The Walker Group

Hello,

Please accept this in response to Revdex.com Case# *** We thank you for taking the time to share your feedback. In looking over your file and reading your comments we can certainly appreciate your frustration. We understand it is very difficult to live without a working washer and share your desire to see a quick resolution.

As your washer is made by *** service is being facilitated by *** Canada and has been dispatched to one of their authorized repair depots. We do this as a measure of quality control which serves as a benefit to the service experience for our customers. Unfortunately, in this case there was a delay in communication the approval by ***. They explained that this was due to some technical issues and have apologized. The service company send their repair estimate to *** who in turn provides it to us. We received the request for authorization from *** on September 25th and provided a reply to them the same day. The service company has since ordered the parts required for a repair and once they arrive you will be contacted to complete the repair.

At this time there is nothing further to do and the service company will be in touch shortly. We look forward to seeing this resolve soon and thank you for your continued patience.

Sincerely

Initial Business Response /(1000, 6, 2019/06/03) */
Hello,

Please accept the following in response to Revdex.com CASE#: ***.

Thank you for this feedback regarding the repairs to your *** washer. There's no doubt that being without use of your appliance for any amount is a burden, not to mention the inconvenience caused by the leak. We very much appreciate your frustration and your desire for a permanent solution. You will find that our goals are aligned. As warranty administrators we are not technicians ourselves; instead we rely on the manufacturer, in this case , and their authorized service network to provide recommendations for troubleshooting and repairs.

Simply put this appliance is either repairable or it is not. Being that we are not technician's and have not seen the appliance personally we are not in a position to make that determination ourselves. We will rely on the *** technician to assess the appliance and either recommend a repair or advise us that the unit is not repairable at which point we would provide a replacement.

Your claim is currently pending with . We will await further instruction from them regarding the serviceability of the unit. Should they deem the unit non-repairable we will happy to provide a replacement.

We thank you for your continued patience while *** works to resolve the issue with your appliance. If you would like to discuss your claim further or request an update please feel free to reach out to our Service Delivery team by phone or email.

Sincerely,

Initial Consumer Rebuttal /(3000, 8, 2019/06/05) */
(The consumer indicated he/she DID NOT accept the response from the business.)
When I spoke to *** they told me that I was to get in touch with the warranty place as this is an extended warranty and there is nothing they can do for me. The technicians are saying get a new machine. You can understand my frustrations and it seems I'm getting the run around.

Final Business Response /(4000, 10, 2019/06/07) */
Hello again,

We can certainly understand how frustrating this situation would be for you. We can only act based on the information we have available and *** and their technician have not indicated to us that the unit is not repairable.

We have followed up with them and as of today they have stated to us that you are scheduled for service on June 10th and that they do not have any records of the unit being deemed non-repairable.

Hopefully on June 10th they can provide a permanent solution for this issue or report that all repair options have been exhausted so we can replace.

Final Consumer Response /(4200, 12, 2019/06/22) */
(The consumer indicated he/she DID NOT accept the response from the business.)
Machine was 'fixed' again june 10th. Waited a few days because it seems machine is fixed for a little period and breaks down again. Low and behold today june 22 2019 machine is sounding like a car..seemas the drum they 'fixed' the supports broke again. I will be calling again Monday june 24 first thing in the morning to get another warranty ticket. Very frustrated with *** and Walker Group.

Initial Business Response /(1000, 6, 2019/03/28) */
Hello ***,

Please accept this in response to Revdex.com CASE#: ***

After reviewing your claim history and the outcome of the most recent claim we can certainly appreciate your disappointment that we are not in a position to assist you.

By purchasing an extended warranty we have entered into a mutual agreement in which the respective guidelines of said agreement are outlined in the terms and conditions which govern the plan. We have an obligation to respect this agreement and the applicable terms of coverage. We cannot breach them even if it does unfortunately mean that we cannot assist you further.

None of us can change the fact that the parts required to repair your appliance are not available nor can we change the terms of our agreement which state; "Should parts no longer be available for a warranted product, we shall be excused from performance under this plan and will refund the Plan owner the cost of the Plan."

We can assure you that over course of our 35 year history we've satisfied many tens of thousands of customers to the tune of many millions of dollars and we have upheld all of our obligations throughout. To say that this decision was made with foresight is simply incorrect, we didn't choose for the parts to be unavailable and the terms of your contract have been in place since the day you purchased it.

We thank you for your feedback and apologize that we are not in a position to do more.

