American Home Shield

American Home Shield (http://www.ahswarranty.com/) provides warranties for home appliances. The service was included in the purchase of my house a little over a year ago. I did not renew the service this year. I am now getting the run-around from American Home Shield (AHS) because the assigned repairman appears to have misdiagnosed a problem with the dishwasher and it broke again (third time, same problem). AHS’s stance so far is that a recurring problem reported past 30 days is a new call and since I am no longer a client, they cannot place a new call. My stance is that I told the repairman both the first and second time that his diagnosis did not sound complete (when a fuse blows, you ought to find out why it blew) and, of course, it takes longer than 30 days for the problem to surface.

I’ll fill in the details after I get a call from whatever AHS specialist is supposed to contact me.

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June 30, 2009
About two weeks ago, the repairman arrived to see if the circuit board he previously installed had gone bad. He could not analyze that because there is no power in the dish washer since the internal fuse had blown (yes, that's the same fuse he replaced twice already). He needed more guidance from AHS. I've not heard from either the repairman or AHS since then.

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July 7, 2009
I called the repairman again a couple days ago reminding him that I am looking for a progress update. I've still not heard back from the repairman or AHS.

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July 13, 2009
I've tried repeatedly to connect with the repairman; Marvin of Brinings Appliance in Hedgesville, WV; leaving messages on both his office phone and cell phone asking him to call me with an update. He finally answered his phone today. He told me I need to call AHS, not him. At the point when I started to tell that he should have told that to me weeks ago, he hung up on me.
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July 28, 2009
Last night, I talked with Penisha who is 2 or 3 rungs up the escalation ladder at AHS. What I found out from Penisha is that Marvin reported that he inspected the circuit board and found that it was fine. Since I was standing there when he looked at the dishwasher, I know that he did not inspect the circuit board. One has to remove the inside panel to get to the circuit board. Marvin not only did not remove the inside panel, he barely opened the dishwasher door. He said that he could not inspect the board with the internal fuse blown. So, not only did he not diagnose the problem correctly, now he is lying about what work was supposed to do... unless someone at AHS is hearing/reading one thing and logging it in as something else. Either way it is just plain wrong. I'll be talking to the next level of escalation soon.

As a side note, Marvin was also working on an issue we are having with our microwave. The microwave is an over-the-stove model. The door of the microwave fills with moisture (you can see the condensation behind the window) when steam is rising from something cooking on the stove. After Marvin replaced the inside seal, and we still had the problem, he reported to AHS that "Replacing the door or microwave would not solve the problem." It seems that Marvin thinks moisture in the door is normal.
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August 10, 2009
After escalating this up about 4 levels, AHS finally came through for me. More details later.