Yesterday afternoon while watching TV, my husband smelled smoke and followed the smell to the kitchen. There he witnessed smoke coming from beside the fridge, so he pulled it out and immediately unplugged it.
When I got home I asked him if he was sure it was the fridge (and not the plug-in) so he brought in an electrical cord, and plugged the fridge into another outlet on a different circuit, and sure enough, we immediately heard, and saw sparks and a flame coming out of the back of the fridge! We unplugged it again, and then noticed there was actually a burn mark on the wall, and side of our cupboard from before Ryan pulled the fridge out. Thank God someone had been home (and we weren’t asleep) when our fridge randomly decided to start on fire! We had never had issues with it before – at all. We plugged it back in once more, just long enough to take a short clip so we could send it to Frigidaire.
I called Frigidaire today to report this. They refused to accept any ownership of the issue – they even told me there was no recall on my model of fridge before I gave them the model number – and told me unless I was willing to pay a technician to assess the appliance, that there was no way to determine if it was their product’s fault that it started on fire.
The fridge is about 9 years old, I did not ask, or expect them to replace the appliance, but I did ask they send a technician to assess the fridge in case a recall should be issued, and they refused. They told me the fridge is probably at the end of its lifespan, and if I want it looked at by a technician, that it will be out of pocket. I explained my concern that even if it is at the end of its lifespan, it should just quit – not start on fire. The woman who took my escalated call told me there are no recalls on the fridge to support claims that it could start on fire, and had no interest in seeing the video or the picture of the scorch marks on my wall because she isn’t a technician.
I told her I had googled “Frigidaire, fire” and found we aren’t the only ones this has happened to, so the fact that they have no interest in investigating this, is really concerning:
She simply kept repeating there was nothing they could do for me because there is no recall on the fridge, and because it’s outside of warranty, I am required to pay for a technican to look at it if I feel that is worthwhile. She made it clear regardless of their findings, they wouldn’t be able to do anything.
So as promised to Frigidaire, I am posting and sharing this information. I don’t believe we are the only ones this has happened to, and don’t believe we will be the last. God forbid something worse happens to someone else, I want there to be record that Frigidaire deliberately avoided investigating a claim that their Side by Side fridge started on fire.
Obviously I would caution anyone against ever buying a Frigidaire product as well. (My new fridge certainly isn’t going to be one). This company has no integrity, and there are plenty of other companies out there who offer comparable pricing that you could choose and trust a heck of a lot more.