Sincerely,

Initial Consumer Rebuttal /(3000, 8, 2019/04/05) */
(The consumer indicated he/she DID NOT accept the response from the business.)
My issue with Walker Group's stance is the fact that the condition they are quoting is in direct contradiction to conditions B and C. Additionally, at no time did I sign this contract or even see it prior to having this policy sold to me. Thirdly, this is way out of line for the rules governing insurance providers. Fourth, there very position contradicts their own website stance where they publicly state "Whether we can fix it or not you're covered". ***

***
Final Business Response /(4000, 10, 2019/04/08) */
We cannot change the terms and conditions because we do not like the implication. We have upheld our legal obligation to you as stated in the contract. The agreement is between us "the administrator" and you "the plan owner" and has been since day one. Our relationship with any third parties does not impact the application of your coverage or the obligations stated in the contract in in any way.

I'm afraid you won't find an external reason for the decision we've made; we've simply applied your coverage as written and as guaranteed by the plan.

At this point I'm afraid we must consider the matter closed.

Initial Business Response /(1000, 5, 2019/03/28) */
Hello ***,

Please accept this in response to Revdex.com CASE#: ***

Thank you for taking the time to share your concerns regarding the ongoing repair to your stove. We certainly appreciate the burden of being without the use of one of the burners on the stove.

The extended warranty is in place to protect the consumer against the costs associated with repairing the appliance. The warranty makes no guarantees about the manufacturers ability to provide parts; it is simply the case that we do not control the availability of parts any more than you do. We control who pays for the parts (us) but not when the manufacturer or supplier will deliver them.

We will continue to fulfill our obligations to you under the extended service plan but we can't offer you anything beyond what your coverage allows. As soon as the parts arrive service will be scheduled and the repair fees for the associated parts and labour will be covered by us, as promised.

Sincerely,

Initial Consumer Rebuttal /(3000, 7, 2019/03/29) */
(The consumer indicated he/she DID NOT accept the response from the business.)
Respectively, the part was ordered in February. After doing my own digging, the part is not set to come in until July according to *** themselves. Keep in mind that date is an estimate.

"The warranty makes no guarantees about the manufacturers ability to provide parts" then what is the point of having a warranty at all ? How many instances do parts NOT need to be ordered.

The issue is when the tech came in he did not do a full diagnostic, he took my word ordered the parts (one of which addressses all of my elements) so basically two parts were ordered based on absolutely no diagnostic.

The part that I am waiting for which is on backorder may not even be the needed part. My issue is the company's lack of "thinking outside the box" to get this done. Suggest a tech to actually take my stove a part and do a proper diagnosis. I contacted a part supplier that *** utilities who offered testing methods to determine what the actual issue was. I was not provided this when my initial claim was called in. Also there are 2 parts ordered from an informal diagnostic. What if the part that is available is the part I need ? I would never know as I am just being told to wait until July. 5 months for a part that I may not even need. Again, what's the point of having a warranty.

Final Business Response /(4000, 9, 2019/04/01) */
Those are great questions which we are happy to answer. The point of the warranty is to cover the cost of parts and labour associated to the repair of the appliance.

Regarding the repair process, as warranty administrators we are not technician's so we trust the certified technician to make recommendations for what parts are required to successfully complete a repair.

Thank you for your interest.

Final Consumer Response /(4200, 11, 2019/04/04) */
(The consumer indicated he/she DID NOT accept the response from the business.)
An alternative measure was not done - why not send the tech out to make sure that the part I am waiting for is actually the part I need? I am just left sitting here until July - I have made phone calls upon phone calls and I am just expected to wait until July. I would like a DATE IN WRITING stating "if the part is not received by such and such date we will refund the cost of the extended warranty to the customer" I may need to purchase another stove or I may need to look at used parts from scrap metal. Waiting 6 months for a working part is RIDICULOUS, sending the tech out to do a FULL DIAGNOSTIC CHECK UP is good customer service. The tech that was sent did not take apart my stove or do any intricate testing. As I have stated before the part that is on extreme backorder may NOT even be the part I require but we will never know because you trust the recommendation of a technician who spent all of 2 minutes in my house assessing my stove.

Initial Business Response /(1000, 5, 2019/02/26) */
Hello,

Please accept the following in response to Revdex.com CASE#: XXXXXXX.

Thank you for taking the time to share your feedback regarding the unresolved issue with your *** gas range. We're sorry that it is still not fully operational and appreciate that this is a burden. As the extended warranty provider and administrator our responsibility is to facilitate the repair process and protect the consumer against any out of pocket expenses for parts and labour associated to an appliance repair.

As an extended warranty company we do not have our own in-house technicians; instead we have a service agreement with *** for them to perform all on-site technical repairs. At our request *** dispatched a service technician who competed a repair to the appliance. Unfortunately, this did not resolve the original issue and a new claim was opened and *** was again tasked with assessing and repairing the unit. Beyond covering the cost of the repair we don't control their process including scheduling, availability, parts ordering, etc. While this does mean that we can ensure you are not charged by the technician we still must rely on them to go through their process.

