P.C. Richard Sucks

Dzik Morski
January 1, 2019

When you buy any appliance or electronic parts from P.C. Richard's Parts Department by calling 1-800-224-9675, you will become the victim of P.C. Richard's outdated empire, where consumers are dictated old-fashioned methods for their money and left with unenforceable lifetime replacement promises.

When ordering a part for your appliance by phone and asking them for a receipt to be e-mailed to you, the answer is that you will only receive a printed receipt inside the box, when your parts are delivered. In this day and age this is unacceptable. So I don't care, if they give you an electrnic receipt, if you order a part online instead of over the phone, because it's the same company, so they should be willing to e-mail you a receipt, even if you called your order in. They only give you your order number on the phone.

So after giving them your credit card number, you hang up and you have nothing, but the order number in your hands about your purchase, until your merchandise arrives. Now what if you don't remember exactly, how many parts you ordered, how many of each, whether you forgot to order a specific part or not or the price of each? You can only find out by calling them again and rely on them to tell you verbally, what you ordered and how much each item cost. So now again you have to trust that employee's honesty and accuracy, who picks up the phone, because you have nothing in your hands and you have to go through phone prompts and holding time, until you get a live person. So you're totally dependent on them, because you have no written proof of anything in your hands. Now tell me, what this is: it's a DICTATORSHIP! This is exactly the type of customer service provided or rather dished out in Communist or Fascist dictatorships, where customers have to accept any lousy service and attitude for their money, because their money is not appreciated. They just know, that you need that product, so they think, that YOU're on the hook for that product, not them. Such dictators think, they're actuslly doing you a favor by letting you have it for your money and of course, you have to pay for this disservice, this dependency, this loss of your freedom. Of course, P.C. Richard's owners and management will deny this, but that denial doesn't change the facts, as they are.

Now when you finally get your parts delivered and fish out that paper receipt and your Lifetime Replacement Certificate, if you also paid for lifetime replacement of those parts. On the receipt they only tell you to call them with questions, concerns or returns, but the terms of their return policy are not explained there. So again they're keeping control and put you through the hassle of calling them, because again you have been left without any written proof of their return policy in your hands. On the Lifetime Replacement Certificate, on the other hand, their horrible conditions are well outlined and they only give you 1 paper certificate for each item, for which you purchased lifetime replacement. Why only one? Because they want you to keep the paper version, so when you ask for a part replacement later, you would be required to have held on to that paper certificate and take it to them in person, otherwise you won't get your part. So if you thought, that you would simply scan it in, shred the paper version and then present the PDF file later to them, you would be out of luck then in the future. The reason, why they want you to keep a paper original printed by them, is that they want to limit your lifetime replacements to just one time only. Of course, they can't have people print 10,000 copies of their certificates and then demand 10,000 replacement parts. But that's why they have their computer records, so when a replacement has been used up, they could simply send you a confirmation by e-mail from their computer records, which would say, that now you have no more valid replacement claims left. So here are the contents of such a certificate, which you were not allowed to see and read, when you were on the phone ordering it.

1st Source SERVALL
Lifetime Replacement Certificate

This certificate entitles you to one free replacementof a covered part that fails, upon the terms and conditions set forth herein.

Record of part covered:

Invoice Date ____________
Make __________________ Invoice # ____________
Model # _____________ Part # _____________
Serial # ____________

In order to obtain your free replacement part you must:

Bring the faulty part to a 1st Source Servall branch, including any faulty part with a core;
Bring this completed Certificate; and
Bring the original sales receipt for the part.
To the maximum extent permitted by law, this warranty is exclusive and the Servall company makes no other warranties, guarantees or conditions, whether oral, or written, express or implied, including without limitation, warranties of merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose. There are no warranties that extend beyond the description on the face hereof. To the maximum extent permitted by law, your exclusive remedy in the event that a part that you purchased from the Servall company fails is to receive one free replacement part; provided, however, that you shall only receive a replacement part if (1) you own the appliance, and (2) the replacement part is available from the OEM. This certificate only provides for a replacement part should the part you purchased fail. In no event should the Servall company be liable for any other damages, including, but not limited to, indirect, incidental, special or consequential damages. The Servall company does not guarantee or warrant the performance of the replacement part in any way. No agent or employee of the Servall company is authorized to make any modification, extension, or addition to this certificate. This certificate is non-transferable.

