My Whirlpool White magic FP60 DLX washing machine suddenly stopped working, when the water was stopped by the flat management due to some repair work without my knowledge.
I called the call center on 16/08/08 at telephone number 60008558 and I was given a complaint number HD0808005099. I was told that since the machine is out of warranty, the labor charge would be Rs. 285/-. and since it was a Saturday, the technician would visit on Monday.
On Monday, a technician from "Sri Maruthi Engineering", visited my house. They are the Authorized Service Partner of Whirlpool in Hyderabad. He checked the machine and said the inlet valve and the circuit board is damaged. The valve would cost Rs. 200/- and the circuit board would cost Rs. 3, 200/-. He did not have the replacement parts and said that he will get them on next day.
He came on next day with the replacement parts and immediately removed their circuit board. But(fortunately) he had brought the circuit board of a different model, so he said he will have to come on next day, with the correct item.
After he left, I started retrospecting the entire event and asked myself few questions, i.e. "If the inlet valve is damaged, why he did not replace it first?" "Why there was no visible damage on the circuit board?", etc.
Next day, when he came with the correct part, I firmly asked him to fix the old circuit board and replace the inlet valve. He did it without any question and Bingo! Washing machine started working.
Then he said that I should get the circuit board changed as it may give problem later and I will have to pay service charge again, etc. etc. however I did not buy his argument and asked him to prepare the bill. When he prepared the bill, the inlet valve was charged at Rs. 350/-! When I said that initially he told the cost would be Rs. 200/-, he said, that was the discounted price if the circuit board is also changed.
The question is whether, the service center is doing this malpractice(read cheating) by themselves or Whirlpool has instructed them to do so? Because most of the companies have adopted a strategy of not making the spare parts available in the open market. One has to procure it from the so called "Authorized" service partners, that too, they will take the old part back.
Had I not been vigilant, I would have paid Rs. 3200/- without any reason. Whirlpool, are you listening?