As of yesterday we engaged with *** to ask them for an update on the current status of this repair. They replied that their Field Service Manager spoke to the technician and the technician reports that they "called the customer about 5 different days to get the service scheduled to install parts." They are ready to complete the repairs however, they need to speak to you first to schedule. They will be calling you again today at XXX-XXX-XXXX. Hopefully you are in a position to receive this call so they can complete the pending job.

Thank you for your feedback, patience and understanding. We look forward to seeing this resolved.

Sincerely,

Initial Consumer Rebuttal /(3000, 7, 2019/02/27) */
(The consumer indicated he/she DID NOT accept the response from the business.)
We have been waiting for 'any phone calls' or email follow ups since last month. No calls from Technician or anyone else received. It is a false claim. But I have a trail of email that 'I' sent to the Walker Group for the follow ups but they have no follow up mechanism or sense of customer service to escalate things as needed. As a customer, who should I be running after and why? how long does it take for the repairs. Since November we are dealing with this extremely frustrating experience.

Final Business Response /(4000, 9, 2019/03/04) */
Hello,

We have followed up with *** again on your behalf and they replied to say that "parts have been in for weeks customer has not returned calls." They indicated they called you again on Friday and left a voicemail for you to make contact with the technician.

At this point we have done everything within our control but scheduling is between you, the consumer, and the technician.

We would recommend you reach out to the tech or *** directly to schedule the appointment.

The parts are in and we are all keen to have the tech back out to install them.

Warm regards

Initial Business Response /(1000, 8, 2019/01/09) */
Hello,

Please accept this in response to Revdex.com CASE#: XXXXXXX.

We're very sorry to learn of the delay in having your appliance repaired. We can certainly appreciate the burden of being without full use of your range for any period of time. As an extended warranty company we do not stock or supply appliance parts. Instead the service company works with their suppliers or the manufacturer directly to obtain any required parts. We don't have any more control than you do over the manufacturers inventory of parts or delivery times. While we do sympathize with your situation we regret that we are not in a position to speed up this part of the process as it is outside of our control.

We regret that you find yourself in this situation and wish we could do more but unfortunately we must wait for the manufacturer or part supplier to deliver the part.

Sincerely,

Initial Consumer Rebuttal /(3000, 10, 2019/01/10) */
(The consumer indicated he/she DID NOT accept the response from the business.)
Since we have been without a stove and this has caused a major inconvenience I am looking for half the money of what it would cost to buy a new stove - The full price of this stove was $1298.37 (I am willing to attach a receipt if needed), as well as a full reimbursement for the cost of purchasing the extended warranty- which is $224.87 as there was no point in buying it as you are not willing to help. Please advise as soon as possible as I would like to have this resolved.

Final Business Response /(4000, 17, 2019/02/21) */
We certainly understand the added frustration caused by the uncertainty of the timeline. It really does make the wait that much more difficult. We have been in contact with the service company who has provided as ETA of February 16th for these parts. As such we expect you will hear from them next week to schedule the repair.

We look forward to seeing this resolved shortly and thank you for your continued patience.

Final Consumer Response /(4200, 21, 2019/03/26) */
Hi you spoke to me last week and you asked me if the problem was solved. This problem has still not been resolved and it has been 5 months. Please take the necessary action as we would like to be compensated for this inconvenience .

Initial Business Response /(1000, 5, 2018/10/25) */
Please accept the following in response to Revdex.com CASE#: XXXXXXX.

We're sorry that you're dishwasher has not been fixed in a more timely manner. We trust that the service company has been doing everything they can to obtain the required parts and complete repairs. Unfortunately, we don't have control over how long the repair process takes. We control over who pays the bill once service is completed. The extended warranty is in place to cover the cost of parts and labour but we don't handle the actual repair process in-house. It is up to the service company, manufacturer, part supplier, etc.

We look forward to seeing this resolved shortly and thank you for sharing your concerns as well as your continued patience.

Initial Consumer Rebuttal /(3000, 7, 2018/10/29) */
(The consumer indicated he/she DID NOT accept the response from the business.)
Hi There,

Just replace this with a new dishwasher ordering those list of parts probably will cost you more and also you provided us really a hustle on this. It's been more than 2 months now. I hope you are also committed to satisfy your clients who bought warranty from you. To be honest it was a disappointment of opting to buy the warranty from you. We hope you guys will resolve this within this week.

