The Brandhouse - never again!

I had already read here that some people advised against The Brandhouse. I did not want to believe it, but unfortunately I can now fully confirm this. My opinion: Hands off! There are enough other companies you can go to.

They do not seem to care whether their customers are satisfied or not. Numerous attempts to contact them by e-mail (including the service manager) have been unsuccessful. Even complaints to the management are of no interest.

On 10 April 2023, I placed an order for a remote control at your service centre to order a remote control and paid a deposit of 500 RS (see attachment). It was supposed to take 3 months, Brandhouse would then call me. But no feedback from Brandhouse. Since mid-July I have been trying to get to find out where my remote control is.

I must have called the hotline 10 times, they said they'd have to check and they'd get back to me. But no call has been made so far!

On 1 August, I sent one of your employees all the documents by WhatsApp, and sent her all the documents. Despite 4 requests from me, not a single answer! And the lady cannot be reached by phone either. - When will I finally get my remote control?

But that seems to be the norm in this company. At the beginning of this year I ordered a repair of my Samsung washing machine from Brandhouse.

1st appointment on site: Appraisal, the electronic display had to be ordered.

2nd appointment: the electronic display was replaced. However, in the next few days it turned out that this was not the cause of the fault at all.

3rd appointment: After a further inspection, all the necessary parts were ordered. Instead of the announced 10 days, later 6 weeks, at least it took more than 2 months.

4th appointment: The technicians wanted to replace almost all parts, including the engine, even though it was not defective.

Conclusion: Many, many phone calls, postponements, etc. I also have to take a day off work each time to be present on site. Sorry, but THAT is not good quality work!

@Novalis1, I don't know about the Brandhouse and will probably not go there.  What I know a little more are Samsung appliances - I worked there for a short time in their innovation group. 


Those appliances are really slick and performant but production parts come from S. Korea and it takes a long time to get them.  I bought a couple of good looking Samsung dishwashers because they were on sale and one of the water exhaust pumps went bad.  It took literally 6 months to receive that part - and it was almost worth 1/3 of the appliance price. 


Most appliances are literally modular nowadays - i.e. have few electronic modules that are really expensive.  So it is not uncommon for someone who is not trained to diagnose those machines to misread what is really wrong.  There are OEM (i.e. copies made as cheaper) replacement parts but they do not fit exactly right and do not have the exact replacement characteristics.  If you use parts that are not factory certified, you run the risk of fixing one problem and causing another.


Some in the appliance industry even venture to say that parts and repairs is where most of the profit is made.


My point here is:  you may have 2 problems rather than 1.  Brandhouse is one and Samsung is another. 


I used to love Bosch appliances but nowadays, I buy appliances based on how easily they can be serviced.


My solution with my Samsung appliance?  Buy another non-Samsung appliance, wait for the Samsung part, fix it and resell the Samsung.


I guess that it was my hard learnt lesson about Samsung.


BTW, my dad is having the same problem with a brand new Samsung built-in microwave oven... So, we share your pain with your Samsung appliance.


Good luck with your repairs....

also had a problem with Samsung and posted their logo and my complaint on FB plus various groups - then they responded....

@Pablo888 Thank you very much for telling your experiences. 1f44d.svg

@Pablo888 Apart from Samsung, which brands can you recommend here in Mauritius?

@Novalis1 I did not check recently but I would recommend going to your favorite appliance store in Port Louis and ask the sales person for the brand that has the best support.  For example, CourtsMammoth carries Samsung and HiSense dishwashers.  I believe that HiSense is made in China.  The next step for me is to ask how long it will take to get parts or whether the parts are in stock.  I would then choose the model that will have the best balance between features and service.

In the beginning my wife did not agree with my choices but after she saw how much effort it took to go through the repair process, she understood that this is a tradeoff between appliance features/brand and the effort to get service.

Hope that this helps explain how I reduce my stress when thinking of appliance repairs.

@Novalis1 Oh, one more thing about my selection of appliance brand name.... I have responsibility for maintaining several properties and that's why my time fixing stuff is very limited - hence my thought process.  If I did not have such responsibilities, I suppose that I would choose the appliance that I would find acceptable and keep a small amount in reserve to buy an emergency low cost replacement - just in case something breaks.


Just sharing my experience having to deal with broken appliances frequently.


Hope that you find something in my rambling that is useful to you...

@Pablo888 Many thanks! 1f44d.svg