Help me w/wording (Home Warranty)

[hulley]

When we bought this house last year, the mortgage broker bought us a home warranty. We have has issues with our stove for what is now the third time. While cooking, it will lock itself and flash an error message. The door has to be physically forced open to get the food out. I don't know if this is a fire hazard or not, but it certainly isn't safe for use to have happening repeatedly. Instead of a third $700 repair (the same part keeps malfunctioning), we'd like to request replacement, or the equivalent of the repair costs paid out to us to partially reimburse the cost of a replacement oven. 

Also, that can't get someone here until Christmas Eve. We are hosting Christmas dinner and I can't exactly do that without my oven. Thankfully, we have a separate cooktop and can use that for side dishes, but I really need the double oven to be functioning. Last time they repaired it, we had no oven for almost a month. 

Any ideas on what/how to ask? I tend to get wordy with things like this. 

[hopenotlost]

Is the warranty through American Home Shield by chance?

[hulley]

Dec 17, 2014 19:50:28 GMT -5 hopenotlost said:

Is the warranty through American Home Shield by chance?

No, it's Global Home USA. 

I mean, I know as a whole warranties are crap but I did read my contract and they do say they will repair or replace covered items. 

[hopenotlost]

I used to work for AHS in the customer service department. I know from working there they will often fix what's broken long before they will replace. It's maddening at times, especially when it's happening repeatedly. Ask for "cash in lieu" for the repairs. That may be an option they have, so they don't have to deal with sending out a contractor for another potentially expensive repair that will likely happen again. GL!

[hulley]

Dec 17, 2014 20:28:19 GMT -5 hopenotlost said:

I used to work for AHS in the customer service department. I know from working there they will often fix what's broken long before they will replace. It's maddening at times, especially when it's happening repeatedly. Ask for "cash in lieu" for the repairs. That may be an option they have, so they don't have to deal with sending out a contractor for another potentially expensive repair that will likely happen again. GL!

Thanks for the tip! I'm calling them in the mooring, DH is tired of dealing with them. 

[craftyone]

I had my a/c unit worked on 7 or 8 times with recharging it with freon 4 times before mine decided on a replacement. At that we ended up paying for half of the repair.

We ended up not renewing our warranty. Such a pain to have someone home all day for repairs..

Good luck on your repair! Have you tried to power down the oven at the breaker when it's locked? I've had mine throw a code and the only thing to do other than to call a repair man was to shut it off. It might help in an emergency while you wait on a repair..

[hopenotlost]

Check your contract on how long it should take for a contractor to come out. I know when I worked at AHS, unless it was an emergency (a frig not cooling was considered an emergency), the contractor had 3 business days to contact you. If they weren't able to come out within a reasonable amount of time, we would change the work order to another company. Be persistent, and if you're not happy with what the customer service rep can do (they are limited--trust me, I wish I could have done more for people!), request to speak to a supervisor. Sometimes you need to go up a couple levels (usually the first supervisor is just another customer service rep with slightly more "power").

[hulley]

craftyone - that's what I've had to do the past two times. Before I figured that out I had some fries get pretty badly burnt. And the breaker is all the way on hitherto other side of the house in the basement. We are definitely not renewing with them. Not worth it.

hopenotlost - they have 48 hours to initiate the contact but there's not language around how long they then have to get here. I'm going to try and calling them during my lunch out day.