Why I'm Never Shopping At Sears Again
Reader Chris writes the CEO of Sears to let him know why he'll never step foot inside Sears ever again.
Dear Mr. Lewis,We are writing to you to document the abysmal experience we recently had with Sears following break-down of our Kenmore refrigerator/freezer.
The unit broke down on November 2nd, less than 1 year since we purchased it, and we called for repair service under the factory warranty. We were surprised to find that it would take a week before a technician could come to take a look, but we treated this as just 'bad luck' and resigned ourselves to throwing away 100's of dollars of frozen and refrigerated groceries.
The technician came out on November 10th and replaced what he thought was the problem part and left. Within hours the unit was no colder and so we immediately called Sears again and were dumbfounded to be told that it would take another week for someone to come out again!As Meghann mentioned in a previous post, SEARS customer service is hard to crack. Each division might as well be in another dimension. In fact, their warranty repairs are, they're in the outsourced division. Lowest bid wins! That's why Sears corporate can't rein in the repair guys, they're not even on the company payroll.This was not acceptable to us and so we emailed you to request assistance and as a result were contacted by Carla in Sears Executive Office. When we spoke to her it transpired that she was unable to get our local Service department to respond to her. She said that she would call us back if and when they got in contact. As we did not hear back from her we can only assume they did not respond. If the Executive Office cannot get in contact with the Service Department, we as customers surely stand no chance!
At this point we waited until November 17th until the technician came out again. This time he diagnosed that the compressor was broken and that he'd have to order a new one. The earliest appointment we could get to install it was quoted as November 26th . This would mean that we would have been without a fridge & freezer for some 3 ½ weeks and our big family Thanksgiving Dinner plans would be ruined.
We decided to approach the Sears store that we purchased all our appliances from to see if they could help. The floor manager on duty was extremely unhelpful :
* She said that she couldn't help us as, in her opinion, this was purely a Service issue and the Service department "is a separate organization". Clearly your employees do not feel that they represent Sears Holdings as a single entity.
* She said that Kenmore appliances were very reliable but that we should have paid extra for the Extended Service Agreement to get timely repairs. It is extremely annoying to be told this when we already have a broken appliance and are trying to it repaired UNDER WARRANTY.
* She said that if we wanted to buy a new refrigerator she could give us a 10% discount. You can perhaps imagine how angry we were to have it suggested that spending another $1100 on a fridge was a good solution to Sears not being able to repair our existing one in less than a month.
* Understanding that her powers appeared to be limited, we tried to be flexible in accommodating any reasonable alternative approaches to addressing the situation, but even when pressed she could not suggest how we could escalate the issue other than calling the 1-800 number again
We can only hope that this is not how Sears would wish to be represented.
We contacted the Store Manager, who is our one positive experience with Sears in all this. He was very apologetic, and really made an effort to listen to the problem and try to find reasonable and creative ways to address it. He made some calls and we were in turn contacted by Executive Level Customer Support who modified the service date to November 21st (still a huge 19 days after the original problem occurred). Although apparently only having been an employee with Sears for a month, we really feel that the Store Manager treated the issue as his own and with respect, unlike other Sears people we had dealt with until this point.
We hope you would agree that there seem to be some serious problems with Sears Service, and the communication lines between them and the rest of the company. While the Store Manager is a good representative for your company and did his utmost to restore our faith in Sears, we see no indication that we would not encounter a similar situation with Sears Service in future. We were without refrigeration for 19 days, which is bad enough, but if we hadn't engaged in vigorous, time-consuming and stressful chasing of this problem we may have been without this crucial appliance for nearly a month. We know from frank conversations with everyone involved in this (from Sears technicians to executive customer support) that our problems with getting timely service are not unusual exceptions, but are persistent and endemic.
Your Vision Statement says that "Sears Holdings is committed to improving the lives of our customers by providing quality services, products and solutions that earn their trust and build lifetime relationships." For us, you have failed spectacularly on all counts.