The company could easily prove, whether your one-time replacement was used up or not yet, just by keeping all their computer records of that shipment: generated invoice, shipping label, packing label, UPS/FedEx tracking number, UPS/FedEx delivery confirmation, etc. But of course, they don't want to be liable for bad record keeping. Instead they want to put all the burden on the customer, so they scrutinize YOU at the time of the claim. So if you failed to hold on to that paper receipt & certificate or just can't find it after 10, 20 or 30 years, then even though they have a computer record of it, they won't release the replacement part to you. In other words, after 30 years they are allowed to use all those computer records about your replacement warranty, because by this disclaimer they gave themselves a free pass by stating, that YOU will have to produce all records AND in paper form, plus the actual failed parts. So all the burden is on you and nothing on them!

Then they also have the audacity to force you to physically carry the original printed receipt, certificate and faulty part to their branch. This causes you travel expenses, lost travel time (2 hours round trip), possibly heavy lifting, plus the hassle to find out, where their nearest branch is and whether there even is one in your area. Then you will also have to research, who this Servall company is, because it's P.C. Richard, whom you have called, not Servall. You can only ASSUME, that Servall might be a vendor or subcontractor of them, but nobody told you this before, so you have an extra unpaid homework of making calls and searching the Internet. Sure, timre is money, but does P.C. Richard care? Of course not, since it's not THEIR time, they're wasting!

Then as it turns out from this certificate, you also have to prove, that the original appliance is yours. So now not only do you have to keep your records handy of your desired replacement parts, but also the receipt and/or product registration form of your appliance. Now P.C. Richard uses thermal paper for their receipts, when you buy something in person at one of their stores, but thermal papers FADE over time. In other words, in a few years your receipt will have faded into illegibility, so you don't have a receipt any more. Now don't P.C. Richard's owners and managers know that? Of course, they do, even if they deny it! But they don't care, because it's YOU, who loses out due to faded receipts, not them. And what a nice extra burden for you to even have to produce ownership papers of your appliance, on top of your parts receipt and Lifetime Replacement Certificate, ALL ON PAPER and physically taken to them! Can't you see, that they're putting up so many obstacles, blocks for you to ever redeem your replacement parts? Because they don't want you to redeem them, they just want you to pay for them, but they make the actual redemption as difficult, as they can.

Not to mention the misnomer of "INVOICE" vs. "RECEIPT", which goes against correct accounting priciples. The receipt is titled Invoice namely on the receipt itself, yet the Lifetime Replacement Certificate calls for an original sales "receipt". An invoice is an unpaid document, actually asking for payment, which hasn't happened yet. A receipt, however, is a paid document and is actually the proof of payment, which has already happened. Don't P.C. Richard's unprofessional accountants know this difference? Either not, or they don't care. So how reliable is P.C. Richard & Son at all? Do you really want to have to do anything with them?

And last, but not least: when you pay by credit card over the phone, why is that payment method later listed as "Cash in Adv" = Cash in Advance on the receipt/invoice, when it wasn't cash? I think, the IRS should audit and fine P.C. Richard with all their sons, if they can't even get such a simple thing right. On the other hand there are thousands of more qualified people, who are forced to remain unemployed, because P.C. Richard favors unprofessional cheap labor, even though they could well afford better ones. But better ones might not work for minimum wage only.

SO DON'T EVER BUY ANYTHING FROM P.C. RICHARD & SON! GO LOOK SOMEWHERE ELSE! YOU'LL BE BETTER OFF. MARK MY WORDS!