Well, for the most part, April ended pretty well. I got my second runcation in for the year. I headed down to Nashville for the Rock 'n' Roll Country Music Half Marathon. I'm not sure if this course had more hills than any other course I've run, or if the hills on this course were steeper than any other course I've run, or if it just happened to be the most recent hilly course and therefore I perceived it to be hillier and steeper. Whatever the case, the first 9 miles of the course was a rough course when it came to the hills. There was pretty good crowd support however, and I have to say that the Competitor Group, who owns the Rock 'n' Roll Marathon Series, put on yet another great event.
While in Nashville I made it a point to look around the area, take a couple tours, catch a couple shows. My first day there I took a tour of the Ryman Auditorium and toured the Johnny Cash Museum. Later that evening I went back to the Ryman for the Opry Country Classics show where they were doing a tribute to George Jones as it neared the one year anniversary of his death.
After the run on Saturday I got some dinner, then went to the Grand Ole Opry for their Saturday evening show. After the show I stuck around for the back stage tour.
Because of some storms that were supposed to blow through the are Sunday night in to Monday, I decided to leave a day early and head home Sunday.
On Monday I found a leak in my water heater. Getting that fixed has turned out to be more of an adventure than my trip to Nashville. After finding the leak, I pulled out my paperwork for the heater. Knowing that the water heater was not that old I thought it may be possible that it was still under warranty, so I checked the paperwork and, as luck would have it, the paperwork showed that I spent a little extra on an extended warranty to cover the tank until 2017. GREAT! So I called the phone number on the contract to set up a service appointment and was told that the contract expired in 2012. Now my paperwork clearly said 2017, but they refused to send a tech out unless I sent them the paperwork. In the mean time they suggested I shut off the water to my hot water heater. So I was supposed to go without hot water until I proved to them that they made a mistake. They also informed me that it would take 3 business days to look at the contract and determine if it was a mistake. Why it would take 3 days to look at a contract that says "Expiration Date 7/12/2017" was beyond me, and the company couldn't seem to be able to explain it to me either.
The next day I went to Home Depot and spoke to a manager there. I showed her my contract, she made a couple of phone calls and put me on the line with someone in Atlanta. Phillip assured me that if I could email a copy of the contract to him, he would be sure to accelerate this issue and get resolved with the company who sells the extended warranties. Sure enough, the next morning I got a phone call from Assurant telling me that they had gotten the information from Home Depot that I did have a good warranty and they would be sending out a tech that day.
Well, the tech came out and, at first, it appeared to be a simple fix. Replace the valve. So, after getting approval by the warranty company he replaced the valve...however the leak didn't go away. It turned out not to be a leak in the valve, but a crack in the tank at the base of the valve.
So another phone call to the warranty company who now told the tech that he had to call the manufacturer and get approval first. Of course, the manufacturer's warranty was expired (the purpose of buying an "extended" warranty). After another 30-45 minutes of phone calls, with yet another customer service rep telling me that my extended warranty was expired, and refusing to listen to me, I was finally able to get ahold of someone who understood English enough to understand what was going on and get the work approved.
That is now supposed to happen this morning after I get home from work. Fortunately I'm going in to my weekend. This SHOULD all be resolved this morning.
It's my firm belief that when this company sells someone an extended warranty that they make it so difficult and time consuming for the customer to make a claim on the warranty that most just give up and pay for the repairs out of pocket. Overall I'm happy with the way Home Depot responded to my issues. But I'm not happy with their affiliation with Assurant to cover the extended warranties that are sold in the name of Home Depot. In most cases customer service is poor because we as consumers allow it to be. Mistakes are going to be made, but customer service as horrendous as what I've dealt with the last few days is inexcusable and should be responded to that way.
On a better note, I'll also be heading downtown today or tomorrow to pick up my race packet for this weekend's Cap City Half Marathon. This is the fourth time I will run this particular race. It is enjoyable and I'm interested to see how my legs hold up, as this will be the first time I've ever run two half marathons on back to back weekends. Usually I've had at least 4-5 weeks between Half's.