Our entire family has purchased from Sears for many years based on your historical reputation for good customer service, but they will no longer make any purchases in your stores. We hope that by bringing our problems to your attention it will allow them to be fixed promptly and permanently for the good of other customers. We will not be buying from Sears again.
Yours faithfully,
Chris
(Photo: j2dread)
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Comments:
I don't understand why the first tech didn't make sure that the fridge was working before he left the first time around. It would have only taken a few minutes to see that no cold air was coming in. Thats pretty shoddy.
If you got the warranty then you would have been compensated for the loss of food.
We abandoned Sears when they would not waive a $30 shipping on a $1500 matching washer and dryer set, but would give us 10% off a dryer hose...that was $35...
Yea, Sears is worthless.
I will not STEP FOOT into Sears again either. I was without a refrigerator for 43 days. Same kind of issues as in the post. They are IMPOSSIBLE to deal with. The Sears Holding Company has ruined a great brand name. They have perfected poor customer service. Any company wishing to sink to their level should consider Sears the benchmark to strive toward.
I've had good luck with the Sears Automotive Departments. You can get road hazard coverage for $6 per tire. I bought tires and insurance in Utah, drove over a nail in New York, and paid only $6 for a new road hazard warranty on the new tire (one time use policy). I've also found them to be cheaper and faster than Jiffy Lube for routine oil changes; plus, they remember to put the plug back in the bottom of your oil pan!
I have a 50s/60s era Kenmore dryer (!) inherited from Grandma as part of the family-house package and I won't be replacing it with another Sears appliance when it finally dies.
I gave up Sears also. When I have to see signs in Spanish hanging from the ceiling and on the items- I get frustated at my elected officials and then I get pissed at Sears. So I now avoid a once American Company for simply being un-American.
Sears just delivered a new refrigerator to my sister that they knew wasn't working properly, they just basically dropped it and ran. She was too distracted by movers to properly supervise them. (Should have you to supervise them?) Oh, and they forgot to deliver the new flat screen that was on the same order. Again, their experience with the store manager was positive, he really tried to help, but Sears service/delivery was oh so "FU we really don't care that 30 are coming for Thanksgiving in two days did you really expect a new fridge to work right off the bat?" Yep, naively, they did.
Interestingly I had this same problem with Sears in 1991 except it was an electronics item. I had the usual problem with one department not talking to another and general all-around incompetency. The coup de grace is it took 4 or 5 months before their headquarters in Chicago sent a reply to my complaint.
this is sort of unrelated: whenever i order something from Sears online and go to the store to pick it up there is ALWAYS a problem. 3 times in a row, in the span of a year they either could not find my item in the warehouse, or my order number was wrong and i got stuck waiting more than an hour for them to find my stuff. you'd figure their spiffy computerized order system would speed things up, but all it does is cost everyone involved time and money. i no longer shop there.
@sixsnowflakes: See you have identified the problem you had "Good Luck". Getting quality service from a company should not be predicated on luck. It should be the odd customer that has bad luck not the other way around.
My experience with Sears fixing a 1.5 year old washing machine was similar. Wait a week for the guy to come out, wait a week for him to come back with the part, etc. It was out of warranty, however, so it was a much simpler decision to hire an independent repair guy, get the the machine fixed that day, and tell Sears to go piss up a tree.
So here's the problem with a warranty, you have to deal with the manufacturer to get a fix. And they could give a shit how long it takes or whether you're satisfied. A recent experience with my Honda Accord has reinforced this sad fact for me. (I love Honda cars but there must be a special place in hell for for their dealers, all of them)
@sixsnowflakes: last time I went to a Sears automotive dept., they disconnected wire in my engine, then put it on a tester and "showed" me how the alternator needed to be replaced. The alternator was only a few months old, so I decided tio take it over to Pep Boys. The Sears tech freaked out about me driving the car off the lot. The tech at Pep Boys showed me the disconnected wire. He did not know I had just been at Sears.
