Unable to get my LG fridge repaired for the last 4 months

Dear Mr. Kim, Managing Director of LG Malaysia,

Let me introduce myself

I am an Electronic Engineer, a Rubber Technologist and an Economist. I had worked for many years in industry. One of my job functions was to repair faulty hand phones, power supplies, iron controls . . . etc and testing equipment in a company manufacturing electronic appliances.

I used to invent my own circuits as a hobby once I left these industries.

Designed my own car air conditioner controller circuit

One of my circuits, the car air conditioner controller is shown below:-

A wide range of T-shirts for men and women. Fitted Cotton/Poly, Unisex, Hoodie . . . Now include Tote Bags, Mugs and Stickers.

LG Refrigerator GR-B207FLC

I bought my LG fridge from Harvey Norman

It worked quite well until it failed in December 2015. Because this was a holiday period there was some problems and delays in contacting LG customer support.

My fridge broke down on Sunday 19th December 2015. When I called the repairmen that were advertised on the internet, one quoted RM1000 to repair and another quoted RM650 to repair. I told the first repairman that I bought my fridge 5 years ago for RM3300 so it should not cost RM1000 to repair. The second repair man never tested anything and just quoted me RM650.

How can you look at electronic components and decide what is wrong?

Then I went to LG service center and asked them why it was so expensive and I told them that the American LG repair videos on YouTube showed that just the overload protector and the thermal shutdown relay needs to be replaced. LG customer support tried to help me by telling me to get these parts from their dealer as LG has stopped supplying the parts to those who are not their contractors.

It cost me RM40 to do it myself but it took weeks for the parts to arrive. The dealer told me if they don't work then the condenser motor has to be replaced and just lucky the fridge broke down 7 days before the 5 year warranty expires! I even wondered if they wanted to send the parts after the warranty expires.

When the electronic components arrived I replaced them in my fridge. After that the dealer / repairer Wing Soon Electronic Services, picked up the fridge and sent it to their shop to top up the gas refrigerant. They charged me RM380/- to top of the gas.

Fridge failed again in no time

Unfortunately, I suspect that the repairs only lasted one and a half years at most. By July 2018 the meat in my fridge was rotting and I had to throw away everything and cleaned the fridge.

Actually, a few months after the fridge was repaired in January 2016, I noticed something leaking at the back of the fridge. It appeared as an orange stain on the floor. Initially I thought that there was a tray collecting water that overflowed (the olden fridges were like that) when the fridge defrosts so I thought nothing about this except to mop the floor twice. It was later, in July 2018, when the fridge broke down and contents were not cold that I realized that the previous repair was not carried out properly.

You can observe the blood stains on the shelves of the freezer section on the left of the fridge.

As I was fed up with the LG poor quality of service I tried calling many other fridge repairers. When they found out my fridge was an LG fridge they told me they could not repair an LG fridge and one of them even told me that it was impossible to get parts for LG fridges. They told me not to buy LG fridges.

LG appointed repairers not helpful

I had mopped the floor twice to clear the orange stain. That is why when I took the photograph below it appears much smaller then the original stain. You can observe that some chemical has leaked onto the floor from the back of the fridge. Or was it that the poor quality repair work was corroding by itself? Or was it the poor quality and low reliability of LG fridges? I just don't know but when I look at it, it just sickens me.

In October 2018 I had called LG customer service to repair my fridge as it had failed again. The technician from Wing Soon Electronic Services, came and inspected the fridge and said that the previous technician had not done a proper repair. Furthermore he needed to ask LG to pay for the repairs.

Until today January 24th 2019 they have not bothered to repair my fridge.

From this experience I found out that fridge repairers charge RM1,000/- (US$250) for RM40 (USD$10) worth of repairs because they know that meat, eggs and milk are rotting in your fridge and hold you to ransom.

Furthermore why do they charge RM380/- (US$95) when car air con refrigerant gas top up or refill cost only RM60/- (USD$15)? The gas refill tank and repair equipment is portable. There is no need to take the fridge back to the shop and incur additional transport costs.

