Is it OK to Write a Negative Review about a Local Business?

For years, I supported local businesses in whatever town I lived in. This included local appliance stores, which in my past experience provided better service to their customers than the large corporate chain stores. However, that was not the situation with my last set of purchases.

When I moved to a new town and wanted to replace the washer and dryer in my home, I went to the local appliance store. They were very attentive in helping me to pick out a new front-load washer and dryer. I even bought the 5-year extended warranty. The appliances were delivered and installed a few weeks later.

The washer worked great for the first five months. Then it stopped spinning the clothes to a dry enough level that I could transfer them to the dryer. I contacted the store, and they sent out their repairman, who told me it was my fault, I was using too much detergent and I had to cut back (I was following labeling instructions on the bottle). The machine of course continued to have issues, but we had some travel in our schedule and couldn’t deal with it at that point. When we got back, we contacted the store again, they sent the same repairman out who informed it that it was again our fault because we weren’t putting enough clothes in the machine! I tried to explain to him what I noticed regarding the spin cycle and the timer, but he was disinterested in what I had to say. In total, the repair visit time for both occasions was about 15 minutes.

Of course, afterwards the machine was still not working. When I contacted the store again, the Sales Manager was reluctant to send out the repairman for a third time. I told him that at this point, the machine was not spinning the clothes at all and left them soaking wet at the end of the cycle, requiring us to carry them upstairs from the basement to ring them out, then walk back downstairs and then put them in the dryer. The Store Manager reluctantly agreed to send out the repairman, but he could not come out for almost 3 weeks. I complained that it was now 3 months with an expensive non-functioning washing machine that wasn’t even a year old. I also mentioned that I had purchased the 5-year warranty. I told him that my significant other and I were seniors and that this was a huge physical stress for us.

The Sales Manager at that point was aggravated with me and pointed out that a broken appliance was merely an “inconvenience” and not a tragedy! He told me that I didn’t understand how the new washing machines worked, and the malfunctioning was related to the way I was using it and not the actual machine itself. He also said that the extended warranty was with the manufacturer and not with them, so they didn’t have to service the machine. I was infuriated and threatened to give the store bad reviews. He said that only mean people would do that to a local business because it hurt the employees that depended on it for their livelihoods.

I ended up scheduling a repair directly with the manufacturer, which sent a repairman out who thoroughly inspected the machine and found that it was installed improperly by the store, causing the motor to burn out! He ordered a new motor to be delivered to our house, and 3 weeks after that, came and installed it. The machine has been working properly ever since then.

However, because I was so infuriated with the Store Manager, I took to my keyboard and posted bad reviews on Google, Yelp, Facebook, plus several other sites and filed complaints with the BBB and Consumer Affairs.

I did feel bad for the other employees of that business, however, after the way I was treated by the store management, I believe it was fair to post negative reviews and file complaints. When I read the other reviews posted about them, there were many other people who went through similar experiences. I wished I had read them first!

What are your thoughts about posting negative reviews about local businesses?