@Quellman:
Wow. That's quite possibly the most bigoted comments I've ever read on this board. Are you serious? God forbid the stores seek to accommodate anyone who does not speak english as their native language. How does seeing Spanish writing injure or upset you? Perhaps you should look around the community in which you live. If Sears has found it necessary to put up signs in Spanish in order to bring in business from what is likely a large hispanic community, it is likely that your community as a whole is rather dependent on the work that those people do in order to earn the money to shop at Sears. I'd suggest that you come out of the 1950's and be a little more open minded. I imagine that you were also upset when they desegregated the drinking fountains and bathrooms as well? God, I can't even convey how dumbfounded I am that they are people who are intelligent enough to read some of the big words on this site that have opinions such as yours.
I've had good luck with Sears appliances over the years. We're going to be remodeling our kitchen so that means:
New stove (ancient)/oven (13 yrs old)
New Fridge (Also 13 yrs old)
New Dishwasher (7 yrs old)
This will not be cheap and stuff like this makes me wonder if Sears is the place to go. They don't make any of the stuff; it's just Whirlpool or some other companies equipment with a Sears tag on it.
@Quellman: Wow, I hope that was a joke.
There are plenty of reasons to avoid Sears. Spanish tags on products shouldn't be one of them.
We bought all of our home appliances at the Sears "scratch-n-dent" Outlet in Christiana, Delaware. There are some phenomenal deals to be had there - items as much as 50% off for cosmetic issues but it's caveat emptor and you have to come prepared to schlep the items away. Of the outlet items we bought (fridge, washing machine, dryer), the (Kenmore) dryer quit a year after we bought it but the others have served us well now for over 6 years. I recently got a Class Action mailer for the dryer - seems that the Kenmore line that we bought consistently quit early and a suit has been filed against Sears for it. Not too surprising - our appliance guy explained to us that the design was flawed - the heating element causes heat buildup on the circuit board, causing failure. He recommended to NEVER buy a dryer with a lint-catcher inside the lower door but to always buy one with the lint trap in the top. We did, and haven't had a problem with our new (Whirlpool) dryer, also bought @ sratch-n-dent.
I had TERRIBLE experiences with Sears Auto.
The worst of many was when I brought in my Trans Am for a replacment Die Hard battery. On my drive home, at night, in the rain, I start seeing sparks flying from my driver side wheel well. My car dies on me, and I coast to the shoulder. It turns out, my battery was loose, slid against the wheel well, and fused to it. I complained to Sears, and the mechanics said that when my car came in it didn't have the bracket to hold the battery down (it did)...so they just let me drive away with a loose battery, not saying a word to me.
This sounds *very* similar to the problems I had with A&E Appliance Repair(They are part of Sears, and do outsourced warranty for Whirlpool and Kitchen Aid). I wrote about the experience in a different post, but suffice to say that the stream of bumbling technicians, parts on back order, and going weeks without a working frig is very familiar to me.
Sears hasn't been the same for, well, decades... The sales force is predatory and unhelpful (when they are even around). The service department is about as functional as a sweet potato.
I think Sears manages to survive at all because of all the older generations who grew-up with them and use Sears out of habit.
Sears is notorious for having the worst service of all-time. My friends got a t.v. and parents got a washer dryer, both have stories that border hilarious.
I don't get annoyed with Spanish tags on things in stores- they are there to make money. I do get annoyed at government entities putting up bilingual stuff everywhere. There should be a requirement to read/speak English or bring a translator with you when you interface with the government. Is it my fault that some people don't want to learn English? I might have a large German community in my area, but I don't see the government putting up things in German all over the place. If I speak Swahili, should the government be required to have everything there to accommodate me? I disagree with it because I think it is a waste of money- my money that I pay taxes with.
@Quellman: What Pylon83 said because I'm without adequate words in English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Chinese or the numerous other languages that must upset you.
@protest:
this is sort of unrelated: whenever i order something from Sears online and go to the store to pick it up there is ALWAYS a problem.
