Jeff bought the boiler for his home from Sears with a Master Protection Agreement, thinking that, should the very necessary piece of hardware conk out, it would be fixed in a timely fashion. Alas, when said boiler did turn useless last month, Jeff found out the awful truth.

Jeff mapped out his trip through the Sears maze of suck in the following timeline:

3/19 The boiler stopped working. I called Sears service to get it repaired and they told me they have no record of me purchasing it and that they don’t carry that model. I would need to call the local office on Monday to get the records updated.

3/21 Called local Sears office to update my records. Placed the repair order. The absolute soonest they could be there was 5 days later and could only give me a time window of 8-5.

3/26 Sears technician confirmed that the boiler had a hole in it and need to be replaced. Said someone would call me on Monday to schedule the replacement.

3/28 Contacted by Sears. I was told that they need to send a contractor out to determine if they are going to repair or replace the boiler. Was told the contractor would contact me within 48 hours.

3/30 Had not been contacted by the contractor. Called Sears and was told that 48 hours is 48 “business hours”. I explained that this was unacceptable and asked to have the contact information of the contractor so I could schedule it myself. I was told they do not have that information, it is handled by the project manager local office. I asked to have the project manager’s contact info. I was told that they do not give that information out. I asked to speak the the persons supervisor. The supervisor said they would “escalate” the problem and that I would be contacted by either the project manager or the contractor by the end of the day. That didn’t happen.

3/31 I called the previous day’s contact at Sears, no answer, left a message, they never called back.

4/1 Contacted by the contractor. Soonest he could come out, to gather a parts list, was 4/5.

4/5 Contractor came out, gathered parts list and submitted it to Sears. Contractor indicated that it can take Sears anywhere from 2 days to 2 weeks to make a determination.

4/8 Called my Sears contact, no answer, left message, didn’t receive a return call.

4/11 Called my Sears contact, once again no answer, once again left message, once again didn’t receive a return call.

4/11 Called the contractor, he hasn’t heard from Sears, he gave me the project manager’s contact info. Called the project manager directly, no answer. Called the local office asked to speak with the project manager, finally I get patched through. The project manager says he submitted his paper work and he should hear back in the next day or so. Once he does hear back it will take a week to get the parts in. I explained it has been three weeks without heat, he said there was nothing he could do. He then started asking about the install, he started to indicate the boiler was installed incorrectly and that is why it failed and asked that I not volunteer any information to the manufacturer so they can get the part under warranty from the manufacturer instead of the master protection agreement.

We’ve put Jeff in contact with someone at Sears who has been able to get problems fixed in the past, but the fact is that it should never require a customer reaching out to us just to get his boiler fixed in less than a lunar cycle.

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