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Fridge failures: LG says angry owners can't sue, company points to cardboard box

https://www.nbcbayarea.com/investigations/consumer/lg-refrigerators-failures-update/3465620/

NBC Bay Area’s Consumer team filed a report focused on faulty fridges, and then, viewers responded resoundingly about their own refrigerator problems. Consumer Investigator Chris Chmura has been watching a huge, coast-to-coast response and has an unusual quest to find refrigerator boxes to answer a legal question.

Fridge failures: LG says angry owners can't sue, company points to cardboard box::NBC Bay Area’s Consumer team filed a report focused on faulty fridges, and then, viewers responded resoundingly about their own refrigerator problems....

62 comments

aelwero

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LG effectively has said that their owners manual and a cardboard box have authority over the courts. Clearly, as the courts have nullified it, they fucking dont.

All I see is a damned good reason to ban arbitration agreements outright. If you want to arbitrate a tort, you should be required to motion the court for it.

ArchAengelus

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I agree. I think arbitration should be limited to one-off cases, not class action lawsuits because you sell a faulty product.

punkideas

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It shouldn't be allowed for contracts of adhesion (take or leave it contracts for consumers). Mandatory binding arbitration should be limited to business to business negotiated contracts.

AA5B

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Arbitration should be allowed any time, never mandatory. Among other things, this would help balance the overwhelming power of the corp since they would want to encourage arbitration treating you fairly there

badbytes

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Yeah, by the time you even received the agreement, it's already bought and usually delivered and or installed.

Railison

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It boggles my mind that consumer protections in the US are so weak.

bobs_monkey

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When you realize a significant number of our laws here are written by industry lawyers, it makes a lot more sense.

LibertyLizard

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Absolutely. Mandatory arbitration is a miscarriage of justice so obvious that it is truly shocking to me that both the courts and the legislature allow it to continue.

aramova

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Live here for a few months and you'll see a whole lot of things that'll boggle your mind.

XEAL

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Reminds of that video of Louis Rossmann where he says something like: if a company writes something in small print and/or on places where people won't look, it's because the company knows they would lose customers and damage their PR if people knew about it.

Aside of being legal or not, if LG really wanted their customers to be aware of their BS, maybe they should have put a big ass plastic warning sticker in the front of the fridge itself, preferably holding the door/s locked or on the inside, somewhere annoying where nobody would miss it.

Rai

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I agree with that guy a LOT but something rubs me the wrong way with him

lukeb28

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I think it's because he's such a staunch capatilist

OrderedChaos

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Serious question. How is he a staunch capitalist if he is always advocating for right to repair? For consumer rights?

agitatedpotato

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Consumers having rights doesn't change the type of economic system. You could have consumer rights under feudalism and that would still be feudalism. The right to mend you own fence wouldn't make your feudal lord any less of your feudal lord. Heck and that example is even a worker right not a consumer one.

Grangle1

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He is in the third-party repair business, so it makes sense for him to promote right to repair to protect his industry.

That, and as he often says, in an ideal capitalist world for both producer and consumer, the best way to retain business is to keep the customer happy, and an easy way to do that is to produce a quality product and not screw the consumer over, lest the product break or total itself and the customer go elsewhere for repair or replacement of the broken product. Satisfied customers in the first initial sale can lead to those customers returning often and recommending the business and product to others, leading to much more business (and profit) overall.

billiam0202

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He is in the third-party repair business, so it makes sense for him to promote right to repair to protect his industry.

That, and as he often says, in an ideal capitalist world for both producer and consumer, the best way to retain business is to keep the customer happy, and an easy way to do that is to produce a quality product and not screw the consumer over, lest the product break or total itself and the customer go elsewhere for repair or replacement of the broken product. Satisfied customers in the first initial sale can lead to those customers returning often and recommending the business and product to others, leading to much more business (and profit) overall.

Hmm, that sounds expensive. How about I give you a shoddy bomb casing filled with used pinball machine parts and put off worrying about any repercussions until next quarter?

ikidd

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You gotta know he has a fleet of bitcoin miners sucking down the equivalent of a small countries energy needs.

sir_reginald

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yeah the guy is insufferable and always trying to promote their own business.

ColeSloth

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These motors have been a knows issue in refrigeration for a long time now. A lot longer than just 3 or 4 years. Meanwhile I have a 15 year old fridge/freezer still going great and a full size upright deep freeze in the garage that's like 30 years old.

AA5B

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Bullshit, then I still don’t know until after I bought it, took delivery, and “agreed to” whatever they decide to post there

It should need to be visible on the sales demo, and the online listing, so I do have an opportunity to look for an alternative

BearOfaTime

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Lol.

Any judge worth his salt will ask LG for proof the consumer agreed to arbitration.

db2

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LG will say that by opening the box they agreed to the terms, Microsoft started that one.

