Editorials & Rants

Sunday, October 16, 2005

Our support of the refrigerator Class Action lawsuit, investigation of the GE Spacesaver microwave ovens, exploding (conventional) oven glass doors, and our strategic development of media relationships, is designed to make life for the 'Powers That Be' at General Electric as disruptive and disturbing as living with their appliances is for consumers.

General Electric lied.  They lied to us individually, to our communities, and to the media.  The gross injustice meted out to consumers by GE with their deplorable corporate behavior and indifference to the impact caused by their defective appliances, should not ever be allowed to happen again.  They are perpetrators who must be forced to pay a very steep price for their indifference.

The GE appliance issues have made it clear that consumers not only need better laws to protect us from a corporation's dangerous and defective products, but to force a change in corporate attitudes.  Passively waiting for these changes to magically materialize is for fools.  Clearly, many companies are loathe to do the right thing for the sake of doing the right thing.  Until it becomes too expensive for a company to be morally expedient, we must take matters into our own hands by exercising our brains, our will, and our rights as citizens.  By exercising these three key elements, we're choosing to change the definition of acceptable corporate behavior through community, coalition, and shear strength of will.

The American consumer's anger and demand for justice is fueled by the lack of corporate integrity.  The power of that anger is clearly under­esti­mated by GE.  But make no mistake: this anger will generate the energy required to win.  And as we've all been told by Jack Welch (former Chairman of GE),

"Winning is everything."

Summer 2005

Guilty Until Proven Innocent?

In the American Jurisprudence system, the accused is presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.  Yet, in the (recent) history of consumers seeking redress for what is clearly a deficit of engineering competence, manufacturing capability, attention to quality assurance, customer service commitment, and corporate ethics, it is the consumer who has consistently been put on the defense.  For example, GE has maintained both publicly and to individual consumers that:

• 'mosture related' problems are due to Florida's climate (then why are we able to document identical models and problems in the desert regions of Texas and California?)
• repeated product failures are due to customer misuse. (How do you misuse a refrigerator?)
• They (GE) have never heard of an icemaker auger rusting.  (Is GE Healthcare expanding into nutriceuticals?  Is this a new delivery system for consumers to meet their MDR of iron and other minerals?)
• The black and brown deposits in ice cubes are iron oxide particles and are harmless; (where's the iron oxide coming from if the augers never rust?)
• We have never heard of that problem for that model (or) your model is not included in the program.  (Our response to this would require the talents of Gutenberg himself.)

Mens Rea: purposely, knowingly, recklessly, and negligently.

Our allegations against GE are:

• unfair and deceptive practices
• misrepresentation
• misleading advertising
• deliberate coverup of a known defective product
• fraud in the aggressive solicitation and sale of extended warranty contracts to owners of an appliance known to be defective, and for which GE had a program already in place to address these defects (hidden warranty).
• deliberate profiting from the specific defects known to GE to be inherent in the defective product.
• and finally, corporate behavior so obscene it defies explanation, excuse, or defense of any kind.

Res ipsa loquitur:  The facts speak for themselves.