When I went to pick up my microwave a couple of years ago, there was a woman crying - sobbing - in the pick-up area. They had told her she could pick up her whatever in the late morning & it was mid-afternoon, she had driven from an outlying area, and her whatever was not to be found despite them promising her over and over that it would be "just a minute". The "minute" had dragged on for hours & she was past the point of reason. She was telling anyone who would listen. I felt so guilty when my microwave was there & ready to go in a few minutes.
We stopped buying at Sears when they told a friend that they'd have to send a repairman to diagnose an (obviously) broken part and that it would 1). cost her a $100.00 service call to tell her what she already knew about her (still under warranty) appliance and 2) it would be days before they would come out.
There are too many other places to shop that give good service at a reasonable price.
@Quellman: How are the signs in Spanish affecting you? Are they taking the place of English-language signs so that you can't read them? You think it's un-American for people to not speak the same language as you, and for that fact to be acknowledged? Good luck with your patriotism then, buddy, because I don't think there has ever been a time in this country's history where all of its inhabitants only spoke English. Seems to me you're thinking of another country altogether.
Signed,
One of the many Hispanics whose native language is single-handedly ruining your Sears experience. Bwa. Ha. Ha.
I'll continue to buy their hand tools as long as they're made in the US. They're slowly moving the manufacturing to China so I always check to see where the tool is made before I buy it. If it's a China product I'll just go someplace else and buy it cheaper. Their power tools are all made by the cheapest bid so the manufacturer changes monthly, it seems, so most are junk. It's sad to see the guys who own Kmart running Sears...
Got to make this issue noticable. So if the fridge dies, save that pile of meat, eggs too if possible, nothing says lovin' like somethin from the hen's oven, set it aside and let it rot. Seal it it up in a few large zip locks and then when the bags inflate with the gas, well now it's time to go discuss the quality of the service you are not getting.
Having the power to show, er...expose, the damaged food to the entire sales floor will perhaps not get you much but boy will that event ...... linger in the hearts, minds and nostrils of the store for days.
No jury will convict I am guessing.
@ncboxer: Is it really costing so much more to put up an extra sign? There are LOTS of things the goverment spends my money on that I disagree with, starting with this neverending deficit-expanding war. I will never understand why people in this country get their panties in a complete twist if they have to so much as look at a different language. Horrors! You might even become somewhat proficient in a globally useful language! People around the world tend to know at least token bits of English. It's useful to them. We may not be the dominant world power much longer, so perhaps we should stop covering our ears and hiding under the table every time we are exposed to another language, hmm?
I ordered some items from Sears.com over the weekend. They told me I would get a confirmation email. Well, come Monday, I received an email saying they did receive my order but due to the high volume of shopping, they were behind on sending out confirmation emails. Sure, no problem.
Then today, I received this:
Dear Jessie,
Thank you for shopping at Sears.com. Unfortunately, due to either the demand for the item(s) that you ordered or the method of your payment; we were unable to process your order. Consequently, we will be canceling your order for the item(s) listed below and refunding your purchase. (They listed the whole order and entire payment for refund.)
Do what, now?!? Pick a problem to present to me, won't ya! It's like playing Idiot Roulette.
So, I gave customer service a ring and she told me that of the four items I'd ordered, three were out of stock. However, it looks like I will be receiving the one item that is in stock.
Okay...? So, why does the email say I'll be receiving back a full refund? She guessed that it was just a "generic" form letter. Huh.
Fine, so why does the site still have my entire order listed as "processing"? Well, it must not have updated, yet. This was around 8 am this morning. As of a few moments ago, I am still in for the whole order and it should arrive in five days, according to my account page.
I hung up feeling rather bemused. For giggles, I looked up my items on Sears.com. They're still listed as "in stock and ready to ship".
Well, we'll see. I'll be eagle-eyeing their site and my credit card statement like crazy over the next few weeks. Honestly, I'm guessing I'm in for a big ol' Charlie Foxtrot.