Hazzards of faulty fridges

Worst still the gas in my fridge must have been leaking slowly over the one and a half years that the first repair lasted. This means that:-

1. Toxic fumes of the refrigerant could have slowly poisoned me. Luckily I had no children living there or else it could have been really bad for them.

2. The slow leakage would have caused some further damage to the ozone layer in the atmosphere and contributed to more climate change.

3. Worst still is that as the refrigerant leaked, the temperature in the fridge would have slowly risen above 4℃ to 6℃ or 8℃ or even higher. This would have allowed fungus and bacterial growth and toxicity to build up in the food stored in the fridge and would have been dangerous to children.

My LG Refrigerator GR-B207FLC is still not repaired

Let me repeat myself, until toady, 4 months later, no one has repaired my fridge. I could not make Christmas lunch or dinner. I could not bake a chocolate cake or make a cheesecake for Christmas. How would you feel if you could not celebrate Chinese New Year when you LG fridge spoils and nobody is interested in repairing you fridge?

Until today the Wing Soon technician claims that LG has to pay for the repair. How can the refilled gas leak within 1.5 years? This normally would indicate either a design flaw in the fridge or bad workmanship by the technician.

Why do LG refrigerators leaks so easily and so frequently? Todate my biggest regret is buying an LG refrigerator. I bought the LG fridge, BOSCH washing machine, Akira clothes dryer, microwave and oven on the same day from Harvey Normal. The LG fridge failed 3 years ago but the others are still going strong and working reliably.

Did you know that my mom's fridge lasted her more than 20 years?

When will my fridge be repaired? Please do make sure the repairs will last more then 10 years.

Best Regards,
Dr. Peter Achutha
24th January 2019.

Update on Fridge Affair as of 30th January 2019

Mr. Kim
Managing Director of LG Malaysia,

Dear Sir,
After I submitted my letter to you, last week, through your company's form submission page one of your support staff called me early next morning, 25th January 2019. She addressed me as Mr. Peter so I informed her that it was Dr. Peter. Then she tried to tell me that as I was an engineer it should be 'Ir. Peter'. For heaven's sake why are they behaving as if they are so smart?

I am an Electronic Engineer and I was awarded a doctorate in Economics as I had invented an Alternative Theory of Economics that was completely mathematical. It explained that inflation and hyperinflation were two different phenomena. It explained that the behavior of national economies could be describe by wave functions. It explained about the duality of nature which is a Physics issue and why wave functions can be transformed in probability functions. It was used to predict the commodity and stock market movement at most major exchanges, around the world, up to 2 to 3 years into the future. With this theory I invented Group Probability Theory and showed that probability of an event occurring could be greater than 1 or 100%. That is you can get, for example, probabilities of 200%.

You now know why I am addressed as Dr. Peter.

Events so far to date on LG fridge repair

So this girl told me that someone will call me within 3 days.

Some guy called me, on Friday and asked me whether I needed my washing machine repaired. I tried to explain that it was my fridge that needed repairing. He then said he would call be back in an hour's time. Unfortunately he never did.

He called me on Saturday, 26th January 2019 and asked me when he could come to check. I think he was planning to check the washing machine and not the fridge. I asked him if he was from Wing Soon Electronic Services but he said that he was from another company. Until today I do not know his name.

I told him he could come the next day, a Sunday. He said he could not come on Sunday but will come at 2:00 pm on Monday. So I agreed with him on the date and time.

On Monday I was at my apartment waiting for him. When he did not turn up I called him at 2:20pm to check if he was coming. He told me that he was on his way. I waited and waited and waited and he never turn up so I returned home to Petaling Jaya.

At 5:00 pm on Monday he calls me and speaks only in Chinese so I told him he has the wrong number and put down the phone.

By now I had enough of your LG staff & repairers or agents as they were rude, vindictive, incompetent and trying to victimize me. Within minutes your LG staff calls me and addresses me as Mr. Peter. I do not know the reason for her call but I scolded her for addressing me as Mr. Peter and not Dr. Peter. Then I told her I will be complaining to the boss about how bad LG is.

