TJ is fortunate that she and her husband work from home. If they worked regular clock-punching jobs, they would have needed to take eight days off for their ongoing Sears repair fiasco involving their stove. Their home warranty company requires them to use Sears Repair, but at this point maybe they’d be better off going with another repair shop and paying out of pocket. Actually, at this point they might be better off tossing their stove out a window and pretending it had never existed.

She writes:

I’ve read countless problems with Sears and their repair department, so I shouldn’t really be surprised that it happened to me. More than just venting, I’m wondering if there’s anything I can do to solve this problem.

In my house there is a standard oven/gas stove range as well as a 5 burner induction cooktop. Our induction was bought used, and worked for a while, but a few months ago it stopped responding. We delayed fixing it for various reasons, but since we had another stove, it wasn’t a huge problem.

Around June 30 our oven’s thermostat broke. It wouldn’t shut off so we had to turn off the gas. Now all we had to cook with was an emergency hot plate. We have American Home Shield, so we called them up to fix both our stove and induction cooktop. We thought it would be simple, but unfortunately, they only work with Sears.

I’ve made a rough timeline of events (the dates are close, but aren’t exact, since I never thought I’d need to record this at the time).

7/10 We called AHS to open a ticket for Oven and Induction Cooktop. They said they would call us back to make an appointment.

7/11 Although we gave them our address and phone #, a robo call (appointment 1) was made to my mother-in-law’s house (another person on the account), who is several states away, for an appointment on 7/12. Further, the appointment was made for an oven and a range hood. As soon as we found out, we called to reschedule and made it clear that it was not a range hood, but induction cooktop. They also confirmed that both could be done on same day.

7/18 Our rescheduled day (2). The technician never showed. When we called they said their computers were down, so we had to reschedule. The rep confirmed our appointment as an oven and range hood, and we again corrected her.

7/20 Our rescheduled day (3). The technician never showed. We had to reschedule. The rep confirmed our appointment as an oven and range hood, and we again corrected her.

7/27 Our rescheduled day (4). Repairman arrives at 5pm, and he only has a work order for oven and a range hood. He fixes the oven, but cannot touch the induction. He is willing to do it, if he gets a work order. We call AHS, who says it’s ok, but we must call Sears. Sears of course can’t manage to get a work order for an induction despite us correcting them several times. So once again, we must reschedule.

8/8 Our new appt for induction (5). The technician actually arrives at 8am. He looks drunk, and like he really doesn’t want to be here. He immediately manages to break the plug off of the wall while examining the induction. After 2 minutes and a brief phone call, he says it was installed wrong. He claims it needs 240 volts to run, and we have 208. We told him that it worked before and the sticker clearly states 208. He obviously doesn’t want to bother and says “I don’t go by that.” He gives us an awkward smile and leaves. Thinking maybe we are crazy, we do research over the next few weeks, and find out that almost every induction top runs on 208. We even test on 240 and it still doesn’t work. So we reschedule.

8/28 Our rescheduled day (6). New tech assesses a problem with the computer and orders new parts.

9/5 The new parts arrive so we have to reschedule an installation.

9/13 Our rescheduled day (7). Sears picked this day for us and now “no technicians are available.” They rescheduled us for the following day.

9/14 Our rescheduled day (8). Robocall at 7:50am that we were first appt of the day. 12:30, no one shows up. Upon calling them, they say “they will come between 9-11am.” Manager claims tech tried to call at 10:30am (they did not) She does not understand why we are “disrespecting” her. Eventually she said she will pass the call onto “review.” We were supposed to hear back in 2 hours, but we’re still waiting.

I am amazed that we’ve had 8 appointments by now. Luckily, my husband and I work from home, but I can’t even imagine if we had to take off of work that many times. Everytime we complain to them, they act like we are out of line in getting angry. The reps snap at us, tell us to not disrespect them, and have even hung up on us.I’m not sure if Sears only hires people who’d rather sit in their car all day and do drugs than actually work. This has turned into a game of Chicken, and they desperately hope we will give up. At this rate, I’m sure we will be trying to get this fixed through 2013 or until they’ve gone completely bankrupt.

If Sears were a regular retail operation, they really should have gone out of business long ago. They’re not, though. They’re either a real estate holdings company that runs retail operations in its buildings to kill time until the market improves, or an advanced anti-capitalist prank.

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