Top critical review
1.0 out of 5 starsbut it was recommended by my dentist
Reviewed in the United States on February 19, 2018
Sorry for the long post, but I'm rather fuming after my experiences with broken toothbrushes and extremely disrespectful customer service.
I’ve first bought a Philips Diamondclean in late 2012. It was rather expensive (~200$), but it was recommended by my dentist, so I thought it’s worth it. The toothbrush was great, until it broke down in early 2014. The replacement broke again in late 2014… And the new replacement broke again after just 2-3 months. At this time, the handle was out of warranty and Philips promptly refused any further replacement.
Given that I liked the toothbrush, and that I’ve attributed the lack of reliability to the model being a newer one, I went ahead and bought a Philips Sonicare Flexcare toothbrush in November 2015 for ~$100. This time I was also careful to register the toothbrush for an extra half of year warranty! I’ve also bought a few for friends and family as gifts…
Unfortunately, this toothbrush wasn’t more reliable either. It broke in May 2016, and the replacements broke again in January 2017, and June 2017.
When your toothbrush is obviously broken (ie it doesn’t charge, or you press on the button and it doesn’t do anything), talking to customer service for ~30 minutes in order to “troubleshoot” the handle feels like a waste of time, but I only had to do it every ~6 months so I wasn’t too concerned about it.
Guess what happens at the beginning of this year? The toothbrush stops working. But hey, at least it’s still under warranty because I’ve registered mine for an extra 6 months. Little did I know I was in in for quite an experience…
Customer service agrees the toothbrush is under warranty, but they want to hear the toothbrush. I put the toothbrush on the phone, and click the button. It vibrates for 0.5 seconds and stops. The representative sounds rather displeased: “that doesn’t sound like a toothbrush”!? Not sure what they expected from a broken toothbrush. Oh, well! They ask for an shipping address, and the system rejects my (work) address for some unknown reason. The representative promises to fix this on their side or give me a call. Great!
Well, sort of. I don’t hear back for several days, so I decided to call them back. The customer service representative is very surprised, and says the previous discussion doesn’t show up in her system. Since I expected the phone call to be a quick checkup, I didn’t have the handle’s serial number at hand and the conversation ended up being a huge time waste for both me and the representative. Their records showed that my toothbrush was out of warranty. This is even though the previous assistant confirmed otherwise, but there’s no record of that discussion, so I have to carry on. Sending them receipt didn’t help either. After 1 hour of conversations, I gave up and asked for the reference number of the ticket in order to call back with the serial number for the toothbrush.
The next phone was outright bizarre. I started as usual by giving them my PII and the ticket reference number. They slowly go through it, and ask me what the problem is... Doh, not a great sign. Anyway, I say my toothbrush is broken and that I’ve called to give them the serial number according to the previous conversation. The representative says the case is closed and that they’ve sent a letter to me!? He wouldn’t give any more details though, and kept insisting he can’t do anything else. Meanwhile I still didn’t understand why he didn’t ask for the serial number. After 10 minutes of insisting that I want to escalate he finally agrees, and starts reading the letter which sounded kind of eerie (I’ll get back to it below). At that point I’ve snapped and hanged up.
Letter from Philips
The representative claimed the letter was sent on February 1st, although the one I later received was dated February 5th (my phone call was on the 5th, in the morning). The letter reads like this:
“Dear Consumer,
The intent of the Philips warranty is to offer the replacement of defective products during a defined period of time.
Our warranty is not intended as a vehicle to provide multiple products or multiple replacement products to consumers. We have noticed irregularities with your warranty replacement requests to send products to the same address.
This is to advise that Philips will no honor longer your request for replacement products under our warranty. Additionally, should you continue to make repeated attempts to misuse our warranty, Philips will take any and all appropriate legal action against you, including contacting the appropriate authorities.
Very truly yours,
Philips Consumer Care”
Ok, what did I just read? I'm all in agreement with the first part, but the second part is outright offensive. Philips, here are my questions:
1. I’ve sent each of the broken handles back to you, and you were each time very particular about the serial numbers of the toothbrushes. Why weren’t you concerned with the “irregularities” back then? And what does at “the same address” even mean?
2. Why do toothbrushes priced at $100-$200 (with replacement heads priced at $10-$20) keep breaking up every 6 to 12 months? Me and my wife brush our teeth twice a day, which sounds like very much what you’d expect from an electric toothbrush. Most other toothbrushes I’ve bought for my family also broke down after 1-3 years.
3. Why do you disrespect your customers so much? You could have at least called and explain why you have the concerns above. Instead, you send me a letter (who sends letters these days?) threatening to sue and refuse to explain anything...
