Reader Christina has a (broken) water heater from Sears. It’s covered under a warranty, but Sears isn’t willing to replace it. She’s been without hot water for 3 weeks and Sears just doesn’t care.
Name: Christina | Address: [redacted] | City: Tulsa
> >| State: OK | Zip: [redacted] | Country: USA | Day Phone: [redacted] |
> >Evening Phone: [redacted] | Email: [redacted]I am disgusted about the service that I have received from your workers. I know that sears doesn’t care about its customers nor does it stand behind its worthless products that it sells. I will not waste more of my time explaining this to you for the 100th time, you should be able to look at my account and clearly see that your stupidity and lack of customer service is my problem.
I have been waiting two weeks to get a water heater replaced. I was supposed to get a call yesterday and didn’t. I was supposed to get it installed today and didn’t. Big surprise, you don’t care! I want you to reimburse for the water heater, the permit, the warranty, and to be compensated for the stress of not having hot water for three weeks while you did nothing. While no one called me, no one did anything. I will contact my lawyer, I will report you to the BBB.
You don’t deserve to be in business and hopefully someone will put an end to sears soon. DO NOT CALL ME!!! I refuse to get stressed out listening to your scripted, we’re sorry, we’re going to do everything we can to help you out because your important. If I was, I would have hot water by now. You may email your response, if you can not honor my request you can send this to the corporate office and have the president of sears look at it. if he wont, then we will settle this in court. I fully expect for you to do the right thing for a change and get my water heater out hear within 24 hours and mail my check for my trouble of buying from sears to begin with which I WILL NEVER DO AGAIN!
Sears replied:
Where was this water heater purchased? Was this through your local Sears or over the water heater sales line? If this was purchased through the store, we at Sears.com would not have access to your order and would need to direct you to the store.
If this was purchased through the sales line, what phone number was used and what name would it be under? Did you get a reference number? We would need some kind of information from the order to get the order to pull up. I have even tried calling the installation department as well as the service line and your name or phone numbers did not bring up any results.
I personally have not seen this order and would like the opportunity to try and get this resolved for you. I also understand that you have probably heard that before and do not feel like hearing it again, but I would like to try to help you with this. Even if the order was placed through the store, if you call us, we could even help by doing a conference call to the store and to the installation department and try to figure out what went so horribly wrong and see what can be done to get your water heater installed.
Our number here at the water heater sales line is 800-877-6420. My name is Grant and I am here most evenings, minus Sunday and Wednesday. If you would like to give me a call, my extension is 10093. If I am on a call, you can leave your name and number with whoever you talk to and I can call you back.
At this point and after reading your e-mail, I do not blame you for being angry. If you feel like you need to pursue this further legally, I would need to refer you to the legal department at 847-286-8371.
I know you do not want more apologies, but I do feel sorry that this has happened and do regret the inconvenience that this particular situation
has caused you.
If you feel so inclined to ask for my assistance, please give me a call, or e-mail me back, I have marked your e-mail so I can take ownership of
any further correspondence and will do what I can for you.
Look for Great Ideas throughout the store and find Sears exclusive innovations from great brands like Sony, Kenmore, NordicTrack, Craftsman and Reebok.
Grant B. Sears.com Customer Care
Christina replied:
You can not find my information because I have called you all a million times and told you my new number but nobody seems to want to write it down.
The old number is [redacted] The new number is [redacted] The cell number is [redacted]
This is suppose to be a replacement because the other piece of crap water heater I got from you guys broke AGAIN! For God’s sake just look at your own website, nobody has anything good to say about your water heaters. Its all people who are mad because their water heater is doing the same thing mine has. They should last more than a year.
I don’t know why you cant look me up by anything but my number, you had my name and address what kind of shitty customer service is this?
If you can give what I have asked for by all means, otherwise, you will need to forward this on to your corporate office because I will not be swept under the carpet. I will not be ignored, every day I go without hot water is one more day that I take the time to spread the word about how sears has treated me.
Sears replied:
Dear Ms. [redacted]:
Thank you for visiting Sears.com, we appreciate hearing from you.
Unfortunately, we are unable to provide the information you requested via e-mail. We encourage you to contact our Installation department by telephone, at (800)859-6000.
Thank you for choosing Sears for your home service needs.
Sincerely,
Larry D Sears Holdings Corporation
Christina replied:
Date: Wed, 16 Apr 2008 11:28:21 -0500
I got a call saying that you can not find anyone to install my water heater which is suppose to be covered under my warranty that I paid for. This is unacceptable! I will not pay someone to install your piece of shit water heater and only be reimbursed $219. I have called 5 companies in the Tulsa area and the quotes they have given me have ranged from $500-$700 depending on what all they have to do. You are not going to get away with this.
I want to be refunded to total price of the water heater plus tax, I want to be refunded for all of my warranties, and I want the cost of installation. I will go to another company. I refuse to have anything to do with you ever again.