This is good to know as my family will be purchasing a new stove before Christmas and we will not be purchasing it at Sears, instead we will be going to a local appliance dealer. We purchased a fridge from them last summer and its still going strong with no problems, and it was only a 500$ fridge.
Warrentys and extended service maintnence, are an easy way to help an item sell, or upsell the item with out a service contact. However, after the sale is made, the "servicing" is now seen as an expence. We all know how large corperations feel about expences. That should show how large corperations feel about servicing items.
I think part of being a smart consumer in today's day and age is seperating people from the company they work for.
"She said that she couldn't help us as, in her opinion, this was purely a Service issue and the Service department "is a separate organization". Clearly your employees do not feel that they represent Sears Holdings as a single entity"
In today's world this is how companies work. They are modular, and not every department is on the same page. The people in sears store most likely earn bonuses from sales...not from servicing. The floor manager had nothing to gain from talking to you about your fridge. Well she tried to sell a new fridge? Seriously? That right there shows she couldn't care less about your problem. I don't blame her...she doesn't get a insentive from helping you with your exsisting item.
It isn't her fault either...it is the company. If they paid her more and didn't get out sales insentive, then she wouldn't be wasting time with you, she would be doing her job. Pay for performance doesn't benifit anyone except the company. They save some money on people who produce less. It is like walking into a car dealership and having them give you a discount on a car that is already over priced.
The store manager couldn't help you either...but he tried. Most likely because he earns bonuses from how well his store does every quarter. You aren't wasting his time because he isn't going to get make a sale instead of talking to you.
Bottom line is you shouldn't set high expectations from any company, for any product or service. I'm not saying the timeframe sears took to fix the fidge is reasonable..it isn't. I'm just saying that this is how consumers are going to be treated, from a servicing perspective. An expence doesn't get top priority. A sale does.
I actually love reading signs in both languages, it's like finding yourself in a real-life Dora the Explorer episode. ¡vamos a los lavavajillas!
I also like Sears, but I've also never had anything break down to the point of requiring a housecall. I've ordered lots of parts for my Kenmore appliances and grills, my Craftsman mowers, from the Sears service site and it's gone extremely smoothly.
The sample points in the comments here are pretty small-- how do other major appliance manufacturers/resellers do in terms of repairs? Equally shoddy?
Thank you Pylon, someone needs to call out the ignorant racist bastards. Some people need to crawl out of the bomb shelter they've apparently been living in, and see what Mexico is like to understand why people are coming here. Dude, part of what makes America great is a little something called "liberty" which means people want to come here to live better lives, people whose skin colour is different from yours and speak different languages. Get out and learn something about some other cultures. It's fun!
Anyway, about Sears- we haven't had quite the battle with Sears that some other people have had because when they were stupid we went to Lowe's. My dad's dryer died, he went to Sears and bought a new one and it took them 2 WEEKS to get it to him. My refrigerator died and I bought one at the outlet store in Atlanta which they then refused to deliver up the back stairs, with the !helpful! suggestion that I come pick it up myself- yeah, right! If your professionals can't get it up stairs, then how the hell am I supposed to. So I went to Lowe's which gave me free delivery and they came the NEXT DAY, no trouble. Cheaper than the outlet store too and no scratches, dents, etc. You also have to watch out for the outlet store as frequently their products are actually Frankenstein products assembled from a bunch of broken appliances. Not necessarily the great deals you think they are.
Never again will I buy an appliance at Sears.
Similar experience. The delivery was supposed to bring me a new washing machine on a Saturday, and when it got near the end of the time frame they were supposed to deliver, I called and was told it had been rescheduled the day prior--they never even called me to let me know, and said it was my responsibility. So when I rescheduled, it had to be for next weekend since they couldn't do it on a Sunday due to overbooking. The entire delivery service is also contracted out, and when they didn't show the second time, they said they lost the washer on their truck. I talked to about ten different people at sears and at the delivery agents, and finally someone budged and said they would deliver the next morning, which they did. The Sears customer rep said the same thing as above--they are a different entity and have no control over them.
