Business ProfileforLichti's, Inc.

Terrible customer service - I had a service repair about a month or so ago. This cost me over $500.00 which I paid and it was suppose to repair the ice maker and stop the freezing in the back. Not even a week later the ice machine was not working again. So they came out again and said I needed another part that was $80.00 and they were not going to charge me for the service call. I was not happy but agreed to it because I needed the refrigerator fixed. They had the part and were supposed to show up and never did, finally this Wednesday AM they put in this new part. By Thursday my refrigerator was powering off every 5-10 minutes...I called right away and asked for service mgr, he was not there, asked for service rep, she was not there, asked for store mangager, she was not there....left message to have someone call me back. That didn't happen so I called them again...Spoke with Service mgr and he could not give me a time to be at my home...he thought it would be a couple hours so I agreed to stay home and save my food in frig and freezer...by noon I called again to see where he was and the owner got on the phone and told me it was a good thing I didn't buy my appliances from them and they were doing the best they could. VERY RUDE MAX!!! So I hung up and by 3PM I called again and he was still telling me he was on his way and by 5PM I called again to see if anyone was showing up...I had lost an entire days work and got nothing done because I had to keep powering this frig on. At that point they said he had just finished up the one job ahead of mine and was heading my way. He finally got to my home, he was nice, but by that time I told my husband to handle it, I would not be very nice. I finally discovered that the first job wasn't done correctly and my frig was freezing up again and it had a connection that was not connected properly. I would not recommend them for anything...I have purchased from them in the past, never again. I will go to Lincoln.

At the time this customer made the initial service call, we had actually stopped servicing any refrigerator that was not purchased from us. We have a total of 3 service technicians with a minimum of 6-10 service calls coming in every day for various appliances and our lead times for service are unfortunately longer than we like them to be. We made an exception in this case as we had worked on this refrigerator previously, before we put the new policy into place.
This refrigerator has had issues with freezing up, but the issue is a combination of things, not just the icemaker, and we have been doing our best to fix it. Our service technicians were in contact with the manufacturer of this appliance to help troubleshoot, and discovered there are multiple known issues with that model. We have installed parts according to the manufacturer's suggestions. The initial service call for this customer was typed up June 14, 2022. At that time we were telling our service customers that the technicians were (and still are) approximately 7-10 days out on repairs, and they are told they will get a phone call when our technicians are able to get them scheduled in. That initial service call was billed out on June 27, 2022 and was a total of $502.02, we quote a price for parts and labor for repairs and require prior approval of the quote from the customer before we will install those parts on the appliance, so we had been out there to diagnose, then again to put in parts - approved by the customer - by June 27th. Since then, we have been out multiple times to try to fix the issues that are causing the appliance to freeze up. As of right now she has only been billed the one time for the initial service call, we did not bill her for every time we went out because we try our best to be as fair as possible. We have yet to bill her for the most recent part we put in.
In the time since we took the initial service call, this customer has been very demanding, and was texting and calling our service tech on his personal cell phone both during and after business hours, he retained his messages and call logs; he shows one evening there were 19 calls, and she even had her son text our technician's roommate for information, and we still continued to work on her refrigerator.
According to our service technician, when she was told in July that the refrigerator needed another part, again, suggested by the refrigerator's manufacturer, this customer told our service technician that she was going to find someone else to service the refrigerator, so we thought she scheduled someone else to work on it. On August 3rd our technician got a text, again on his personal phone, from her asking if we had put the icemaker in yet (which it was not the icemaker that needed replacing). On August 4, she called the store and we scheduled another service call to go out and put in the part, once it came in. When our tech installed the new part on 8/24/22 there were apparently issues with his installation. The customer did let us know right away the next morning, and the message did get passed along to the appropriate people so the service schedule could be rearranged to fit in another visit for this refrigerator as soon as we could. She called several times that morning and was told that the service manager would call her. We do not give specific times or timeframe because we do not know how long each service call will take. We tell our customers that our technician will call before they come (they call from their personal phones so she got our technicians' cell phone numbers from her caller ID). She called the Service Manager very rudely insisting her service call come first, he told her he had other calls to do first along his route that day who had been waiting longer than she had for service and he would get to her as soon as he could, definitely that day. He did not say a couple of hours, she is the one who demanded he be there in 2 hours, and the service Manager asked her what made her so special, that her call should come before other people who had been waiting longer and that we would absolutely get there that day, he just didn't know exactly when. She then called the store and spoke with Max, again being extremely rude. She told him that she was in our store 8 years ago and nobody would wait on her and that is why she wouldn't buy from Lichti's, and she has never purchased an appliance from us. Max tried to explain to her that we are no longer servicing refrigerators we did not sell, yet we were still servicing her refrigerator so she was lucky - since she did not buy it from us (meaning that she was lucky we accepted the service call). We had also worked on her dishwasher (also not purchased from us) during this time, and have had no problems with that appliance since.