You can not do this to me, I have the warranty which guarantees you to replace my water heater and installation, not a portion of the installation.
And I don’t want any stupid vouchers for sears!
Christina
You could keep arguing with Sears, or you could just sue them for breach of warranty in small claims court. The limit in Oklahoma is $6,000, which should cover your complaint. You may think suing a huge corporation like Sears is futile, but it’s not. Here’s a story from one reader who sued Best Buy over a defective washing machine and won. We’d also report Sears to your attorney general.
Before you put on your lawyer pants, you might want to try Sears’ public relations number: 847-286-8371.
More From Consumerist
-
Maytag Has A Weird Concept Of ‘Soon’
-
Roku Sends Early Adopters Free Stuff, Wants $15 To Replace My 4-Month-Old Remote
-
I Can't Shut My Business Down For 3-4 Weeks While HP Repairs My Only Computer
-
Westinghouse Digital Writes To Consumerist, Replaces Reader’s TV That Broke After 3 Weeks
-
Microsoft Says Liquid Damage Ruined My Surface’s Battery, And That’s Final
You know some of you are idiots. Sometimes you do have to be ‘rude’ and being nice will get you nowhere. A few years back I got the run around between Sprint and BellSouth over a Sprint Long Distance billing error on my BellSouth Bill.
I finally stated to the Sprint CSR that if I wanted a pain in my ass I would call my BF and that quickly shut him up and got my $300 bill to $30 in 10 secs. I’m sorry, WHAT ELSE ARE YOU SUPPOSE TO DO when you spend hours on the phone in polite manner and you get nowhere. And I was much younger back then, not it seams like a lifetime of rude CSRs that I try to spend an hour being polite too.
It too easy for most of you to judge harshly after 3 weeks of hell.
What a low class piece of trash. If I were Sears, I would promptly tell her to go fuck herself. Well, in more words and with eloquence. And correct spelling/grammar.
@angryoaf: Yeah, I almost always lose any respect for someone whose complaint letter includes the threat “I’ll report you to the BBB”.
@warf0x0r: nope, it was an ad. Add is what you do to one and one to get two.
@katylostherart: Sounds like you might have a dip tube issue. It’s the rod that runs down the inside of the tank from the coldwater inlet on the top of the tank. It many have broken and is now flooding the top of the tank with cold water. I just finished repairing that very issue on mine a couple months ago.
Also, the hot water heaters at Sears, Lowes, Menards, and Home Crappo are pretty much ALL junk. There is an issue with the vents clogging leading to premature failure of the heating unit. There is plenty online about that issue.
As for Sears, I just wish their time would come already…
Christina, I hope you are able to read this in a timely manner. Go directly to a civil court and file suit, it will probably cost about twenty dollars, on caveat is that you will need proof of purchase and all other related costs. Don’t go for 6000 dollars though, the judge probably wouldn’t go for that. They will settle with you before dispatching an attorney to go before a small claims judge.
@ConsumerAdvocacy1010: Who else thinks ConsumerAdvocacy1010 is a real douche?
It seems as if we’re missing some information here. First off, who did she contact when her tank stopped working? Call 1-800-4-MY-HOME and they send a tech to the house. They say the tank is broken and authorize a repair/replacement. She then takes the receipt that the Tech gave her to the store and they set her up with a new tank/installation. Now, let’s not forget ONLY the TANK is covered under the warranty not the installation itself. The CUSTOMER pays for installation. Sears said they’d reimburse her $219- what Sears charges for installation. (Depends on the market- usually between $199-$219) It doesn’t matter if she called some private plumbers and they said they’d charge $500-$700.
Duh, they’re trying to make money. So for Sears to give her everything for free is more than enough considering we don’t have the entire story. When I worked at Sears I did a few Water Tank exchanges and they were all done within a few days. It’s how the customer handles it and how they go about it. For her to ignore the personal email she received is her own problem. I believe Sears has done more than enough and that’s saying a lot considering the terms I left them under.
On a side note- my Power Miser 6 from Sears was bought in 1994 and still works fine.
this woman has to be the most stupid consumer on the planet. she’s just as bad as that 11 year old kid from the best buy post, if not worse.
i couldn’t possibly have any less sympathy for this woman, and i’d be willing to bet that she’ll end up going without water for another few weeks if not months.
look, everything comes down to people like it always does. sears isn’t the borg, okay? one employee can’t possibly know every little detail about your account.
this woman is such a fool! she finally stumbled upon a legitimately helpful sears representative, and managed to completely alienate him into apathy. what’s with all the profanity? for heaven’s sakes, toddlers show more restraint. waaaa WAAA BLAAA!!
i don’t blame anyone at sears for throwing her nasty letters straight into the trash. enjoy that cold water. when will people learn? be civil! don’t you want their help?!
look, i’m not blaming the victim. she deserved a smooth transaction, but it didn’t happen that way. her problem is that she’s sabotaging any chance of them helping her with her obnoxious behaviour. they’re not the borg! what did grant ever do to her?
