Sears twice confirmed the date and time they would deliver Sandra’s six new kitchen appliances. She had her plumber and contractor standing by for a day of hard work when Sears called to say they weren’t coming. After hours of futile calls, Sandra finally tracked down the delivery warehouse manager who explained that Sears had run out of kitchen appliances.
He just laughed when I went through my story of frustration with the Sears service personnel and told me he had had 75 similar calls in the last 2 days. His bottom line: Sears is not sending him product and he has nothing to deliver.
Sandra writes:
I’m wondering if you’ve had other tales about the woeful lack of service from Sears and their so-called “Delivery Specialists?” I’ve been attempting to get concrete information about the delivery of 6 kitchen appliances (purchased and ordered for delivery last month). Delivery was confirmed twice by phone for yesterday. My contractor and plumber were standing by to install and do the necessary connections. But then, a Sears call-center rep informed the contractor that nothing would be coming at 1:00 PM, and gave no reason for the cancellation and no date for rescheduling. My contractor alerted me and I started the farcical pursuit of information at that point, totally consuming the rest of my work day. Telephone conversations with the Enfield, CT Sears acting store manager, appliance department sales reps and 3 different “delivery specialists” segued into the last futile hour working with a sales rep at the Enfield store where the purchase had been made. Even his valiant attempts to get info through his channels were all to no avail. We gave up after nearly 90 minutes of total aggravation at the store and left at 6:30 PM.
Starting again this morning, I obtained the number of the warehouse from which the appliances were to be delivered yesterday and finally got through to one of the managers at 7:20 AM. He just laughed when I went through my story of frustration with the Sears service personnel and told me he had had 75 similar calls in the last 2 days. His bottom line: Sears is not sending him product and he has nothing to deliver. Meanwhile, I paid a contractor and plumber to stand by for nothing. And the family get-together I had planned for this weekend will not take place since I have no kitchen appliances and no way to prepare the meals I had planned.
My question: do you know of any way to get straight answers and real solutions out of Sears for delivery problems?
Although the sales personnel in the appliance department at the Enfield, CT Sears store were extremely professional and helpful, they have no tools at their disposal to assist a customer having this kind of issue. I will never, ever, buy another Sears product. My contractor and his plumber agree with me and have said they will advise their clients not to purchase Sears products if they require delivery or service. This is all the more frustrating because I intentionally patronized Sears (and not Home Depot, Lowe’s or Best Buy) because I thought I could count on good service from point of purchase through delivery. You can be sure this extremely negative experience will be shared with friends and colleagues. And the most egregious point of all is I’m sure the customer service management team at Sears could care less.
Straight answers? Real solutions? We can do many things, but squeezing service out of Sears isn’t on the list. We could tell you to launch an EECB or file a chargeback, but for all the good it would do, you might as well fly a kite with “HELP!” emblazoned on the bottom.
Sorry Sandra, you’ve been Seared.
(Photo: jritch77)
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@Ubermunch: Central Tractor. never had a single poblem buying from the ol’ Farm & Family Center.
If Sears didn’t keep trying to act like a retailer that still mattered, then it wouldn’t be so sad.
Well, I work for Sears and hate to see them continually fuck up. It gets really old. Unfortunately there is one little reason on top of all the others that will help to keep it that way. All employees at Sears are blocked access to The Consumerist!! (I’m outraged!)
I’ve seen other companies come clean and make things better BECAUSE of The Consumerist, but it looks like Sears would just like to silence you (ha ha) in some pathetic attempt at head-in-sand, rather than deal with their very serious issues or at the very least just help the few screwed customers posting to The Consumerist to reduce the bad press….but no…no turnaround in sight.
One of the few Sears left in my area, put up huge banners announcing their going out of business sale. A few days later, they had another banner right next to it: NOW HIRING.
I really should have taken a picture of the store with banners reading “GOING OUT OF BUSINESS. NOW HIRING”.
Apparently that was just a mix up over which stores were going to be closed. Not that you can tell – even when the store is open, you can’t find a clerk anywhere. It’s like they’re on permanent graveyard shift or something.
I don’t think you can “count on good service” from any company.
Well, I sure wish I’d known about this site before I asked Sears to fix my 18-month-old Kenmore dishwasher. It took 10 WEEKS because of screw-ups in the supply chain from Whirlpool (the manufacturer). I spoke to a couple of dozen customer service reps in that time and got nowhere. (It wasn’t an obscure model, either — it’s the #1-rated model in Consumer Reports!) Ridiculous.
Sears ran a 20% off sale on appliances if you ordered 3 or more. I ordered five appliances on Sept 4th. I received a confirmation email, my credit card was charged, and delivery date set for Sept 16th. On Sept 5th, I got a call saying that one of the appliances could not be delivered until Sept 23. I asked that all the appliances be delivered on the 23rd.
I had also ordered some beds and had those schedule for delivery on the 23rd.
On the morning of the 23rd, I called Sears and was told delivery would be between 10:30 and 12:30. At 1:00 they had not shown up so I called again. I was then told for the first time that the appliance order had been canceled on Sept 12th. The reason given was that they were out of stock on all five appliances. A request for credit for the appliances was made on the 23rd and they said it would take a few days to process.
And the beds, all that was on the delivery was the box springs.
Sadly, I did not learn about this site before buying my new Consumer-Reports-recommended cook top from Sears, on sale. Fortunately, I also bought the extended warranty, much as it helped. One year and twenty days after purchase, (and only about three months’ worth of use), the frame and internal parts came unglued from the ceramic top and fell down inside the cabinet.
The gory details are many, so I will try to be brief. The repairman needed a part. The part did not come in (backordered, then unavailable). Sears decided to order a new cook top for me (again, backordered, then unavailable). Sears then offered to replace with an equally-priced (or less) model to what I paid. (I bought on sale, remember? Why have a warranty, if not to repair or replace a defective item in kind at no cost to the consumer?) After much argument, Sears finally agreed to replace in kind, no cost. Then, the local store could not get the item for another three weeks. Total time elapsed: three months and six days, through the holiday time of year.
I talked to people in Customer Service, Warranty, Repair, One Source, and who knows where else. Calls were never less than an hour, most on hold; I never talked to fewer than three people per call. All were nice; only one or two were helpful. No one EVER called me back anywhere near the promised “24†or “48†hours. (Apparently, Sears time is an entirely different dimension than the rest of us.)
The weirdest part: I requested a warranty extension of three months to make up for the time I did not have a working cook top. Customer Service sent me to Warranty, who said this should be handled by Repair (what?) who sent me back to Warranty, who said the warranty did cover something during the period I didn’t have a cook top: renting a replacement. (A rented cook top? Really?) However, rental is covered only if the item is to be repaired, not replaced.
Nope, I will not only never shop at Sears again; I will never darken their door; I will go out of my way to avoid walking through to get to the mall.