BearOfaTime

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That's not proof.

What if the delivery company opened it? What if the consumer didn't see it?

Prove the consumer read it. LG has no signed document, nothing, proving the consumer read and agreed to this.

A software license is different - when installing you click on a button saying "I agree".

Shirasho

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There has been legal precedent that terms of use are not legally binding since they don't expect customers to read it before clicking the I Agree button. They have made the agreements so long and put them in everything that they concluded there is no possible way anybody would ever read all of it for everything.

bobs_monkey

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Not only that, but your average consumer isn't very well versed in legalese to actually understand everything in them.

NeoNachtwaechter

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A software license is different - when installing you click on a button saying "I agree".

Not different, because nobody knows who has installed the software.

Or even more: when I got my car, the kids were the first ones to play with the entertainment system, and they clicked many "I agree" buttons. But a kid's agreement is legally void.

x4740N

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Shitty life pro tips, get your kids to click I agree to licence terms so they're legally void

Patches

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If you can - always have your children agree to all contracts.

They are legally protected from all contracts except Student Loans Debt. Thanks Biden.

AA5B

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The licenses should be void because you had no opportunity to read and understand before purchasing, and they are wording them as a contract when they are unilaterally imposed

BearOfaTime

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Good point.

As someone who's deployed thousands of apps using MOM/SMS/SCOM, am I responsible for those agreements? Lol

grue

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A software license is different - when installing you click on a button saying “I agree”.

I did no such thing. Maybe my cat walked on the keyboard. Maybe I skipped over it with a debugger. Or maybe I did click on the button, but it did not constitute a legal meeting of the minds because I already owned the goddamn thing and it was nothing more than a mechanical step necessary to use my property!

Clickwrap agreements for software are no different at all. They're just as much bullshit as this nonsense LG is trying to pull, and always have been.

BearOfaTime

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Hahahaha, I like your cat!

Yea, I didn't apply the same logic. Again, the complainant would have to prove you clicked agree.

AA5B

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Last night the TV I’ve had for three years stopped working until I agreed to their terms of service, including their personal data sales. There was no opportunity to disagree, nor anything I could do with the TV until I did. You could prove I read it, but it’s ridiculous to claim I agreed to it before buying it or that I had any leverage for fair treatment.

I suppose I shouldn’t have had my TV on the network but it has an Apple TV app and my Firestick doesn’t

cousinofjah

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@AA5B @BearOfaTime what brand, may I ask

AA5B

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Vizio. It wouldn’t even let me use the built in airplay or Chromecast until I agreed to sell my soul.

The only thing that worked was HDMI inputs

cousinofjah

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And can it be factory reset?

AA5B

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I plan to reset and keep it off the internet by the end of this month.

The problem was I couldn’t treat it as a dumb TV because of the missing app on my Firestick. It doesn’t help that Firestick has been getting shittier and shittier. And I’m not watching ad infested Prime TV after spending so much money on it

Im disgusted at the whole mess and ready to give Apple more of my money on the hope that Apple TV is not as ad infested as either the Firestick or the TV. Rumor has it there may be a new Apple TV coming out: crap, now I feel like I have to wait and see what my choices are

cousinofjah

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@AA5B yeah the enshittification of streaming TV is well underway. Pretty soon the best option will be to buy a computer monitor

AA5B

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It’s long been tough to do. I thought that when I bought my tv a few years back, but the smart tv was cheaper and had much better specs than any similar monitor, and there were many more choices

GreyEyedGhost

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Stories like this are why I will NEVER buy a TV with built-in smart features. Its only job is to take signals and produce pictures and sound. These days, I don't even need a TV tuner. If I have to pay for a giant monitor instead, that's fine, I'll just wait until I can afford it, or buy smaller.

BearOfaTime

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Uggh, I hate that crap on my TV.

I reset my TV recently... Except apparently I didn't because it came right back with all my settings. Dammit, I said RESET. wtf.

(Yea, apparently Samsung and others use a feature that once it gets network, it connects to Samsung servers and pulls the config back down if it's on the same net. Wtf??)

fitjazz

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I never saw the box for my LG fridge. If you have a large appliance delivered the delivery people usually open it and leave all the packaging in the truck and just bring the appliance itself in.

GlitterInfection

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I hate LG more than any other company after dealing with their worst in class customer service when I bought a defective TV a couple years back.

It took 6 months of actively calling them and then creating a Twitter account and tweeting at their PR team and emailing the CEO to get my money back on the piece of junk.

Multiple hour+ long calls. Each time where I had to tell them everything from the previous calls that was supposed to be entered in their system, and was, but the call person literally didn't look at the screen in front of them. An hour long wait on hold to the claims department where someone picked up and then audibly hung up.