Sears really needs to up their ante in customer serive AFTER the purchase, instead of just the actual purchase. It's like selling me a new car, giving me the keys to it, and teling me to find which key fits which car in their lot, good luck.
@badteaparty: It is not just signs- most government agencies now have to have a Spanish translator in house. Schools have to employ a ton of Spanish translators for the influx. All of this stuff affects my property taxes that have raised 30% in the last few years.
Yes, I have the billions of dollars that go to a never ending war myself- and I intend to vote with my conscience on that aspect. Because it is significantly less money than the war- I shouldn't complain? Why not? It is my duty as a citizen to complain about wastefulness in the government and hold our officials accountable.
I have no problem being exposed to other languages- I took years of French, German, and Spanish in school. I encourage everyone to do the same. It is important to open yourself up to other cultures and experience different things. I just don't agree with spending government funds to accommodate everyone that comes to this country and doesn't learn English.
Sears tried to repossess a dryer from my mother 10 years ago after my father had died leaving a balance on his Sears card and no estate. The card was in his name only and the dryer was bought several years previously. The thugs on the phone bullied her and when the phone was turned over to me they could not tell me how an appliance bought years earlier became collateral for a credit card balance. I eventually threatened them with a lawsuit (all phone conversations recorded including Sears threatening her with financial ruin) and they quit bugging her.
I have not set foot in a Sears store since and never will.
CRAZYFLANGER I disagree with your comment : "Bottom line is you shouldn't set high expectations from any company, for any product or service."
I know this is a reality in many companies, but that attitude is just a license for companies to walk all over you. I don't "expect" good service but it will make me come back to a company if they give it. Trying to saving money on customer service is the worst mistake a company can make.
Canon has been a great example for me. First time, I bought a printer that did not work properly and they overnighted me a new one with a prepaid shipping label to return the old one. Second time, my 4 year old camera was recalled for a defect and it was less than a week before I had it back again, with not only the problem fixed but also all the external faceplates replaced to address some cosmetic issues (scratches/dents).
Guess which company will be first on my list to buy products from in future?
I bought a washer/dryer from them about 10 years ago. I have had 3 experiences with service.
The first time was fine - the guy was able to fix it without a second trip.
The second time, the guy arrived before the part, just like other folks.
Third time, all he had to do was replace the belt on the washing machine, and he actually had the belt with him. Even though he was able to do it all in one trip, with an easy part, it cost about $50.00 more than the other service calls that required real parts, almost $200.00, just to change the belt.
He complained the whole time about the new management at Sears and then tried to up-sell me all sorts of soap products. It was kinda of creepy.
@ all:
Part of my comment was lost in copy and paste. I type in Word for spelling correction; here is what it was supposed to say:
I've had problems getting replacements on their 'Lifetime warranty' Craftsman tools. You would think it would be cut and dry. When I was going to go there the other day though, my friend said, I gave up on Sears. When I have to see signs in Spanish hanging from the ceiling and on the items- I get frustrated at my elected officials and then I get pissed at Sears. So I now avoid a once American company for simply being un-American.
I don't know what that later part had to do with the discussion so I wasn't going to copy it. I intended to use the first two sentences.
I generally just stop by The Consumerist throughout the day and make a comment or two. My intention is not to offend or create this consumer forum a place for Politics. I've lived in New York near the Canadian border and now Florida. I've seen signs in French, Spanish, and Portuguese. Besides, the more customers there are the better. Keeps prices low. The views of my friend are NOT mine. Hence the intention was to leave it out.
I am sorry for the error. My promise to you the forum friends is to be sure to double check my comments before posting. I don't want to be known as the guy who stirs up trouble.
After a couple bad experiences at Sears, I vowed to never enter one of their stores again.
I had to modify that statement a bit as the nearest DMV is located on the second floor of the Sears rather close to me. Getting my car registered took far less time and the service was faster, more professional and pleasant than what I had to go through at the Sears return desk.
