Complete Satisfaction? Not really!

I purchased a freestanding wine cooler (wine cellar, if you prefer) from Wine Enthusiast in 2011. It wasn't the top-of-the-line, it was their own brand (N'Finity) and my assumption was that if it was good enough for them to put their name on it then it myst be a reasonably solid unit.

Not so much!

Last summer (2015) it formed a block of ice on the rear wall inside the cooler. In hindsight this was the beginning of the end. Over course of the last six to eight months the unit has labored, running continuously while the internal temperature crept slowly upward to ambient. Initially I thought the coils were in need of cleaning, so I unloaded the contents of the cooler, fortunately not quite the 170 bottle capacity, thanks to the vagaries of inconsistent bottle sizing in the wine industry. After moving ~150 bottles (three and four at a time) I maneuvered the unit away from the wall and cleaned the coils thoroughly, checked the drain pan, wiped down the interior and exterior, and moved it back in position. I re-loaded all of the wine (not having enough counter space to allow 150 bottles to sit around and still have a functional kitchen) and waited a few hours to power the unit up so that the refrigerant would have plenty of time to settle in the system.

Started the unit up and let it run overnight. Internal temperatures substantially identical to ambient temperature. Thinking that there's a lot of thermal density in those 150 bottles of liquid I give it another 24 hours. No detectable change.

Cue the appliance repairman. I describe the failure mode (starting with the ice block a year ago) and he starts poking around. No refrigerant, appears to be a failed condenser. Since this is a sealed unit (read: not designed for serviceability) repairing it won't be inexpensive, but the repairs will convert it to a completely serviceable unit if/when any future issues arise.

Repairman calls Wine Enthusiast, technicians are not available so he leaves a message, tells me he will call when he hears from them.

A couple of hours later the repairman calls. Do I want the bad news or the worse news? Bad news - they no longer have parts because the systems were such pieces of crap that they discontinued that design. Worse news - I now own a large paperweight as no one has parts available.

WTF?

I have no reason to doubt the repairman, he's with a company that we've used several times over the years and they always do excellent work at fair rates, but I want to see what Wine Enthusiast has to say to a customer who has purchased a fair bit of hardware from them, this being one of two wine coolers (the other belongs to a family member) not to mention a long list of other items.

So I send an email, describing the situation, telling them what the repairman said, and asking if they can help. They reply after a couple of days with instructions to give them a call. So I call. The tech is apologetic and reiterates nearly verbatim what my repair guy told me. Nothing they can do. I ask him about their Complete Satisfaction Guarantee (so boldly posted in their website.) He says there's nothing they can do. I ask if he has any idea what they mean by "Complete Satisfaction" and he doesn't. I express my discontent over having a large, 250 pound paperweight and the fact that they are selling disposable junk instead of quality products that should last more than four or five years. He finally says that we can probably find a suitable condenser from a local refrigeration supply house and offers to send me schematics and parts lists immediately via email.

I wait, and wait, and wait, and...well, you get the idea. Nothing. Check the spam folder, still nothing.

I fill out contact forms on their website. Nothing. It's obvious that their "Complete Satisfaction" guarantee isn't worth the electrons that it takes to display on your screen and the company could really care less about customer service. This isn't to say the folks answering the phone and email don't care (current evidence to the contrary.) But whomever conceived advertising "Complete Satisfaction" is suffering from cranio-rectal inversion and needs to read the book "You Will Be Satisfied" so they can learn a thing or two.

That said, if you're looking for a wine cooler, or a corkscrew, or anything else that has to do with wine, do yourself a favor and look anywhere other than Wine Enthusiast. Their products are crap and their service is crappier.

I'm in the market for a free-standing wine cooler, capacity of around 170 bottles (no larger, as they won't fit the space I have available.) Let me know if you have any suggestions.

Bureaucracy Run Amok

Someone posted photographs on Facebook today of a newly remodeled locker room for a college basketball team. It's a small NCAA Division 1 program that has made a couple of appearances in the tournament over the years. The school has about 10,000-12,000 students. A reasonable size school. I offer all of this by way of perspective.

The newly finished locker room has an ADA compliant shower stall as well as an ADA compliant bathroom stall.

Let that sink in.

Do you need a moment more?

See my confusion?

In what universe does it make sense to spend money on facilities to accommodate people who will never use those facilities? That's like putting a wet bar in a Baptist fellowship hall.