It was infuriating. But I had a $2,000 piece of junk in my house so I wasn't going to let it drop.

Passerby6497

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Shit like this is why I use my credit card for big purchases like that. Your shit doesn't work and you fuck around making it right? I'll get a charge back and you can deal with the credit card company because I ain't got time for that shit.

Haven't had to pull that card very many times, but its very nice when the business fucking me around suddenly really wants to make it right so they don't have to deal with the impacts of a charge back.

bobs_monkey

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It's amazing what happens when you mention chargeback to all these shitty companies and how quickly they change their tune.

Patches

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Charge backs cost them money in fees but more importantly - enough charge backs will increase their fees/penalties/required balances and in excess - remove their ability to take payments entirely.

derf82

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Arbitration clauses need to be banned, at least for regular consumer purchases.

But thanks to lobbying, that will never happen.

But at least I know never to ever buy anything from LG and Kenmore.

frezik

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I'm starting to run out of mid-range appliance brands. Had problems with Bosch and Samsung. Now take off LG and Kenmore. There's a few others, but for the most part, it's either cheap appliances left or the higher end stuff like Sub-Zero/Wolf.

tja

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You have to fight the root cause. Your politicians want this or they would implement rules against it

AA5B

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Just like consumer protections, they are bad at looking ahead: things need to get disastrous before politicians are moved to act.

I kept expecting shrink wrapped terms of service would do it, since it’s so clearly unfair to insist you agreed to something you can’t see until you’ve already “agreed” by opening the package. And I don’t see how most of these are even legally supportable - that’s great that you want an arbitration clause but how can you claim I agree with a contract unilaterally imposed by a conglomerate a billion times my wealth and no opportunity to read or bargain? How can you claim it’s legal to insist I sign away basic rights (yesterday I watched a video where a company was insisting there is no guarantee of fitness for purpose or that it functions on delivery).

By virtue of our legal system relying on lawsuits for any sort of redress from fraud, I’d call the right to sue a fundamental right in our economy, that should not be able to be signed away

Squizzy

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Bosch and Siemens are much the same but I've had positive experiences with both.

yesman

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Everyone thinks the US is a litigious society, but it's the consequence of our political order. The lack of regulations are "compensated" by the right to tort. In many instances, there is no authority to enforce rights, only the ability to sue. The Americans with Disabilities Act works this way. (and there are many calling to remove that option, making the entire law theoretical)

Of course, the idea is that lawsuits will discourage people from getting redress because of the high-bar to enter a case into the legal system. But that wasn't enough, so the capitalists are trying to take that away too.

There are few things more obscene under capitalism than a privatized court system.

ThiccSemperTyrannis

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Had one of their fridges a while back with their proprietary compressor design. It kicked the bucket at about 2-3 years old. All appliance repair shops that I contacted in my area, including an LG-certified one, declined repairs. Most of them even immediately asked if it was an LG when I asked if they did compressor replacements to head me off at the pass. It was a good product while it worked, but that's only half the equation.

Zozano

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In 2023, my new LG dryer shit the bed after three months.

They sent a technician twice to replace the lint filter, and sent a third lint filter via mail when the error started again.

Apparently the lint filter sensor is dependant on a tiny magnet which can come loose if the plastic housing is so much as tapped wrong.

How many people do you think open up their lint filters over a bin and tap the lint out?

Fucking moronic design.

We never found out if it was a sensor fault, we were lucky enough to get a store credit and traded that fucker in. LG never again.

CptOblivius

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I have one of these fridges that failed. It was delivered and installed initially...I never saw the box. How does that factor in? Plus don't buy LG, it's a shit company.

____

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A million years ago I worked for ATT wireless, and had to shill their (circa 2006) crap phones.

Not a brand I’m a fan of even all these years later.

books

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Had an lg fridge shit the bed after a year or so.

Samsung did the same after a year.

Fuck them both.

ahriboy

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Chinese OEMs will steal the share

festus

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I know that Chinese brands have a bad reputation, but there are some really good products they make too. I have an ice cream maker (compressor based) that's both cheaper than any of the traditional brands but also has a really fantastic build quality. It wouldn't surprise me if over time some of the Chinese brands start to target western consumers more, and if they actually deliver quality products while the traditional brands aren't then they might gain significant market share.

kevincox

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A[n LG] spokesman said, "our focus on customer satisfaction is paramount.”

Ok, that got a solid laugh out of me.

x4740N

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My parents have a LG fridge and so far it's still running strong

Is it the newer recent fridges with defects or models from a specific country ?

Landless2029

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Mine is about 7 years old. 2 years ago the compressor died on it. It was a new custom LG design. The part normally lasts 10 years.

I was out of warranty but LG still fixed it apparently due to a class action lawsuit forcing them to cover the compressor specifically due to all the failures.

Take what you will from that.