This morning, 29th January 2019, one of your staff called me to make an appointment. I do not know if they wanted to check out my BOSCH washing machine or my LG fridge. I told her that I am busy for the next two days and she could call me on Thursday 31st January 2019.

Vicious vindictive staff and repairers

When I look back at how your staff and repairers have treated me, it dawns on me that they were viciously vindictive. They had only one intention and that is to punish me and ensure my fridge failed to work properly. Thank you LG for your customer support. It is a unique one of kind support never found anywhere else in the world. Are they really support staff or do they hate LG so much that they try their best to destroy LG products owned by LG customers?

LG System full of bad practices

When your staff called me on Friday 25th January 2019, they never mentioned the name and the phone of the repairer who was supposed to come to my apartment.

Did you know that is a security flaw in your system? Any gangster or criminal could have called me and pretend he was the LG repairer, invaded my home, raped women, smashed or stolen the contents of my home. Don't you think it was very bad of them not to inform me who will be visiting my apartment in Puchong? Do you allow unknown people to visit your home?

When your repairer called me on Monday 28th January 2019 at 5pm he only spoke in Chinese. Such wickedness. All your staff and Wing Soon staff and this repairer knew that I am non-Chinese because they had spoken to me over the phone earlier. What was the intention of him speaking to me in Chinese? Was he trying to harass me and intimidate me? Was he threatening me in Chinese? Was he trying to show that he had made a fool of me by not coming to my apartment at 2pm and making me wait for him for hours?

The reason behind their vindictive behavior

Over the last few days I have figured out why they had treated me so badly.

I believe that Wing Soon Electronic Services wanted to charge me RM1,000/- (USD$250/-) in December 2015. As I am an experienced Electronic Engineer I knew how to do some of the repairs myself to save me from such an exorbitant bill.

The electronic components cost only RM40/- (USD$10/-) to replace. I checked the price of refrigerant gas. Refrigerant gas cost RM20/- (USD$5/-) per full tank. I don't think my fridge needs a full tank of gas. Let us estimate it only needs half a tank of gas. That means the cost of refrigerant gas would only be RM10/- (USD$2.50/-).

The total cost of repairs would have been RM40 for electronics plus RM10 for gas. That would mean the total cost of repair would have been RM50/- (USD$12.50). Their plan was to charge me RM1,000/- (USD$250/-) for RM50/-(USD$12.50) worth of repairs. At 20 times more than the cost was a ridiculously exorbitant amount to charge? I can understand this if LG fridges were luxury products like Channel fridges or Louis Vuitton fridges or Rolex fridges or Patek Philippe fridges or Gucci fridges or Christian Dior fridges. LG is not in the luxury brand class, right?

If you looked back at the old receipt shown in the picture below, Wing Soon Electronic Services charged me RM380/- (USD$95/-) for RM10/- (USD$2.50) worth of gas. Don't you think that that was an excessive amount to pay?

How do the poor people manage if they own your LG refrigerators when it breaks down? Don't you think they have to go without food for a few days to pay for your fridge repairs? RM1000/- (USD$250/-) is about one month of minimum wage income for the poor.

Bad treatment at the hands of LG repairers

I believe that your repairers became hateful and vindictive and wanted to punish me because they could not charge me the full RM1000/- (USD$250).

Worst still, I suspect that they were so full of revenge that they made sure that the repairs in December 2015 / January 2016 did not last long - only one and a half years. This meant that they would have another opportunity to charge me RM1000/- (USD$250/-) again at a later date.

Worst still, in October 2018, when I complained that my fridge had broken down again, they came and saw the fridge but nobody bothered to repair my fridge. They wanted me to go without any form of refrigeration and denied me cooking meat, fish, bread, pizzas, chocolate cakes and cheesecakes in my own home, through Christmas and New Year, as I had nowhere to store the ingredients.