OK, maybe that's not the best analogy, but you get the idea.

Sometimes rules need to be applied with common sense. This time that's definitely not the case.

Exceptional Customer Service (NOT!)

So, for my wife’s birthday I gave her a gift certificate to a local spa for a massage and facial.  We’ve been going to this spa off-and-on for almost ten years, the frequency fluctuating with where we happened to be living and our travel schedules.  However, any way you slice it, we’re fairly established customers.

She went in a few weeks ago to redeem part of her gift and while she was there she scheduled a massage to consume the remainder of her certificate.  Since we were driving from Oklahoma City to Wilmington (1300+ miles) she thought it would be a good idea to have a massage the day after our return.

Much to her surprise, the day she was scheduled to fly to Oklahoma City to meet me, she recieved a call from the spa to reconfirm her appointment that afternoon.  Obviously the person making the appointment made a simple mistake – why on earth would she schedule a massage for 2:00 when she had to be at the airport at 3:00?  The spa nazi was insistent that the computer was never wrong and informed my wife that if she cancelled there would be a penalty fee of 50% of the service.  After much debate (spa nazi was sorry my wife was upset…) she offered to only charge half of the normal penalty.  When my wife requested to speak to the manager or owner she was rebuffed; spa nazi insisted that this was her job and she could take care of it.

I haven’t called them yet; rest assured that when I do the spa nazi will regret not handling things properly with my wife in the first place.  Regardless of the outcome we will never spend another penny at Ki Spa & Salon (Wilmington, NC) and I suggest that you do the same – unless you happen to derive pleasure from abusive customer service policies.

Citigroup is Pathetic

Where to begin?  Let’s start with Citi taking over SearsCard.    My wife and I have held a Sears card since 1989 (our first “real” credit card together.)  As a young couple we had the usual ups-and-downs, but did a reasonable job of being responsible with the account, as is evidenced by our eventual upgrade to “Gold” status and a credit line increase to ten-fold the original amount.  Not a huge credit line, but the fact that it grew organically over the years was noteworthy – we never requested an increase.  When the service was offered I signed up for online payments and electronic billing notices.  We continued to tread lightly with the account, only hitting snags when extended travel caused things to get off-kilter from time to time.

Then Citigroup hit the scene.

First, the online notices disappeared (no one has ever been able to tell me why, but they did, and of course this came back to bite me – I need reminders to get bills paid and if you don’t send me one I’m not going to sit there and wonder about it.)  After things got in arrears they called and asked me why I was late – then the Citi rep and I discovered that the email notifications for my account were somehow turned off.  No problem, we got things sorted out and back on track.

Fast forward a few months.  After sailing along smoothly for some time I notice that one of my online payments was “returned” – so I made a payment in the store.  Then another online payment was “returned” so I called the fine folks at Citigroup and spent nearly 2 hours on the phone with them.  They tell me that ANOTHER payment, made months previous, had been “returned” – which flagged the account as “Bad” and led to the eventual closure (all without notification to me.)  When asked how the payments were “returned” they had no answer.  There was lots of finger pointing at me, my bank, data input errors (on my part, of course!) and just about anything other than a Citigroup error.  They went on to explain that they had different online payment systems, depending upon if your account was “Good” or “Bad” and that I had incorrect information in my “Bad” account screen (even though I didn’t even know it existed, apparently I was logging in to it to make payments that weren’t being accepted.)

They tried to tell me my recent payment was processed over the phone by their collections department (it wasn’t – I’ll take a polygraph and wager any amount of money on that fact!) as was the previous “returned” payment (it wasn’t, either.)

I’ve seen stories about credit card companies tossing payments in the garbage to run up fees – it’s obvious to me that I’m the victim of an electronic version of the same scam.  If this is how Citigroup treats someone who has held an account for just short of 20 years then I sincerely hope they crumble from the weight of their collective egos if not from the consequences of the current financial crisis.

After spending 2 hours on the phone with no less than six of their employees (usually two at a time, with someone running off to check with their manager) it is no shock to me that they are loosing money like crazy.  It’s not bad debt that’s killing them, it’s bad management and abusive policy towards their customers.

Suffice it to say I now place Citigroup on the same pedestal as AT&T/Cingular for abusive customer service policies and wish a plague of locusts upon them.