When Wesley’s dishwasher died, he found himself in a sad and typical modern predicament: it was easier and more cost effective to go and buy a new dishwasher when his broke. So he ordered one from the Sears Outlet. This turned out to be a bad idea, at least if he wanted a dishwasher actually delivered to his house. If you enjoy waiting around for installers to never show up, perhaps Sears is your store.

You know something is going horribly wrong when you know all the customer care specialists by name, right? Here is my story.

My dishwasher was not draining correctly, so I called Sears to take a look. They diagnosed the problem as a faulty control panel and wanted 230 dollars to fix it. I figured that I should probably just buy a new one.

I went online and saw a reasonable deal for a refurbished dishwasher from the Sears outlet store in [redacted]. I purchased this item and paid for delivery, installation, and removal of my old dishwasher. It was supposed to be installed on Saturday. I was told that I was supposed to receive a call the night before to verify the appointment time. I was worried when I did not receive this call, so I called Sears and spent a total of 45 minutes waiting for an operator and trying to verify that my dishwasher was to be delivered on Saturday. Sears reassured me that it would be delivered on Saturday.

I received a call Saturday morning from the installer saying that the outlet store did not have my dishwasher that I purchased and that I would have to call to reschedule. I then called the outlet store, and they verified that they did indeed have the item in question. So I called to reschedule installation for Tuesday. I received a message on my voicemail Monday night verifying that installation would occur during a 9AM-1 PM window on Tuesday and that I should call only if I wanted to cancel my appointment.

Unfortunately, my phone ran out of power during the night. I didn’t notice until 10 AM on Tuesday. When I finally got it charged, I found out that a voicemail was left from the installer telling me that since they did not hear from me, they would have to reschedule! I guess they wanted me to confirm delivery three times (the first time when I made the appointment through Sears, the second the night before, and the third the morning of!!!!)

Needless to say, I was extremely upset. I called Sears again and ended up speaking to an agent who promised me delivery on Thursday and a $25 Sears gift card. I received a phone call Wednesday night confirming a time window from 3-7 PM. I gave the installer three phone numbers to call so that they would have no excuse about not being able to reach me. I also told the installer that I would be home all day and that they do not need to call and confirm!

Of course, it is 8:30 PM on Thursday, and I do not have a dishwasher installed. I called customer service, and after 30 minutes of talking to people I finally reached some sort of complaints department. They reassured me that I would be called within 24-48 hours by a marketing director, and this person would sort things out. I do have a case number, which they seem to think will provide some sort of comfort for me.

The problem with Sears is that there are three different departments that have an equal chance of messing things up when it comes to installing a product. You first have the people who work in the brick and mortar store. The second group is the department that schedules the delivery and installation. The third group is the installers that are outsourced to perform these issues. In my experience, all of these departments are filled with incompetence.

We checked back in with Wesley a little while after he sent this message back in August to see whether the situation had improved and his dishwasher showed up. It had not, and Wesley noted:

They have now managed to mess up deliver five times AND try and send me
“refurbished” dishwasher with a sledgehammer sized dent in the front
of the item.

That’s an interesting redefinition of “scratch and dent.” Wesley is irked that even though it’s the same outside company hired by Sears Outlet failing him during all of these deliveries, Sears keeps using them.

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