We purchased a Gaggia Baby Twin Espresso machine on the 31st of August 2009 from Coffee Time, an authorized Gaggia reseller in Israel.

A few months later, there was extensive, visible corrosion at the base of the unit. See pictures at:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/59096619@N03/?saved=1

Coffee Time referred us to the importer, Coffee Team, who told us that this was a known problem and they would get back to us after they obtained the replacement parts from Gaggia in Italy.

Have spent the last year making repeated phone calls to Coffee Team who repeatedly promised to get back to us, but never did so we escalated the issue directly to Gaggia.

A customer service representative asked us to send her pictures of the defective parts so that she could arrange the replacement of the correct parts.

That was done by email on December 19th, 2010 and then a phone call in the first week of January.

Nothing. Nada. Not a word from Coffee Team, Coffee Time, nor Gaggia.

It appears that none of these companies feels any responsibility for selling a clearly defective product, nor even the courtesy of following through on promised action to remedy the situation.

Even escalating the issue by posting messages such as this and pictures on Flickr appears to have no impact whatsoever.

Looking at the other messages about Gaggia seems to indicate that we are not the only victim of their poor quality and atrocious customer service and that of their distributors and resellers.

31/8/2009, directly from an authorized reseller of your product in Israeli, Coffee Time, I noticed very obvious metal corrosion in the removable basin (labeled #12 in the drawings of the unit) and spoke with people at Coffee Time Shop who referred me to Coffee Team Agencies as the official distributor of your product about this problem.