Houston grandma Turns to Ted as parts to fix fridge pile up

HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) -- A Houston grandmother said her warranty company sent her four boxes of refrigerator parts and they still weren't enough to get her broken fridge running again. Fed up and running out of room in her kitchen, she Turned to Ted.

Sharon Watkins said her children called her at work on a Sunday morning to tell her the refrigerator went out.
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The day after it broke, she said she called Home Depot, where she bought the refrigerator and an extended warranty about a year earlier.

When that call didn't get results, Watkins said, "I called the protection plan and I talked to all these people. It was giving me the runaround."

One of them said they'd send someone out, she said. The first person couldn't fix the fridge and ordered some parts.

"Then, the next day it went out again. We needed another part, then wound up with four parts [and] no working refrigerator," she said.



Watkins said she needed the fridge to work, not just for food, but for her granddaughter's asthma medication, too.
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"I just got tired of messing with getting a runaround. I just said, 'I called Ted over on at the Channel 13 news. And you leave me no other choice,'" she said.

ABC13 got in touch with Home Depot and the runaround stopped.

Watkins got a check for that old fridge and a second check from the warranty company to pay for the food and medicine that went bad. She replaced the broken model with an even better one. Even though she said it cost a little more, Watkins said she is happy with it.

Her advice to a consumer in the same spot: "Call [ABC13 and] Ted Oberg. You'll get the job done. Well, also take out a protection plan on whatever you buy. "

Consumers should always evaluate the extended warranty plans to make sure they know the true cost and time limits of the coverage.
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Home Depot, by the way, never got back to us but did contact Watkins directly.

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