Problem Solved: Why won’t GE honor its GE Fit Guarantee? My fridge doesn’t fit!

Q: I’m writing to you to request assistance in resolving my claim for the GE Fit Guarantee. I purchased a GE 30-inch single wall oven last year to replace a 25-year-old GE 30-inch single wall oven. Part of the reason I chose another GE oven was the GE Fit Guarantee, which guarantees the oven will fit in the old cabinet cutout, or GE will provide $300 toward the cost to modify my cabinet to make it fit.

GE installed the new oven, but it didn’t fit. It was too tall for the existing cutout.

I applied for the Fit Guarantee by mailing my completed paperwork to the company. I waited two months and then called GE customer support. A representative told me that my claim had been denied.

The first level of customer support could not tell me why the claim was declined, so I asked to escalate the issue. After some back-and-forth emails, I learned that the claim was declined because, to quote the GE paperwork, “slide in to slide in not valid.”

I said GE made an error, that I bought a single wall oven, not a slide-in, and asked that reevaluate my claim since it clearly qualified for the Fit Guarantee.

GE denied my claim again. Can you help me get GE to honor its Fit Guarantee?

— Rich Hunt, Livermore

A: If the oven doesn’t fit, GE should honor its warranty.

So what happened? The GE Fit Guarantee comes with a lot of fine print. It says the oven will fit into a standard 30-inch free-standing range cutout or GE Appliances will provide up to $300 in the form of a prepaid Visa card toward the costs of professionally modifying your cabinet.

The fine print is on the claim form, which requires a copy of your original sales receipt or invoice which shows the model number and the name of the store where you bought the appliance. You have to include a photograph of the previous oven you replaced with the cutout dimensions before modification. You also have to include a dated invoice or receipt from a professional installer or contractor stating the cost to modify your existing cabinet on a separate line item from the installation costs, with a photograph of the finished installation.

In your case, GE put up a wall of bureaucracy. First, you had the silent treatment for two months. Then, GE bounced you around between departments, turning you down repeatedly. If its reasons had been legit, you wouldn’t have a case. But GE told you it couldn’t honor its warranty because it insisted you purchased an oven that was not covered by the warranty, which was incorrect. To me, that suggests the company didn’t take the time to fully evaluate your claim and then just doubled down on its denial.

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You can escape this doom loop of denials by contacting a customer service manager. I publish the names, numbers and email addresses of the GE customer service executives on my consumer advocacy site, Elliott.org.

I contacted GE on your behalf. A representative reached out to you with a resolution. “Our customer service team looked into this and honored his rebate for $300 as a one-time exception,” a GE spokeswoman told me.

Well, I’m not sure if this was so much an exception as doing what it originally agreed to. But all’s well that ends well.

Christopher Elliott is the author of The Unauthorized Travel Manual and founder of Elliott Advocacy, a nonprofit organization that helps consumers solve their problems. Email him at [email protected] or get help by contacting him on his site.