Unfortunately it is why I stand by the cardinal rule that if I can’t carry it back to the store myself, I won’t buy it from a nationwide chain store.
@LJKelley:
I *completely* disagree.
If the CSR had been rude (or cursing) at YOU, you’d be here screaming your head off to have that person fired. What makes you think they want to put up with that type of attitude from you anymore than you would from them? (And don’t say “it’s their job”. It ain’t. Their job is to help fix/solve your problem, not put up with abusive customers.)
[consumerist.com]
There are 15 ways to help escalation & resolve your issue, and strangly enough, none of them mention rudeness, profanity, or personal attacks.
Imagine that.
@Rwarchol: I agree that there are some details that are unclear or missing, but she seems to be saying she purchased some sort of service policy (she refers to it as a warranty, but says it’s supposed to cover installation.) Sears can’t seem to get someone to do the installation in a timely fashion, hence the problem. She *SHOULD* take them up on the new water heater and just have it installed, then pursue them for the excess cost, but she’s too busy cutting off her nose to spite her face to be able to see that path to hot water.
Wow – I am NEVER buying from Sears. Ever!
@GearheadGeek: The only way she could have installation costs covered was if she purchased a protection agreement. She doesn’t state how old her tank is or what the warranty is so it’s hard to divulge the situation. So let’s give her the benefit of the doubt say she does have a valid PA on the tank. Then why is she calling Sears.com? They don’t handle service, only Service themselves can check the tank, authorize a replace and get the new one installed. It seems as if Sears is having a problem finding an installer in her area as well. For the longest time we didn’t have an installer for one of the counties near where I live because they all require certain licenses. So if they don’t have an installer, I can tell you what- Sears isn’t going to eat the cost of over-inflated labor charges of some Private plumber.
What this woman doing is equal to calling Kmart and asking them to replace a lawn mower you bought at Walmart. She’s not even calling the right people!
@ConsumerAdvocacy1010:
In one way, you are absolutely right! My job is to fix problems with the stuff you bought from us. It is NOT my job to act as a punching bag for your unresolved emotional issues. If you want that, find a therapist.
It is not my job to let customers unleash a torrent of abuse on me. I didn’t break the product, I didn’t sell it to you, I didn’t configure it, I didn’t design it, I didn’t install it. In 80% of my calls, the real problem is the fact you didn’t buy $5k worth of training to learn how to use your $1M+ worth of product.
Your purchasing my company’s products includes a product warranty, which entitles you to prompt, courteous, skilled service. The product warranty does not include a license to abuse technical support personnel who are trying to help you.
I don’t require customers to kiss my ass, nor do they have to be happy about their problems. I do not require them to not be frustrated.
I DO require my customers to treat me as a fellow professional. If that is a problem, they can go buy from our competitors, as you are likely costing us more money than we are making from you, and we would MUCH prefer you go waste our competition’s time and money.
I bought a water heater from Sears a few years ago, and it didn’t work on Day 1. The installer left, told me it was defective and I should call the customer service number (which he gave me), which I did. Customer service told me to call the repair number, even though it was a brand-new product. I did. The repair people said that since it was new, they couldn’t help me, call customer service back. Which I did. Where they told me to call repair again, and that if repair couldn’t help me, that wasn’t their problem.
Finally, after more back-and-forth-and-around, the manager of the Sears store called my house and reached my husband. He said, “Your wife sounds like she has purchased a chicken and found she has been handed a serpent!” Which statement, in addition to defusing the anger by its odd charm, pretty accurately captured how I felt. He promised to have installers at the house the following morning, prepared to either fix the existing water heater or replace it with another one. He was good as his word.
I would not go back to Sears again because I don’t have the time or energy for what it took to get to this guy, but I do appreciate that he finally solved my problem. Hope he went on to a job at a company that doesn’t suck.
@iMe2 – I don’t think anyone is *blaming* this consumer for Sears selling her a defective water heater. The problem is that the information is very disconnected. We can guess what MIGHT have happened, but as it is, it makes no sense – there’s a very helpful email, but no indication that she ever responded to it, much less that she did and got nowhere. Yes, she has a right to be pissed off, but if a company says “we screwed up, we’re sorry, please call this person who is available at these times” AND YOU DON’T DO THAT, then it stops being simply a matter of the company jerking you around.
I just had a SEARS Hot Water Heater Repairman here last week. I purchased a 50 gallon tank two years ago from SEARS and it has NEVER worked well. We get less than 1/2 tub of hot water in the bath.
The repairman that came to my home said I need to heat up the hot water heater first because I do not use it often enough!! this was the most archaic thing I have ever heard.
The hot water cuts off, I never get even close to what I should with a 50 gallon tank. NEVER. Sears is incompetent and unworthy of business from anyone.
I will call for the fourth time to see if they can send a competent person to my home.
SEARS IS NOT WORTHY OF ANYONE’S BUSINESS.
Peggy