I am not sure who is writing this, but most of it are lies. Yes I did pay 502.02 for the originial fix that was supposed to fix the freezing up in the back and the ice machine as we assumed they were all connected...and it was never told to me that it was not connected...so yes when I called again I was not happy and I did demand that they fix this that day as it was turning off every 5-10 minutes and I had no place to put all the food in the frig or freezer and I had already paid to have this fixed, so yes I was upset, but by that time I had called and asked for Tammy and she was not there, called for Brandt and he was not there, called to talk to the manager of store and she was not there...left a message to be called back and no one had called so yes I was angry. But mind you I had already paid for this to be fixed and now it wasn't NEVER EVER told that they didn't repair appliances not purchased from them. Yes they did fix the dishwasher again never told that I had to go somewhere else because I didn't purchase there. Yes I do have Bryces cell phone that he gave me, but I too have all the text messages, never after 6PM, I belief I called him once when I was off work at 5PM. NEVER EVER did I get my son involved, he did find a vape on our drive where Bryce had parted and did call Spencer to see if it was Bryces' so I would drop it off, never about the problems and at that time he had just been there to fix it...When I spoke with Brandt he definately told me it would probably be a couple of hours that he had to rebuild a frig because the guy worked nights and sleep during day and that I was the second on the list...I never saw him until after my husband got home, so according to that reply he went and did other orders too and didn't bother to tell me I was going to be off of work all day...Max was rude from the beginning and said it was a good thing I didn't buy my appliances from him...I agree...I have made another purchase and will not go back again....Brandt did show up that day, that is true, the back of the refrigerator was freezing up again, it wasn't plugged in properly. i am the first to say that is fine if there was a mistake, we are all human, but I could never get anyone to call me back and kept getting disconnected. I agree that if I was only calling for the first time I should have to wait in line, but I was calling because their repair failed and it needed to be taken care of ASAP and they didn't care...This is exactly why I don't buy local...No they didn't help me, I came to them first to buy a complete set of appliances and I knew what I wanted and I would ask and they would tell me they needed to get back to me and never would so I moved on...I purchased the complete set from ********** and I will continue to go back to them...again I tried to spend my money local and it bit me. I am not impressed with all the lies that were told...They need to stand up and admit to the issues they have in their store and be held accountable. I have moved on and will not be going back to Lichti's for ANYTHING...

The entire issue was that we had ice build up behind our drawer and so they came out and had to replace an expensive board and then it happened again and they replaced something else and then it happened again and they came out and said that the board was not plugged in tight so they fixed that...now it has happened again and I went back to the original place that I purchased it from and they are telling me it is just a drip pan that is covered by ********* to begin with and they have it ordered and will be replacing next week...

I am so frustrated...if they didn't know what they were doing they should have never done anything at all, but I would think that whirlpool has advised all dealers of this issue they just choose not to listen and charge me several hundreds of dollars...

I will never buy local again with anything major and it is all because of this.

Then also find out that the ice maker had nothing to do with this issue they replaced the motor and come to find out the ice container is broken and was causing the problems...so again charged for something that was not needed to be done.

We can understand this customer's irritation, but to state word for word from our first response "Our service technicians were in contact with the manufacturer of this appliance to help troubleshoot, and discovered there are multiple known issues with that model." We are NOT in the habit of putting in unnecessary parts, we are too busy to give our service department extra work by putting in random parts! All parts that were put in were on the direction of ********** when our technicians talked to their tech line.