Dennis found a $5 off code to purchase a new car battery from Sears, but assumed that ordering his item online and then picking it up at the store would not be a two-day odyssey involving a half-dozen employees and an order that somehow only materialized once it was canceled. He did things the old-fashioned way and just bought a battery at the physical Sears store. Now he has to wait seven to ten business days for his refund for the original order.

My car battery was dying. I researched batteries and found a discount code for $5 off at sears.com. Here is my timeline of what happened next:

Saturday around 3pm: I ordered my new car battery through sears.com to pick up at the nearest Sears store. sears.com confirmed the battery was in stock and that I should be able to pick the battery up the same day. My receipt would be a confirmation email from sears.com which I would need to take to the Sears store along with photo ID.

Saturday about 3:40pm: I never got a confirmation email from sears.com so I did an online chat through sears.com. L. from sears.com first wrote that he would resend the email confirmation. I never got it. Then L.wrote that my order was processing and that I should check my email in a few hours.

Sunday about 10am: I still had not gotten a confirmation email on my order. So I did an online chat with V. from sears.com. At first V. said he would resend the email confirmation, but I said that Lance tried to do that already. After pressing Vince to find out what was going on, V. finally said that my order was placed on hold. He could not tell me why, but V. did say I should call sears.com’s security department.

Sunday at 10:47am: I called sears.com’s security department. K. said my order was fine. K. said I should be able to just go to the store with my confirmation number from the sears.com website when I placed my order and my photo ID, and they should be able to give me the battery I bought online.

Sunday at 11am: I went to the Sears store, but they had absolutely no record of my order. They could not fulfill my order. I called sears.com’s security number again, and I got to speak with K. again. She tried to transfer me to customer service but my call was dropped. The guys working at the Sears store sold me a battery as a separate transaction from the online order. They said I would have to call sears.com to cancel my online order.

Sunday at 6:57pm: I called sears.com on Sunday evening to cancel my online order which was never confirmed through an email. At first sears.com had no record of my order either through my order number or name, address, and telephone number. It took about half an hour for Brandy at sears.com to find my order and cancel it.

Monday at 8:09am: I got an email from sears.com, “Dear Dennis, We are excited to inform you that your Sears.com order *** is ready for pick up…” I was not quite as excited that the online order which was placed on hold all weekend and then cancelled at my request was now ready for pickup.

Monday at 1:34pm: I called sears.com yet again. A. was able to find my order, but she could not cancel it because it had to be the automotive department of sears.com to cancel it. I explained to A. and later to her manager N. that I don’t care who at sears.com can cancel my order, that is sears.com’s internal business. I just want my order cancelled! Both N. and A. said they would have to send the cancellation request which I originally gave on Sunday night to B., to the right people at sears.com and that it would take 7-10 business days to cancel it. Unbelievable!

After two online chats, four phone calls, and a trip to the Sears store only to find that they did not have record of my sears.com order, I have reached the conclusion that sears.com is so messed up that I will not shop there anymore. If there is anything wrong with an order, sears.com should contact me. I had to contact sears.com every time just to fix their multitude of problems. Now I just hope to get the chargeback to my credit card in 7-10 business days. I will believe it when I see it.

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