Back in the day we used to buy a refrigerator or freezer from Hotpoint because they were a trusted brand. Not only that, but on the front of their fridge freezers you’d see a sticker which proudly stated that the unit was made in Great Britain.
Now? Now I doubt you’ll find that on a Hotpoint product. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not because our new fridge is made in Poland and that sticker is no longer there. It’s because, as a Brit speaking English, I feel like a second class citizen.
The various bits of paper that I received with the unit were scattered in every European language going, and I had to dig around for English. When I did find it, the English was quite frankly terrible.
Yes, you may think that a fridge freezer doesn’t need much in the way of instructions, but nowadays you do. It’s got some pretty complicated stuff on board, including something called “Active Oxygen”.
The instructions are, well, not as good as they should be. Sadly I wasn’t totally sure what they were trying to tell me below, as the new “Active Oxygen” system changed to “Active Oxigen” which operated on a “repeted cycle” which then became a “cicle” later on.
Who checked the English on this?
It doesn’t stop there. In the unpacking instructions there’s an entire section which looks like it’s been translated several times from several different languages and back again. I don’t honestly know where to start with this utter gibberish. It’s badly formed, contains words that aren’t appropriate and makes very little sense.
In the end, for another reason, I had cause to call Hotpoint. They gave out an 0844 number for customer support, which is always unhelpful as they’ll cost between 5p and 41p to call from your mobile. After getting passed around and sitting in a queue for around 20 minutes (that’ll cost £8.20 at the most) I eventually got through to someone in the UK who answered my question. I must admit that, when I did get through, the guy on the line was incredibly knowledgeable and helpful.
So, put simply, my fridge has rubbish instructions and buttons I don’t understand. Calling on a Saturday morning costs me a lot of cash and takes a lot of time. If I’ve just shelled out £500+ for something, it really shouldn’t be this way guys.