(The DMV for crying out loud! How bad is Sears that they can be beat by THAT one?)
I had one of their vacuum cleaners burst into flame a day after taking it out of the box. The local Sears store considered it a service issue. My credit card company begged to differ and reversed the charges.
The store wouldn't accept the damaged vacuum, so it sits, boxed in my basement and will sit there until the credit card company says I can throw it away, drop it on their doorstep or seven years passes. I don't know what the time limits are, seven years sounds pretty official.
Sears is just K-Mart wrapped in shiny clothes.
On the other hand I bought a TV at Sears in 2004 and it was fine (it still is, no problems). I did not purchase a warranty on the TV. But that was also before the big Kmart Merger, perhaps customer service tends to go downhill after mergers, just look at what is happening with Gamestop. They did call me an awful lot though trying to sell me more stuff, I made the mistake of registering the TV which I should have never done.
The online order system is pretty screwed up, but it worked for me on black friday. I ordered a pair of sneakers for in-store pickup so that I would not have to go during the rush and battle the crowds to get the low price on them. I already have one pair of these sneakers so I know they would fit and I went to the store well before black friday to see if they had my size in stock which they did. I strolled in at 8pm at night and got the sneakers without having to battle the crowds thanks to the order online pick up in store system. Everything was easy. Guaranteed it was only a pair of sneakers, a relatively low demand item for black friday.
My friend who was trying to order a DS Lite bundle for shipment to his house didn't get so lucky though, the website was showing the item as in stock but was rejecting every address he threw at the form because it was not valid, thankfully he got the bundle off amazon when they started selling them. He called a sears rep and she said that the system starts doing weird things when an item is sold out and that it doesn't update properly when an item is sold out. Their website is seriously glitched and doesn't show accurate quantities of an item.
I also gotta say I love sears for mismarked items, I scored Zelda Twilight princess for Gamecube for 19.99 because it had a 19.99 sticker on it (and so did other copies of the same game). The game is 50$ everywhere still. Turns out this particular electronics department mismarked all their games but they still honored the 19.99 price tag.
uh oh. I just bought a fridge AND washer/dryer there last week.
Sounds like I might as well give up on the warranty and eat the cost of service.
For the record, their extended service plan does NOT give you a better place in line for service dates.
In our case, we had a Kenmore washer that died, and it was a year-long process to get the machine properly fixed. The sales person had told me that if the machine had to be repaired 3 times, we'd get a replacement with the warranty. Unfortunately, when I called up Sears for my replacement after the third repair didn't work, they told me that the repairs had to be for the exact same problem, and within a 12 month period. I was calling on month 13.
So yeah, their service just sucks in general.
I bought a lawnmower from Sears recently, but it didn't work properly. I went through 3 before giving up on them. The rear-drive wasn't working properly on all three. Reviews on their site started showing the problem at around the same time as I was buying, so I didn't see it until too late. They were nice and made the process easy, but that was just a good worker being good.
Sadly, bad CS is a huge trend I'm finding. I'm currently fighting Dell because they sent out an order in duplicate to me, charging me twice. By the time I got the e-mail stating the duplicate order existed, it had already shipped causing me to have to wait for it to arrive, ship it back, and wait 30 days for a credit. It took a week and a half to get to someone in Corporate CS and they just pawned the problem off as "it happens but is rare", wait the 30 days and you'll be all set.
In fact, I think the last three or so major purchases that I've made have had some sort of problem.
@DrGirlfriend: Mind the distinction, please -- that's nationalism, not patriotism, though the former often calls itself the latter.
My husband vowed years ago never to buy another appliance or tool from Sears. He observed that the formerly legendary quality had gone down the toilet.
That being said, I have fallen in love with the Lands End store inside our local Sears. (Irrelevant, I know.) And I just purchased three pairs of glasses in the Sears Optical Shop for very reasonable prices, with good service.
Ben, please stop saying "step foot" !!! It's "set foot." Thank you. Love from Mme. Editor.