 pm to contact Lake appliance to find out where the tech was. I texted to 2 different numbers I was given & also emailed. No response. At least if the tech had contacted me and said they were running behind or unable to come at all, I could have made a quick trip to the post office to pick up the Christmas present that was waiting there for me. Auē!

This morning there was still no response. So around 9 am, 2 hours after Lake's Kona office was shown on their website as being open, I texted 3 different numbers, sent an email, & sent a message through the Contact Us portal on the website. I finally got a response at 9:19. The text sent said Lake no longer had a tech in my area. They did not offer to set up an appointment with their Kona techs.

So I called Whirpool; they were not helpful. They said the only certified tech in my "area" was from Lake; she implied the "area" was my zip code which is quite small. She would not look up techs from the Kona area, she said she had to use the zip code given for the delivery. She also said she had to trust the company when it said it had certified techs in an area. She said the tech could have left & another would be replacing that tech. It did not matter to her that 24 hours before my appointment Lake was still saying they had someone. No Christmas Miracle here. I filed a complaint against Lake with Whirlpool.

It's about 6 square miles.

Later I sent a complaint to Lake through their Contact Us website portal. I also sent a complaint to the owner via the email listed on the website; it bounced back as "domain name not found". I looked closer & saw that the website link omitted the ".com" in the email. I added ".com" & resent the complaint.

I wonder why they left off ".com" on the link to email the owner?

My advice: If you need service on an appliance & they send you to Lake Appliance Repair; DON'T DO IT! It sounds like it is a company that began buying up other companies to get their brand in to other states. But now has become too large to properly keep track of who is working for them & whether they really do have people who can respond. (I found their main office as either in CA or AZ depending on where you look.) Why did they not know on 12/23 when they sent me the reminder for the next day that they had no tech? The appointment really should have been confirmed with the tech on 12/16 when it was initially made. They also had opportunities on the 17th & the 20th to confirm that they really had someone. And when they found that tech could not respond, they should have sent someone from their Kona office since they had made a commitment to do the service. Auē!

As an afterthought I got on Yelp to see what kind of reviews Lake Appliance Repair was getting. Reading the 1 star reviews was rather informative; it looks like I dodged a bullet! Also they got almost as many 1 star reviews as all other reviews combined! Definitely not going to be using them for anything.

I then called Hakoda's Builders Appliance, which is the business I bought the washer from, to see if they had repair people. But they are on holiday, fortunately they will be back tomorrow. I checked their website & it says they have their own service people so that is reassuring. If my refrigerator, which I also got from Hakoda's, has problems I will go directly to Hakoda's for service. Not only are they really local, they are also a family-owned business.

I had forgotten they also provide service.

I also went to the post office to pick up my package. It turns out I had 2 packages! One from Suzanne & Manu with a host of goodies - sorry forgot to take a photo. And one from Jane, with freeze dried blueberries! I miss being able to go to the farmers market in the summer & picking up half a flat of fresh blueberries every weekend.