KENTWOOD, Mich. (WOOD) — If you find yourself wrangling with a big name brand over a broken appliance, don’t give up until you call Target 8.
After our investigators exposed that a Samsung-recommended repairman had a criminal record and a string of unhappy customers, the company has refunded nearly $1,000 and is replacing two refrigerators completely.
Samsung cut ties with Tony O’Neal of Aone Assembly after Target 8 notified the manufacturer that O’Neal was convicted of taking money from a client when he was in the mortgage industry.
Also, customers told Samsung that O’Neal took their money and never returned to fix their appliances.
But Linda Humbert says Samsung’s own customer service department isn’t much better.
“I probably made three dozen phone calls and many of them were over an hour,” explained Humbert. “Not so much actively talking to someone but in sitting on hold trying to get through to someone that they said I needed to talk to and eventually, in every case, never did get it resolved on the phone.”
Humbert bought a Samsung washer and dryer and says she had problems from the start.
She struggled to find a conversion kit for the dryer and had to replace the dryer’s igniter almost immediately.
“It was almost $400 later at that point that I had put into this brand dryer,” said Humbert.
That’s when Humbert saw Target 8’s report on Samsung and Tony O’Neal.
“I called my sister and said you won’t believe WOOD TV is doing an expose on Samsung because apparently I am not the only one who has this problem. Who knew?”
After Target 8 sent Humbert’s name to Samsung’s media representative, the company reached out to Humbert and ultimately refunded her nearly $400.
The manufacturer has been quick to settle up with other customers too, including two families who have been struggling with broken down refrigerators.
One family has already received a new replacement fridge, and the other expects to receive one soon.
Samsung also urged any customers who were not satisfied with Aone Assembly to call them so they can help.
“Customer satisfaction is our number one priority and we want every one of our customers to know that they can trust our service providers. We sincerely apologize to any Samsung customer who has had an unsatisfactory experience with Aone Assembly. Aone Assembly’s action are not representative of the type of service that we strive to provide. We have terminted our contract with Aone Assembly and created several new policies to ensure that this does not happen again. We encourage anyone who was not fully satisfied with their Aone Assembly experience to contact us directly at 1-800-SAMSUNG so that we can help.”
