Two godawful things happened.
In the wee hours of today, some crooks stole my credit card number and made a GBP300+ transaction in the UK. You can read about the story here.
In the afternoon, our new Teka washer was delivered to our home. The two delivery staff from Teka, blur like sotong, told me that they weren't sure how to operate the washing machine when I asked them to show me. Their reply was (in Malay): "Don't know la. Ala, normal la, just like any other washing machine". But I figured how to operate the washer as it's pretty user-friendly. After the washing machine was installed, I tried one cycle without any clothes under "Quick" which is a 15-minute duration and everything seemed fine.
Fast forward several hours later. For my maiden wash in the machine with clothes, I chose a "sports cycle" with a 45-minute duration and a 1200 spm (spin per minute). About thirty minutes later, we heard an awfully loud crash in the kitchen followed by extremely loud 'machine-conking-out' sounds emitting from the washing machine. I was shell shocked to see the washer, toppled onto the floor (from the four legs to prop the washer up). Everything on top of the washer was scattered on the floor. The machine was vibrating very violently, like in an earthquake scene. It sounded as if it was going to explode any time. I quickly turned off the switch to stop it from swaying. Several minutes later, I tried to open the door but it was still locked as the cycle had not ended. I turned on the washer again and again it shook violently, hitting the sides of the wall (and scraping off some cement) and fridge door. Again I turned off the main switch. Thankfully when I tried to resume the last 5 minutes of cycle, the machine cooperated, ended the wash and I could finally open the washer door to remove the clothes.
I quickly made a call to Teka service centre and told them the problem. The first question that the service staff asked me was "did the delivery guy remove the four screws behind the washer?"
What, how the heck would I know? The staff were supposed to know what to do. They were supposed to even teach me how to use but they did none of these.
I ran to the washer to check the back of it and bingo, the four screws were still intact.
Oh. My. Gawd!
Tragedies could have happened because of the carelessness of the delivery guys who had forgotten to remove the screws. I dread to think what would have happened had anyone of us been at the washer when it fell off. According to the technician who came later, the washer's weight is over 100kg. Yup, this washer from Europe is this heavy and solid. The screws are there to protect the drum during delivery. When the washer spun, it was moving against force / lock from the screws, thus the violent vibration and deafening sounds coming out.
What irked me to the point that I had to cuss and threaten the service manager was when he did not reply to all my Whatsapp messages to him. I told him that the washer had fallen off and blocking the refrigerator door. We could not open the fridge door, can't cook and it's a sore eye to see the washer blocking the kitchen floor. As it is, our kitchen is already super squeezy. Much later when I managed to get through to him, he told me that as per their policy, I had to wait for 24 hours for a technician to arrive. But this is an emergency and it is due to the negligence of their staff that this accident had happened. Do I have to suffer because of their negligence? I demanded for a technician to be at my door step the same day OR I would bring this matter up to higher Management and even post my bad experience on Facebook. Finally the technician arrived at 6 p.m. and he's a super nice guy.
I later found out from the technician that the issue of the delivery staff forgetting to remove screws from the washer is very common. I couldn't believe what I heard. How can this even be happening at such a large multinational company with headquarters in Spain and Switzerland? Why aren't the staff briefed, trained and reminded on this? This is totally unacceptable.
I hope that our Teka washer wouldn't disappoint me. I've used an Electrolux washer for almost 10 years and I still love it but the hubs said that it's time to change to a new one. I think I still prefer my old Electrolux.
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