SOUNDING OFF: Ripped off? Stunned by good value? Write, text or blog your experience to us.

GABRIEL COONEY from Dublin got in touch with a tale of woe about his fridge. On Friday, May 30th his Samsung American fridge started acting up. It was the June bank holiday weekend and he had a family of five coming to visit, which meant a total of 10 people spent a hot sunny weekend in the house fridgeless. "Bad luck, we thought, made even worse by the fact that we had a barbecue planned on the Sunday evening for a total of 15 people. Still, just bad luck, nobody's fault and we resolved to get it sorted on Monday, which wasn't a bank holiday in the UK where Samsung's call centre is," he writes.

He rang first thing on Monday morning but could not get through to anyone in Home Appliances. He was told to expect a call within 24 hours. They didn't ring. "I rang on Tuesday morning - got through to Home Appliances and was told that there was a fault with these fridges and they were fixing them free of charge and giving people an extended three-year warranty free of charge." His fault was logged and he was told an engineer in Dublin would be there within 24 hours. "Brilliant, I thought, what great service! They didn't ring. I rang on Wednesday and was told to ring the Samsung service agents in Ireland who would send an engineer out."

He rang the service agent but they had no record of any fault logged by Samsung. He rang Samsung and was told they would ring the service agent and have the problem resolved. "I got a message that they had the fault logged. I rang on Thursday morning to be told that it would take three to four working days before an engineer would even ring me. Despair descends."

He then sent an e-mail to Samsung explaining that he had a family of five, it was the middle of summer and he was finding it difficult to understand how it could take so long to repair a product that, by their own admission, was faulty. They responded saying they would escalate the process as quickly as they could.

After hearing nothing on Friday or over the weekend he called the service agent last Monday to see what the progress was. He was told the the parts had been sent out to the engineer who would ring to fix the fridge on Tuesday. Last Tuesday he got a message from an engineer but when he called back the engineer had left and he was told to expect a call back; it didn't come.

"We are getting frustrated that they can't act more speedily to fix a fault that they knew was in the fridge. Should they not have recalled the faulty product? These things cost over €1,000. We feel we should just get a new fridge installed at this stage instead of patching up a faulty product. Are we being unreasonable?"

We contacted Samsung on Wednesday afternoon just as an engineer was calling to our reader's house to fix the fridge which means we can take no credit for its repair. Cooney did ask us to find out about the delay which we did. We were told that the company was "concerned by the experience that the customer has outlined" and were assured it had taken the appropriate steps to rectify the situation. "We have already spoken with the customer directly, and have apologised for not reverting to him within our own 24-hour deadline that we endeavor to achieve." The statement went on to say that our reader would receive a gift from Samsung "as a token of our gratitude for his patience" and concluded by saying it had "investigated the service issues that have been highlighted in this instance and have taken action to ensure that our high service standards are maintained."