Complaint Review: Edgestar

Bought an Edgestar 181ES thermoelectric wine cooler just over a year ago. Within 6 months the fans were loud enough to be disturbing. Within a year the unit died (nothing would happen when it was plugged in). As I'm an engineer, it was easy to determine that it was the controller board that broke (as that's really the only piece of electronics in the system). When I contacted EdgeStar they told me that they didn't have any in stock but to check back in a month or so. I reached back out to them a quarter of a year later and they said they STILL didn't have any parts in stock but... "to check back in February" (ie, a month or so).

I pointed out that they still are still selling this unit and have plenty in the channel, perhaps it would be appropriate to pilfer some new units to support their customers. They were uninterested and reiterated that since I was past the 90 day warranty period I was out of luck. How you stay in business selling appliances to keep perishables cold, and not be able to supply the most basic parts after keeping customers waiting a quarter of a year is beyond me. The company offered no apologies. Apparently they view these appliances as disposable, as no one is going to keep a large, broken appliance in their home for half a year hoping that some day parts will be available to fix it. The d**n thing only has a handful of parts to stock!