I invented the Batter and Dough Method of bread making which personally I think makes better bread than the Tangzhong Method. I am a food blogger but most of that has stopped as my fridge is spoilt so there is no advertising income from my blog.

I had a small business selling chocolate and cheesecakes and that was blocked too. How would you feel if your business was blocked? My chocolate cakes and cheesecakse are just under 2 kg in weight. For you, your staff and your repairers I can make them for you at a special price of RM1000/- (USD$250/-) per cake. How many cakes would you like to order? 20 cakes? 30 cakes? 50 cakes? Please let me know before CNY 2019.

How do I know they did not swap my fridge compressor with a faulty one so that they could charge me another RM1000/- (USD$250) or more for a brand new compressor? Brand new compressors cost between USD$20 (RM80) to USD$50 (RM200). Could that be the reason why my fridge failed within one and an half years of repair? Or was it because they had deliberately done a poor quality job, there was leakage on the floor - see picture below, so that they could charge me another RM1000/- (USD$250) at a later date?

My worry now is that when they repair my fridge in the next few days it will breakdown within a few months and they can charge me another RM1000/- (USD$250) for more repairs. If they keep doing this then every few months or every year I will have to pay RM1000/- (USD$250) to get my fridge repaired again and again and again. There will be no end to the repairs.

Wasn't that what your repairers were trying to do so that they can generate constant income many years into the future?

You know if this keeps going on I could end up paying tens of thousands of dollars in repair bills for a fridge that cost me RM3200/- (USD800/-). Don't you think that they had malicious intent when the repaired my fridge the first time around?

Your repairers have been trying punish me by not repairing my fridge properly and denying me proper service. Do you think they will do a proper job now? I just cannot go on having my fridge repaired every few months or every year.

As I cannot trust that they will repair my fridge properly without adding additional future problems, please replace my fridge with a brand new refrigerator of equivalent pricing, free of charge, before the end of this week, as I have been subjected to hateful, vindictive, vengeful treatment by your repairers.

- Dr.Peter Achutha, 30 January 2019.

Update of the Fridge Affair 31st March 2019

Your support staff called me some months ago to inform me that LG will reply to my email. It has been months later and no one has emailed me a reply to this long letter (web page). Is this a standard delay technique by LG?

Are you having trouble with your staff? Or are your repairers more powerful than you so they can do what they please and don't need to listen to you? I thought that LG was a US$58 billion company and so they did not need to listen to a $2 repairer. Who is more powerful, the $2 repairer or the $58 billion corporation.

Don't you think that your repairer has to listen to you?

Or is it that LG staff don't care about their customers once they got their money?

LG has given me much pain and sufferring

It is almost a year since the fridge broke down a second time. To date, LG was not interested in repairing my fridge properly the first time around. They made sure it failed within a few months of first repair. I suspect that they deliberately caused the fridge to fail the second time so that they could charge me more to repair it a second time. Looks like LG consumer products cannot be reliable.

Untold damage to my health and my business

All my work on foods, recipes, blogs, sales has come to a stand still because the fridge was not repaired.

• I was running experiments for curing diabetes using beef and other herbs and spices. I have discovered recipes that could reduce blood sugar levels by 2.00 to 3.00 mmol/L (or 36 to 54 mg/dL), overnight. I am a diabetic so it is very important for me to get my blood sugar down. Unfortunately, as LG staff will not repair my fridge I cannot store beef in my apartment to get my blood sugar down. Isn't my health important?
• Since I am unable to store ingredients, like butter, yeast ... etc for bread and pastry making I have stopped blogging on my bread making blog and have no new advertising income from my blog.
• Since I cannot refrigerate items like cream cheese, butter, eggs, milk, ... etc I cannot make cakes so my cake making business has closed. I have lost almost a year of potential income because the LG fridge does not work. This could have been about RM115,200/- (USD$28,800) loss of business or more. Need compensation for the loss of income.

LG must replace my fridge with a new one, as soon as possible, as they have proved that they do not know how to repair fridges.

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