Part of Australian culture is that ripping people off is seriously frowned upon. Was this a red herring, or is this sort of ripoff more commonplace?
I have no doubt that dodgy operators are out there. However this is insanity.
For those reading along at home, if the unit was slightly out of warranty, you could make a claim citing Australian Consumer Law. I'm sure DeLonghi being a "reputable" brand would have just sent out their service techs, or at the very least, a replacement part for free.
But you get what you pay for. I recently had to get someone to look at my Bosch/Siemens dishwasher which was leaking and triggering a "water doesn't belong here" error. The unit was purchased in 2015 and has been great to this day.
I went to the Bosch website, logged a service job and they sent a local company out the following day. The part (something to do with the sump) was replaced at no charge. Bosch identified that there was a design defect in that model during manufacture which caused a seal to leak over time. The faulty part was replaced and I wasn't out of pocket. I was actually shocked, as I fully expected to pay at least a call-out fee, but nope, Bosch took it upon themselves to remedy the issue for free without me even asking. THAT'S service and it's the reason why I wouldn't hesistate to buy a Bosch appliance again. It's been rock solid.
Meanwhile my neighbour bought a cheap dishwasher from Aldi (some rebadged Chinese rubbish). He has been through 2 units in 3 months and the second unit is now faulty with the same problem.
Yes, Bosch is pretty good.
I will only buy German made Bosch whitegoods from now on. Pay extra but have less troubles. Excellent quality. There were two consumer Bosch dishwashers at a company I worked at, in the cafe. Each ran half the day (fill up one whilst the other is washing). They had been working for eight years without a problem! Bosch is safest these days. Less callouts and less change. We have a German-made Bosch front-loading clothes washer and are very happy with it.
In contrast, just over the hill are Italian-made whitegoods. I have an expensive two door Whirlpool fridge with ice-maker and water filter, made in Italy. When it was delivered it didn't get cold. Whirlpool forgot to put the gas in it
. The technician said it had never been gassed and it had never been tested. The plastics inside are rubbish, they use substandard plastics and are of poor design. Half of it is destroyed and of course Whirlpool has no spare parts. So it is hanging together with 3D printed parts. The fridge needs replacing. But the biggest shock was the fridge's controller PCBA with its mains AC to DC power supply. They converted the 230V mains to 3.3V by using capacitors and resistors. The Hu-Flung-dung brand capacitors dried up and the PIC chip on the motherboard was continuously resetting. There was no mains isolation transformer of course... anything for the knuckleheads to save a lira.
During the 2-year warranty there were six call outs. From then on, I fixed everything I could myself, including replacing those crappy capacitors. Whilrpool is completamente stupido nella testa.
I should not knock the Italians too much. The reputedly make good cars that sell for $400K+. Besides, the missus is Italian so I better watch what I say. Australia made inferior whitegoods from the 70's until now. Junk that never lasted very long. But back in the 50's they made Holden, Fridgidaire and other brand fridges that were build like tanks and lasted for many decades. They were simple, well insulated, effective and reliable. No callouts needed. Those days are gone.