Frank Rodriguez in San Francisco says he has been dealing with a difficult LG fridge since 2021.
“This one cost me $2,000 and it’s been a nightmare,” he said.
He says it’s not freezing well. Techs have repeatedly tried to fix it, but haven’t. Frank says he’s asked for a replacement or a refund. But that hasn’t happened. “I said that’s it. I guess this is the final word,” he said. “I was ready to give up, until I’d seen your program.”
Our “program” was our recent report about a lawsuit involving some LG and Kenmore refrigerators, as well as a part LG makes called the “linear compressor.” Many viewers and the lawsuit claim the compressor frequently dies long before the 10-year warranty or 20-year lifespan that LG advertises.
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We focused our story on an LG owner named Betsy in Redwood City. She’s had two fridges die in just five years. “Yeah, two,” she said. “Unfortunately, we bought another LG fridge. So, I guess that’s the definition of insanity, right?”
When that story ran, Sunil Kardile in Pleasanton was watching. “She had exactly the same LG refrigerator that I had,” Sunil said. “When I saw that I said, ‘now let me contact Chris.’” Sunil says his fridge has required five replacement compressors. “The compressor dies like every year,” he said.
While people like Sunil and Frank were contacting us, the phone was simultaneously ringing off the hook at the office of the lawsuit’s lead lawyer, Azar Mouzari.
“We received thousands of calls within a span of two weeks … thousands,” Mouzari said. “Given that we were aware of how rampant this issue is, and how it impacts so many consumers throughout the nation, I’m not surprised.”
Mouzari accuses LG of fraud. She says the company has known for years that refrigerators with a “linear compressor” regularly die young, but it sold them anyway. Mouzari says a trial would force LG to make public any internal communication that might reveal what it knows.
LG has not yet directly responded to Mouzari’s allegations in court. Instead, it’s trying to take the dispute behind closed doors, and it’s pointing to the box.
LG says it put an arbitration notice on the box. It’s now asking a federal judge to require individual fridge owners to move their case to arbitration -- in private. But owners we interviewed say they never saw the box because delivery people unboxed their fridge.
“I’ve never seen the box,” said Frank. “The box stayed in the truck.”
Same for Sunil. “They opened the box right in the driveway,” he said. “And they took the box back. I did not even see the box.”
Betsy, too. No one we talked to ever saw the box.
Besides the arbitration notice on the box, LG says it puts notices two other places: one taped inside the refrigerator, and another in the owner’s manual. “I think that argument fails,” Mouzari said, “Consumers don’t have access to an owner’s manual until after they’ve made the purchase.”
To learn more about arbitration agreements and notices, we visited professor Anna Han at Santa Clara University School of Law. “I’ve been teaching here for 35 years,” she said.
Han noted that Arbitration agreements are commonplace. “They put them into everything,” she said. And, these days, consumers agree to mandatory arbitration all the time-- click here, sign there.
Han says proper notice is key: both sides must knowingly agree not to sue. We asked if arbitration notices printed on a box, taped inside a product, or included in a manual -- that you don’t see until after you buy -- give shoppers sufficient notice. Han noted parallels to a case in which Samsung tried to force arbitration with a notice in a smartphone box.
“In that case the court said exactly what you just asked: which is, ‘Was there sufficient notice to the consumer about this clause,’” Han said. “Was there actual consent? If you don’t know something, how would you ever agree to it, right?”
Han said the federal courts nullified the arbitration agreement in the smartphone box. The judge has not ruled whether LG owners’ boxes boxed them into arbitration. Mouzari says the legal maneuvering does nothing to repair people’s problem fridges. “Instead of fixing the issue, LG decided to allocate those resources into an arbitration provision on a box,” she said.
LG told us it does not comment on pending litigation. A spokesman said, "our focus on customer satisfaction is paramount.” LG noted that its appliances, “are used in tens of millions of homes across America every day.” LG encouraged customers to contact them for help.
People like Frank, Sunil, and others, say they have asked for help. LG’s repeatedly sent repairmen.
What they want is a replacement fridge or a refund check. “It’s eating at me,” Frank said.
We asked LG to review Frank and Sunil’s concerns.
To learn more about the lawsuit, you can visit the law firm's website.
