11 October 1997

Mr. John Lord
President, Carrier Corporation
P.O. Box 4808
Syracuse, New York 13221-4952


Mr. Lord:

Your company seems to think they can sell a product and not bother to notify the customer when they learn that it is faulty. Then, when the customer complains of the years of stress and considerable financial burden due to the faulty product, your customer relations personnel seem to think that rudeness, arrogance, and impatience are in order.

Regardless of where such behavior falls on your ethics spectrum, this is bad business.

The attached paper trail documents the four winters of grief I have endured because I was sold a faulty Carrier furnace. It does not document the literally hundreds of co-workers and clients who heard about my furnace when I was detained at home, frantically trying to restart the furnace before I could leave for work. It also does not document the many people I have met with similar experiences with Carrier. One of them is a director of Call for Action.

The last pages of the paper trail are screen prints of the case study I am preparing for the internet. As an engineer and manager, I recognize the importance of using real world case studies to train junior engineers. I mentioned this web page to two of your customer relations staff who said "fine" but did not offer any information for it. If you would like to provide information on Carrier’s manufacturing quality control, equipment reliability, distribution channels, or other facets of this situation, I will be pleased to include it.

There is no reason for a situation such as mine to exist. I suggest you begin to resolve it by refunding my money and correcting the problems in your company.

I expect to hear from you personally by COB October 24. If I receive yet another stonewalling form letter from your inept customer relations department, I will immediately proceed with my other options. If Carrier intentionally treats customers the way I have been treated, it is important for consumers to know that prior to making purchasing decisions. I wish I had known.


[Customer's name]