Automatic re-ordering of items you use a lot of can be a wonderful and convenient thing. But if you don’t want the thing anymore, ending that perpetual re-order can be a colossal pain in the butt. Dave had the water filters for his Kenmore fridge set for annual re-orders from Sears PartsDirect, but discovered a cheaper source. He tried to cancel the re-order, but wasn’t able to, so he removed all credit cards from his Sears account. They sent the filters anyway.

A couple of years ago, I needed to order replacement water filters for a Kenmore refrigerator. Sears PartsDirect had what I needed, and offered an extra discount if I agreed to automatic annual re-orders (six-month filter life, two filters per order, one order per year). I took the discount, received the order, and then received my first re-order last year.

After looking around, I realized that the filters weren’t particular to Sears and could be ordered more cheaply from another source–so I decided to avoid this year’s auto-renewal. A couple of weeks ago, I got an email indicating that the automatic re-order was scheduled for May 1. I went to the Sears PartsDirect website to try to cancel the re-order, but found nothing listed on the “Automatic reorders” page of my profile.

So I initiated a web chat with a customer service representative, who took my information and told me the re-order would be canceled. Just in case, I also went to the “Payment methods” tab of my profile and deleted the saved credit card information, under the assumption that they wouldn’t ship me something without some form of payment.

This morning, I am surprised to receive an email indicating that the automatic re-order was processed and that my credit card had been charged–even though I had removed it from my account. The email is correct, as the credit card site shows the charge from Sears as currently pending.

I spoke to a customer service rep on the phone this morning; she was apologetic, but said there was no way to cancel the order at this point and that I would have to get an RMA and shipping label to return the parts for credit.

While I intend to do that, I also will dispute the charge on my credit card–as I specifically requested that the order be canceled and as my removal of the payment method from my Sears PartsDirect profile should have prevented any additional charges to the card.

So–beware of Sears PartsDirect. The savings for the initial order are not worth it when the auto-renewal can’t actually be canceled.

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