Yesterday, my refrigerator went crazy. It heated up to 85 degrees. I lost $200 worth of food. And lost a day of work cleaning up the mess and waiting for a repairman. The repairman said that the fridge heated up, because of a bum light switch. The light in the fridge didn't go off when the door was closed and acted as a heating agent. He said that light switch is located at the bottom of the fridge and children often snap it off as they reach for juice on the top shelf. He said it was a bad design. He charged me $168 for the part and labor, because the fridge is 18 months old — six months too old to cover under the warranty.
My mom said if bad design was the cause for the problem, then they should cover the repair and the lost food. She thinks I should use the blog and twitter to get the company to reimburse me for the repair and the lost food. I've been blogging for long enough that I have a decent Google Page Rank. If I repeatedly mentioned the product in a blog post, potential customers would find it. Other bloggers have successful forced other appliance companies to do the right thing.
Question of the Day — Is getting back at a corporation an appropriate use of blog power?
Apt. 11d 
Your fridge became an Easy-Bake Oven?
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Yes, but without the cute cupcake.
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Have you contacted the fridge company at all? I would think they deserve a shot at responding before you go public.
Also, just my opinion, but I’m on the fence about whether this kind of sub-optimal design issue should require the vendor to cover repairs beyond the life of the warranty. If it was a high-end fridge you expect more from the vendor. OTOH, for a mid-range fridge the fair response I would expect would be acknowledgement of the issue, apology, and something like coverage for a portion of the repair bill.
Sometimes an overt decision is made when designing a product to keep the cost down by accepting some less-than-optimal engineering. If this tradeoff is reflected to the customer in the form of a lower ticket price for the item, I consider that a semi-fair bargain. If the company churns out shoddy work and still charges at former levels, I have less patience.
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On the question of the day, “yes.” On the “Easy-Bake” factor, that’s a pretty compelling argument for CFLs.
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I agree with Jen — and, the underlying philosophy, which is that it’s fine (and even good) to use your blog power for good, but that you have to decide whether using your blog power to recover $200 from a refrigerator vendor who designed their product “sub-optimally” is a worthwhile use.
We drive an older Sienna. And, it has the “feature” that if the door is left partially open the light stays on and the battery dies (fairly quickly, think hours and not days). This bug is not covered by the warranty. It’s useful to tell people about the bug (a reason to use your blog for good) even if you’re not going to try to personally harass the company into returning your money. It seems like a design flaw that you could try to prevent from roasting your food, if you knew about it before your refrigerator exploded.
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BJ, all American cars were like until very recently. I carry jumper cables as I very often leave one or the other lights on.
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Yes, that is a legitimate use of blog power.
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No, I don’t think it is a legitimate use of blog power. I compare this to using a blog to maximize “freebies” from companies hoping for a positive mention but in reverse.
Did you blog about the fridge when you bought it?
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I think it is legitimate to name names when you get crappy customer service, or when something is badly designed, but not to expect the company to do for you something that they wouldn’t do for other customers.
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I think it’s a great use!! By the end of Heather’s post I was cheering out loud. You go, Laura. 😉
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It’s useful to have information about design flaws out there (particularly from sites with good Google Ranks), just from the potential consumer’s point of view. So I’d say there’s a service in naming names (and model numbers) here.
If you do it with intent to get recompense from the company… that may or may not work. (And I have no real idea on the ethics involved, but it’s not an avenue many consumers have. Is it fair to use your advantage? How much is it fair to expect from companies? I’ll leave those questions to philosophers and pundits.) After all, you’ve now exposed the game by asking this question here….
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I agree with Elizabeth on the use of the blog, and with jen on the design issue. But I’d be too terrified that I’d aim at a Dooce and just be ignored (and in public, at that) to test my own ethics, anyway.
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Dooce received poor customer service and had a brand new refrigerator. I actually am not that impressed with the way Dooce has commercialized her site and her blog content. I don’t really follow her because of it.
You have an unfortunate situation but your kids can learn not to hit the switch, is my feeling. Did you have bad customer service?
I received a brand new non-working fridge in July. it sucked. sorry about it.
I agree with Jen and BJ here. I also don’t think I wouldn’t buy a fridge just because a blogger didn’t like that company or something, honestly. But it would be fine to say what kind of fridge it is and what the problem is.
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Yes. More for me, the reader, than you. I would like to know about crappy products so I do not buy them myself. If you happen to get $168 out of the deal, then even better for you.
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This post is lovely, I am liking lots of things from this post, awesome, now I also try to save money, in my saving account, well I also hope that lots of people do like all these knowledge and appreciate your post, lovely.
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