Hotpoint Helpless Line

[Davey]

I recently bought a new Hotpoont dishwasher, to replace the old ne, which was in the house when I moved in in late 2010, and had reached its time limit. It had no problem accepting and washing my large dinner plates, I could always spin the upper spray arms with no interference. But the new one, although it has some nifty design features, will not accept the same plates, when loaded as normal, the plates obstruct the upper arms. Not good. So I decided to try Hotpoint help this afternoon. This is a transcript of the chat.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------- Chat Started (Entered required name etc info.)

4:52 PM My previous dishwasher, an Aquarius model, had no problem with my large dinner plates. But my new DFW30 will not accept them.

4:52 PM I'm sorry, I didn't recognize that. Please try again. Please enter your primary telephone number

4:52 PM (correct number entered again) 4:52 PM Thank you for contacting us. 4:52 PM Hello, I am Walter, Whirlpool's virtual assistant. Please type how I can help you today? For example "Book a repair or, where is my engineer?"

4:53 PM I asked a question, I want an answer to it.

4:53 PM I'm a sample FAQ bot. I can give information about chatbots and how to build them with API.AI.

Sorry, live chat is closed at the moment, please message us Whatsapp on

[phone] and we will respond to your query next working day. You can amend, cancel or book a repair yourself via .

GenesysTerminateChat 4:53 PM

Chat Ended

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But I don't do Whatsapp, or any of its ilk. I'll try again on Monday. Stupid chatbot. They should be outlawed.

[GB]

What sort of help line can make the dishwasher bigger? Would this be a good opportunity to buy smaller plates, perhaps?

Or, sell the Hotpoint, and buy something else.

[John Rumm]

[spiral of virtual chat doom snipped]

While I sympathise with the futility of trying to engage with many companies today, I suspect their answer might be "buy smaller plates"!

However might be worth checking if the top basket is height adjustable. Many allow it to be altered to let you insert tall glasses in the top - but at the expense of less clearance below. Is yours like that?

[Alan J. Wylie]

Have you RTFM?

| The top basket can be inserted on either its upper or lower rollers, | according to requirement. | This enables more height to be gained for bigger dishes in either the | top or the bottom basket.

[GB]

Well done! That's a genuinely helpful response.

[Robin]

As so often the answer to your problem is to use an angle grinder (with the bonus of plates of your own, probably unique, style).

[RJH]

The advantage of Whatsapp is that you have an easily accessible record of the discussion on your phone or PC.

+1 - my last 2 have been adjustable. Become a bit marginal space-wise as the latest has a third tray at the top for cutlery.

[Sam Plusnet]

If you are sufficiently skilled with an angle grinder, you don't need a dishwasher in the first place.

[Davey]

This machine is only a few weeks old, so there is no plan to replace. The question is one of why it only takes smaller plates than its same manufacturer's predecessor? I refuse to buy new plates to fit the dishwasher!

[Davey]

Yes, I have RTFM. It does not describe what my machine has. The problem with that description is that the machine does not have two sets of rollers as described. But I did find that there is a facility to raise the basket while the support framework remains at the same height, there is no other. This looks as though it will provide the required clearance, at least the basket is higher than it was.

[misterroy]

I have a plastic chopping board that I use for rabbits. I did cut it with the angle grinder to fit in the dishwasher.

[nothanks]

From my experience the first thing to type into any chatbot is "speak to human" or "human" ... yet to find one that this didn't work with (not that the humans are necessarily that much better than the waste-of-time chatbots)

[SteveW]

I don't suppoe that you've missed a hidden mechanism have you? Both our current (Hotpoint) dishwasher and our previous one allow the upper basket (and top spinner) to be set to two alternate heights.

[SteveW]

Oh, I see others have already mentioned that lower down.

[Brian Gaff]

As always, much like most things computer, the error is in the design remit. It seems its only got data on FAQ listed items, and the booking of engineers and this should be made plain on the site. I do agree that everyone assumes you can use a smart phone. Indeed you cannot even book airline flights or concert tickets, since the days of a real ticket are gone. its now all QR codes and virtual tickets that can be scanned to allow you access to whatever it is. My mobile battery lasts for ages since I use it with the speech output, but if I go anywhere where, I need to show the ticket I have to turn on the screen backlight.

To me the acceleration toward the virtual world is too fast and takes no account of those who cannot use touch screens, or are not wanting to engage in tech, because although its better than it was, its by no means idiot proof or logical to use in all cases. Back to your problem though. I doubt they would be able to make your dishwasher fit your plates, so the next question was, why did you not take a punt around shops with your largest plates and try them? I've found John Lewis to be good at this, but you do need to ascertain they have the model in stock. Otherwise, I'd suggest taking those plates to a boot sale and flogging them and getting some that fit. You say you don't do tech, but often the service formerly known as Twitter is a place to have a whinge as many companies and knowledgeable people monitor it. You might have a poke about for a hashtag for the companies official account and include that in your post. Brian

[Davey]

Brian,

I do do tech, but I do not engage in anything that seems to attract crazies as almost a ritual, and I include 'X', Instagram, etc etc. I have a Facebook account, as it is the only way some friends seem capable of communicating. Anything that puts a lot of my personal information out there for the world to see is a bad idea.

My late wife was incapable of using a computer, and had no desire to try to overcome that. She was slightly dyslexic, which may have been some, or all, of the problem. She even hated using our DECT 'phnes, as the weight of them hurt her hands after about ten minutes.

You will see elsewhere that I have solved the problem, so I do not need to try to engage with the Hotpoint 'bot' again, thankfully.

As for the race to digitisation, recently, I visited a tourist spot in Suffolk. The parking machine would only accept payment using the RingGo 'app', which is fine if you have a 'smartphone', which I don't. The machine was built with a card slot, but it was blanked off. Apparently, as I found out later when I complained online, if I had called the Helpline number, I could have paid using my debit card, but that was conveniently not mentioned on the notice. The Council responsible say that it uses RingGo to save money, but it is discriminating against those who do not have 'smartphones'. I am not the only one. I will now not go to that Council's parking places again.

The answer to that is simple: The old machine had no problem, so I had reason to even think that the new one, by the same manufacturer, might.

[Tricky Dicky]

Whenever I have problems phoning a help line. I always ring sales and you are guaranteed an answer and usually they can transfer your call to the appropriate department.

Richard

[Davey]

This wasn't 'phoning, it was using their Chat facility, which said it was available, until it wasn't. Well, maybe facility is the wrong word for it.

[John Rumm]

Even if you have a smartphone, those apps can still be a PITA. Firstly because they are not interoperable, so you end up having to have several installed. They don't share data, so you need card payment, email, and vehicle details setup separately on each.

So there is need for a common protocol to be specified and implemented. Need for legislation that allows import and export of data between apps.

Another failing of the car park operators - presumably in the hope of reducing costs by not encouraging customers to take service rep's time.

It would also be nice if they would ensure that mobile data is actually accessible in the relevant location on all the major mobile networks before insisting on payment by phone!

Which is fine - for now - but given time and left unchallenged, there will come a time where that is the only way to pay for any car park.

And to be fair in this case, they probably could have explained how the height adjustment worked on the top tray.

[Max Demian]

I assume you will need the latest version of the app, which probably requires a particular version of Android, which requires a newish phone.

You probably need an Internet connection for it to work. If you don't use the phone much you will probably have a PAYG account and leave Mobile Data switched off, as most buses, trains and shopping centres have free Wi-Fi. But probably not where the parking machines are situated.