Bryan wanted to get his hands on the Kinect motion-sensor controller for the Xbox 360, and ordered it on Sears.com, expecting it to come well before Christmas. That was a week ago, and Bryan has a Kinect now, but no thanks to Sears, on which he gave up due to broken promises and poor customer service.

He writes:

I wanted to share my story about my recent order at Sears.com.

On 12/14 I placed an order with Sears.com for an Xbox 360 4GB Console with Kinect/Kinect Adventures Game. I ordered it with expedited shipping to ensure that it would come by Christmas. The Sears.com website showed there were 5 ‘in stock and available’. Shortly after my order, I received and order confirmation stating I should receive my order on 12/17. As the week progressed I saw no update in my email or on sears.com. Keep in mind, my credit card was charged on 12/14.

When 12/17 came and I had no update, I decided to call Sears.com customer service to see what was going on, I spoke with them on the morning of 12/17 and spoke with a lady in Mississippi who told me that Sears’s system was down and she could check my order on sears.com and just like myself she said it had an expected arrival of 12/17 but no shipping information that asked that I call back in 2-3 hours to check on my order.

Later that afternoon I called sears back (after multiple busy signals) and was greeted by a man of Indian decent and not nearly as easy to understand. In speaking with this man, he never asked for my order number, told me that my order might be getting packed for shipping and could go out anytime, told me that it could be delayed and just gave me random excuses as to why I didn’t have my order. At one point he told me that he wished he could get my package from the factory himself and hand deliver it to me! How appreciative (sarcasm). After I finally was able to find out from him that he had absolutely no idea where my order was and that their system was still down, I abruptly decided to end that worthless call.

Finally, on 12/18 I called back again and spoke to another nice American lady who was able to look up my order in the system and said she saw my expected delivery date but no shopping information, she told me my options were to cancel my order and my credit card would be refunded in 3-5 days or she could put an inquiry in to see where my order was. I opted for option 2 since I had no alternative at this point.

The same day, I filled out an email contact form asking where my order was, which brings us to today (12/20) I receive this reply from sears.com:

“Bryan, after further research on your order, I found that your order for Xbox 360 4GB Console with Kinect/Kinect Adventures game is still under processing. At this point of time, I am sorry to inform you that the tracking number has not been updated. However, from the date of placing an order, it takes 12-19 business days for your order to get delivered your shipping address. Please allow the required time frame to process your order. We appreciate your patience.”

How generous of Sears! It could take almost a full month for my order to reach me. No offer to refund my expedited shipping, no apologizing for the failure in the system in multiple places, just asking me to wait 12-19 days.

Between 12/18 and 12/20 I went to GameStop and was able to pick up the same item from the store in and out in 10 minutes.

My next call to sears will be to cancel my order and demand my credit card is refunded immediately, I am sure they will tell me that is impossible.

Bryan’s experience is proof that often easier to back away from the computer and hit a retail store to pick up what you’re looking for. If you’ve ever canceled a long-delayed online order to pick up the item at a brick-and-mortar store, share your story in the comments.

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