NBC 7’s Consumer Bob takes a look into a class action lawsuit that could involve more than a million fridge owners.
Feeding a large family can be hard, especially when your fridge breaks down. That's what kept happening to Zulfar Shaker and the fridge her family bought back in 2013.
“Well, we had a total of seven to eight services -- appointments on it -- and five of them, they had to replace parts and components,” Shaker told NBC 7 Responds.
Shaker had an extended warranty and, with our help back in 2018, the hardware store she bought it from gave her a refund. But now, it turns out hundreds of thousands of people may have had similar issues.
"We've been hearing from consumers that this seemed like a significant problem," attorney Amey Park said. "So we put a lot of work into it, and we are very pleased we were able to come to a favorable settlement."
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Park helped represent a class action suit against LG Electronics over certain refrigerator models built between 2013 and 2017.
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"It could include more than 1.5 million fridge owners," Park said. "They could get anywhere from a few hundred dollars, from reimbursing for parts and labor, all the way up to thousands of dollars if you had a particularly bad experience like multiple failures and you had an extremely long time to get your refrigerator repaired."
More than 60 models of LG refrigerators are covered by the settlement, which can cover the cost of repairs, replacements and even spoiled food. Consumers need to apply by Jan. 11, 2021, to be considered.
TO SEE IF YOU ARE ELIGIBLE FOR A PAYMENT FROM THE CLASS ACTION SUIT, VISIT THIS WEBSITE.
Unfortunately for Zulfar case, her fridge would not qualify because it was built a year before the models included in the suit. To see if your refrigerator is included, visit LGsettlement.com.
“We negotiated hard for this agreement and emphasized that we wanted to get ... money in the pockets of people that they could use," Park said, "not some nominal amount, but recognizing that they had real difficulties.”
LG maintains that the refrigerators are not defective and denies any wrongdoing. The company is aso extending the warranty for all settlement-class members to five years from the purchase date and is providing them with its Enhanced Customer Care Program.
“They're certainly not inexpensive refrigerators, and those are refrigerators that when people buy and plunk that kind of money down," said Park, "they expect to have that refrigerator running for more than a couple years."
