I bought a set of Cuisinart teflon non-stick pans due to the fact that there was supposed to be a lifetime warranty on the cookware. Well when the teflon coating started peeling, I contacted customer service 1-800-726-0190 and was assured that if I sent them back they would warranty the pans. I stressed that they were several years old and the girl said that was ok. I spent $30 to FedEx the pans (sent back all pans in the set) and was also required to enclose a check for $10 to cover return shipping.
After about a month, I had not heard anything, so I called and Cuisinart had no record of receiving our pans, even though on the FedEx website it said "signed by Eechebarria". I related the FedEx confirmation and they said to give it another week to update my file. I called back in a week and the girl said that they received the pans and that there was a note in the file saying "customer abuse". I asked what that meant and she said she didn't know. I asked to speak to a supervisor and was referred to "Daniel". Daniel said that he would look into it and it was up to "corporate" and he had no input in whether the pans would be under warranty or not. He said he would call me back within 24 hours.
Daniel did not call back in 24 hours, so in 48 hours I called Cuisinart back and asked for him. He still said that it was up to corporate - I said that was not good enough; I have $40 more dollars invested in the pans. I told him that I have never seen any teflon coated pan that did not eventually have some peeling and wearing off of the teflon and a "lifetime warranty" should be honored. I also asked for a supervisor higher up.
A day later I got a call from "Dena". Dena (clanging pans sound as she was looking at the pans "right now") said the the customer abuse was using too high of heat which caused the teflon to fail - she also said that it was evident that metal utensils were used. Neither of which are true, the pans were just old and wearing out, but we bought them initially because of the lifetime warranty. Dena obviously had her mind made up already and she stated that if they just replaced pans for everybody, that they would go broke replacing pans with peeling teflon and they were NOT going to warranty my pans.
Due to my constant whining, she did agree to ship back the pans (received but damaged with dings on the edges from apparent mishandling in the warehouse), refund my $30 shipping and the $10 check (have not received yet). My response was since she was going to ship my pans back at a cost of $20 (probably their cost to ship) and write a check for $40, wouldn't it be wiser to invest that $60 and send us a new set of pans that have a (Cuisinart cost) of $60. She said "Look, we generally don't refund the original shipping, so NO". I also told Dena that I would post a positive blog post review as well as a negative blog post review on my experience with Cuisinart pans whichever was needed. She said that was my right. So here I am with the negative - I will never buy Cuisinart again and their warranty is not worth the paper it is printed on.
On a sidenote, I DO realize that all teflon pans eventually peel, but to be accused of abusing my Cuisinart pans just to get out of a warranty claim put a bad taste in my mouth (pardon the pun). Why would I invest $40 in sending back the pans back to Cuisinart, when I could add $20, go to WalMart and get another crappy set and avoid the hassle? It is also my opinion that a "lifetime warranty" is a lifetime warranty - if the warranty doesn't cover the peeling teflon on the Cuisinart pan, what does it cover? What else goes wrong with a teflon coated pan? And CBSTL wrote an Amazon review that states that "Cuisinart advertises the cookware set as being able to use metal utensils". You can read his Amazon review HERE.
I doubt if many consumers took Cuisinart to task as far as I did, and it is my opinion that with the time and money they spent dealing with me, it would have taken less than 5 minutes to make me a happy customer, but I guess those days are gone. So I do not recommend buying Cuisinart pans, and I won't be buying ANY Cuisinart products any time soon.
ATTENTION CUISINART: I am still a red-blooded American consumer and I do not consider this matter resolved. Send me a nice set of non-stick cookware and I would consider removing this post (and my negative Amazon.com reviews.) The longer you wait, the more Google is my friend...
