TL;DR; Don’t use a big box store, especially Lowe’s, for something as important as your kitchen appliances - they will not fulfill their warranty guarantees and will waste hours of your time in order to drive you to take matters into your own hands.

In 2019 we remodeled our entire house, including the kitchen. During the remodel, we bought all new Bosch 800 series appliances from Lowes. They were able to significantly beat the pricing of the local companies we were talking to, and since we were already at nearly 2x our original budget for the remodel, saving a few grand was worth it to us at the time to shop big box. We even ponied up for their extended 5 year warranty to prepare for a situation like what happened two months ago, our freezer stopped cooling, followed shortly by our fridge.

3-Aug-2022

First thing I did was call Lowes warranty support line to open a support ticket with them and get someone out to take a look at the fridge. It was a fairly quick call, about 15 minutes, where they said they would schedule a company to come out. The next day, the company called to schedule with me, it was to be two weeks out. Unfortunate, but not surprising. I accepted the appointment, but ended up getting a sooner appointment because someone else canceled.

11-Aug-2022

The repair company showed up and spent maybe 10 minutes evaluating the refrigerator, only to say that they don’t do “Sealed System” work and that I’d have to work with Lowes to have another company come out. They assured me that they would inform Lowes of the situation and to expect a call back.

No one called, and life and ADHD kicked in causing me to lose track of things for about a month.

13-Sep-2022

I spoke to a woman at Lowes who said that the previous repair company just marked the ticket as resolved and that they assumed the situation was handled. I stated that they didn’t do anything and that the ticket should be re-opened. At that point, she said she would have to forward our ticket to the Service Locator team in order to find a service company capable of “Sealed System” work. She promised a 24-48 turn around time on locating a provider and a call back.

No one called.

3-Oct-2022

Two Months since our fridge failed. I call in again and they say “we’re sorry no one called you back, but we can’t find anyone to perform the work” to which I was getting ready to respond, but then she said “but I will transfer your ticket to the Service Locator team to find someone that can do the work.” Incredible. I was starting to build a picture in my mind that the SL team is a sink hole for stuff they don’t want to deal with. I asked to be transfered live to the SL team so I could speak with them, but was promptly told that they don’t accept inbound calls. So, I asked for a supervisor.

The supervisor didn’t review any case notes and asked me to retell the story. Frustrated, I do. I have notes. He then stated that he saw no record of my request being sent to the Service Locator team, which shocked me. Either they are really bad at their jobs, or they’re actively trying to not capture information in order to not have a paper trail of not fulfilling their warranties. I asked to be transfered to the supervisor’s supervisor, but was told he is the highest level of escalation for customers. This person had no recourse available for me but transfering my case to the Service Locator team.

He once again states that he will forward my request to the Service Locator team and that I should expect a call back in 48 hours.

No one called.

10-Oct-2022

I call in again, go through the whole tier 1 process, to be told that there is no record of me calling in to follow up on 6-Oct, “Yes, because I was told Lowes would call me.” I ask for her supervisor, named Melissa, who ended up marking our case as emergency and asked for one more day for the Service Locator team. “Wait, so at no point no one has marked our case as emergency? We’ve been without a fridge for over two months!”

I quickly followed with: “Three times Lowes has told me that they need 24-48 hours for the Service Locator team and that they would call me back. Three times they’ve not followed through and I’ve had to call in and start the process over. I’ll give you your 24-48 hours, but then I will take matters into my own hands.”

No one called.

17-Oct-2022

Last Thursday I called two companies from the top 10 list of appliance repair on Yelp in our area, the second company has been in business for 54 years and does sealed system work. I scheduled with them and they were here this morning, two business days later. They’re able to do the repair and have ordered the parts.

If there is a Service Locator team at Assurant (The Lowes Warranty Company), then they’re absolute dog-shit at their jobs. If there isn’t a Service Locator team, which is my guess, they’re the scape-goat for the agents who don’t want to actually solve the problem. I believe that Lowe’s warranty intention is to run their customers through a never ending loop of support hell so they don’t have to pay out any cases.

What they don’t know, because they don’t listen and surely missed my many threats, is that once I’m done getting my refrigerator repaired, they will be hearing from our lawyer. They will be getting a bill for the repair of our fridge, our lawyer fees, and our time running down this bullshit. If they refuse, we’ll move on to small claims court.