My race in Nashville was the 14th State that I've run a race in. In June I will be doing two out of state races. The Lederhosenlauf 5K in St. Paul, MN, and the Run for the Stars 5K the next morning in La Crosse, WI.
While in Nashville I made it a point to look around the area, take a couple tours, catch a couple shows. My first day there I took a tour of the Ryman Auditorium and toured the Johnny Cash Museum. Later that evening I went back to the Ryman for the Opry Country Classics show where they were doing a tribute to George Jones as it neared the one year anniversary of his death.
After the run on Saturday I got some dinner, then went to the Grand Ole Opry for their Saturday evening show. After the show I stuck around for the back stage tour.
Because of some storms that were supposed to blow through the are Sunday night in to Monday, I decided to leave a day early and head home Sunday.
On Monday I found a leak in my water heater. Getting that fixed has turned out to be more of an adventure than my trip to Nashville. After finding the leak, I pulled out my paperwork for the heater. Knowing that the water heater was not that old I thought it may be possible that it was still under warranty, so I checked the paperwork and, as luck would have it, the paperwork showed that I spent a little extra on an extended warranty to cover the tank until 2017. GREAT! So I called the phone number on the contract to set up a service appointment and was told that the contract expired in 2012. Now my paperwork clearly said 2017, but they refused to send a tech out unless I sent them the paperwork. In the mean time they suggested I shut off the water to my hot water heater. So I was supposed to go without hot water until I proved to them that they made a mistake. They also informed me that it would take 3 business days to look at the contract and determine if it was a mistake. Why it would take 3 days to look at a contract that says "Expiration Date 7/12/2017" was beyond me, and the company couldn't seem to be able to explain it to me either.
The next day I went to Home Depot and spoke to a manager there. I showed her my contract, she made a couple of phone calls and put me on the line with someone in Atlanta. Phillip assured me that if I could email a copy of the contract to him, he would be sure to accelerate this issue and get resolved with the company who sells the extended warranties. Sure enough, the next morning I got a phone call from Assurant telling me that they had gotten the information from Home Depot that I did have a good warranty and they would be sending out a tech that day.
Well, the tech came out and, at first, it appeared to be a simple fix. Replace the valve. So, after getting approval by the warranty company he replaced the valve...however the leak didn't go away. It turned out not to be a leak in the valve, but a crack in the tank at the base of the valve.
So another phone call to the warranty company who now told the tech that he had to call the manufacturer and get approval first. Of course, the manufacturer's warranty was expired (the purpose of buying an "extended" warranty). After another 30-45 minutes of phone calls, with yet another customer service rep telling me that my extended warranty was expired, and refusing to listen to me, I was finally able to get ahold of someone who understood English enough to understand what was going on and get the work approved.
That is now supposed to happen this morning after I get home from work. Fortunately I'm going in to my weekend. This SHOULD all be resolved this morning.
It's my firm belief that when this company sells someone an extended warranty that they make it so difficult and time consuming for the customer to make a claim on the warranty that most just give up and pay for the repairs out of pocket. Overall I'm happy with the way Home Depot responded to my issues. But I'm not happy with their affiliation with Assurant to cover the extended warranties that are sold in the name of Home Depot. In most cases customer service is poor because we as consumers allow it to be. Mistakes are going to be made, but customer service as horrendous as what I've dealt with the last few days is inexcusable and should be responded to that way.
On a better note, I'll also be heading downtown today or tomorrow to pick up my race packet for this weekend's Cap City Half Marathon. This is the fourth time I will run this particular race. It is enjoyable and I'm interested to see how my legs hold up, as this will be the first time I've ever run two half marathons on back to back weekends. Usually I've had at least 4-5 weeks between Half's.
My race in Nashville was the 14th State that I've run a race in. In June I will be doing two out of state races. The Lederhosenlauf 5K in St. Paul, MN, and the Run for the Stars 5K the next morning in La Crosse, WI.
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