The Case of The Stolen Faucet

So when we bought the house we live in now and remodeled it, we invested a lot of money in our plumbing fixtures. We were having the sink and all the counters replaced in the kitchen - it had previously had shiny black bathroom tiles with white grout on the counters - and we wanted nice, pretty things that would last to go with the new look.

At the time, Grohe faucets were considered very high end, and we found a sleek, nice gooseneck fixture that we went with. It was NOT cheap.

Now never in my many years of having and using faucets have I EVER seen a faucet corrode from the inside until there were holes in the chrome finish on the spout - but that's what I have now.

On the gooseneck part of the faucet no less!

I found this very odd and about a year ago I began trying to contact Grohe with no success. Their contact form on their website went unanswered, I couldn't reach them by email and their phones terminate in a never ending voicemail death spiral.

So I called my plumber yesterday and told him all this. He seemed surprised and said he had always gotten great service from them, so he gave me a different phone number.

I called. I was in hold music hell for an hour, at which point an extremely grumpy person named Matt answered. I told him my situation and said I had photos and would like a warranty claim, as Grohe pretended they had a lifetime warranty.

At this point, things went sideways.

Matt asked me if I had the receipt. I had located the instruction manual and the warranty card at that point, but not the receipt, as the faucet was purchased in 2003. I said "No, I do not, but the faucet is actually in my sink - I didn't steal the faucet, and I have both the warranty card and the manual." He said "Well, anyone can just say they bought a faucet - I need a receipt to start a warranty claim - you can't just tell me you bought it."

I said, "Look, Matt - this is not TJ Maxx. This is a high end faucet which is IN MY SINK and has been for 12 years. I'm not a faucet fence. Even if I WERE a faucet fence - what would my angle be, exactly? I have a faucet with two big holes in it in my kitchen - the only possible benefit to telling you that is that I get a faucet that works. To replace the one that is in my sink. Which is attached to my house. That I bought 12 years ago. I will not be standing on South Congress hawking the replacement faucet. Besides, it's not like you can't prove it's a Grohe faucet - it says Grohe right on it."

He said: "You need the receipt."

I said: "I need a supervisor."

Now you know what happens next, because it happens every time you ask for a supervisor. He put me on hold and then disconnected me, as per the m.o. of such people. I think he has a great career waiting for him at AT&T.

However, I called back. I held for another hour of hellish hold music, during which time, I went into the garage, dug out my giant remodeling notebook and I FOUND THE DAMN RECEIPT. I also Facebooked and Tweeted Grohe my wrath. When you're on hold for an hour, you can get quite a bit done.

When, with 2% of my phone battery remaining, I was connected, I got a young lady named Tonya. I told her my whole story again, and she says: "Can you email me a photo while we're talking?", which I did. She processed an order for the gooseneck and the cartridge (which had also failed) while we were on the phone. She did not ask for the receipt. After we hung up, the social media team contacted me, although they have not sent me an email yet, which they said they would.

This is the second time this week (the other was with American Home Shield) that I've felt like companies should switch the social media teams into the customer service teams - they do a much better job at both response time and resolution.


Is there a ring of faucet criminals that I'm not aware of? A faucet cartel? I completely understand in a retail situation that a person needs their receipt. But how in the world could someone think asking for a warranty on a faucet with a hole in it was a scam? People have stopped using their brains entirely, I'm starting to think. I hope it's not the result of cat videos or the Apple Watch, because if so, things are going to go downhill fast.

Now I'm the host of today's Mix-Ability challenge on Splitcoast and I wanted to do a transfer technique. This is SUCH a fun way to do an easy background and recycle at the same time. I found a fun image on an article about LAUNDRY of all things (horrors) in this month's Martha Stewart Living and I thought it would be PERFECT for the challenge. This just takes a few minutes and all you need is this heavy gloss gel medium from Liquitex. If you try it, be sure and use keyword MIX129 when uploading to the gallery at Splitcoast.

Here's a little video on the process:

And here's a closeup of the finished card. Fun, right?

Built for Free Using: My Stampin Blog

Now tomorrow is my regular monthly card class, so I'll have three projects ready for you this weekend in a new Blue2You digital only class on demand - have you seen these? I have a fun one out there right now - here are the ones I packed up last night. :)

Is one of these yours?

These are for the One Big Meaning stamp a stack that's available now.

I hope you're doing something stampy this weekend!

Don't forget - my live streaming coverage of Convention and my adventure start Tuesday - so tune in early Tuesday morning for updates!

Loveyameanitbye.