Final Business Response /(4000, 17, 2018/11/07) */
This is a great question but not one with a ready answer. As you can imagine there are many variables that impact the time frame for repairs including technicians schedule, how simple or complex the problem is, parts availability, etc. The average repair time is roughly one week and the target repair time is "as quickly as possible". That said, the extended warranty has no influence over how long it takes for the service company, manufacturer, parts distributor, etc. take to complete a repair. We only control who pays for the repair once complete.

Final Consumer Response /(4200, 19, 2018/11/09) */
(The consumer indicated he/she DID NOT accept the response from the business.)
Hi there,

The dishwasher was fixed after almost 3 months and the only issue that I had here is that they let me purchase the gasket which according to the last tech it's only the control panel that is defective. There were 3 different techs went to our house and installed different parts but really the problem is the control panel. I ask *** to refund the cost which it should be a payment for their hustle and it should not be taken out. I would consider this complaint close but really not happy how you guys handle this.

Initial Business Response /(1000, 5, 2018/08/22) */

Please accept the following in response to Revdex.com Complaint Case#***.

There is no doubt that this is a frustrating experience and has taken longer than a typical claim should, especially given it is an issue with a fridge. We've gone through the history and it appears we've had a few things working against us. Despite our best efforts the situation remains unresolved.

When the claim was originally reported to us the customer had made arrangements with a local company for service. They provided a quote for the total cost to repair the appliance which was forwarded to us for approval. Since we only had a dollar amount and not a line-item breakdown showing which parts were being requested we asked for further clarification. We reached out to the service company to request a breakdown and copied the customer on the email. We did not receive a response. We were then advised that their sealed system technician was injured and would be off work for 4 weeks. We considered this a dead end and moved on to assign a different service company.

The call was re-assigned and sent to another service company. They responded to us with a repair quote (for much less) stating that they were familiar with the sealed system issues with this model. Again, we did not have an itemized breakdown so we requested it from them. After a couple days we got a response stating that they have decided to decline this job (likely due to it being a larger job and them having limited availability).

The reason the itemized breakdown is so crucial here is because this customer's fridge has a 5 year sealed system component warranty. Many of the parts in the sealed system are still covered by *** (compressor, condenser, evaporator, dryer, and tubing). As this is a limited parts warranty the labour and other ancillary components will not be covered by *** and instead would be addressed by us. Before we can make a decision and provide any kind of approval we need to identify the items being quoted and determine eligibility. Rest assured the customer has coverage on all of these components however, the liability is shared between the manufacturer and the extended warranty.

Since we have not been able to find an *** authorized service depot who is willing or able to complete these repairs we have suggested that the customer contact *** directly for help with service. All warrantable fees associated to the repair will be reimbursed to the customer in full as per their warranty terms and conditions.

Initial Consumer Rebuttal /(3000, 7, 2018/08/23) */
(The consumer indicated he/she DID NOT accept the response from the business.)
As of August 1, the Walker Group was advised we had a technician attend who had diagnosed the problem as a condensor and compressor. It was only on August 20 that they told us they were not responsible for replacement of the condensor and compressor and would not pay for these parts as they were covered by a manufacturers extended warranty.
The idea that they needed the part numbers to tell us this is ridiculous as they still do not have the part numbers. We were told at various times that the case was "under review" and we would be hearing from them at some point in the future. We should have been told within 3 working days at the most that these system parts were not covered by the warranty with them rather than have us wait three weeks with no fridge. They could have called *** and been given the part number within two minutes as we were when we called *** three days ago. To let a customer with a non operating fridge twist in the wind for three weeks and then finally tell us we wasted our time advancing a claim through them is completely unacceptable. *** Since we are starting over on our own with no help from this company it will likely be at least another two weeks before we have a working fridge. In desperation we have purchased a second hand fridge for $200.00.
In addition to any work they may be obligated to do under our lwarranty we expect them to reimburse us for this fridge. If they had promptly informed us of the situation re their not providing coverage for compressor and condensor our fridge would be fixed by now or sooner and we would not have incurred this expense. This does not begin to account for the aggravation and hassle of the numerous times we called in and were told the matter was "under review". "Service" like this under an expensive extended warranty for a critical item like a fridge is appalling. We have seen numerous complaints of a similar vein on the Internet regarding this company.
***

Final Business Response /(4000, 9, 2018/08/24) */
We agree that it is unfortunate that we could not find a more immediate solution for you. Ultimately our goal is to provide a positive service experience to every customer. Given that we do thousands upon thousandes of claims a year it's only natural that, over the 35 years we have been in business, you may be able to find isolated cases of unsatisfied customers.

We look forward to seeing the matter resolve and thank you for your patience and understanding.