Mike needs a part for his home’s heating system. He lives in Georgia, so the cold weather isn’t as urgent an issue as it would be if he lived up north, but it’s still necessary. He needed rush delivery, but instead Sears didn’t even notify him when the part went on backorder. After two weeks, it finally showed up. And by “it,” we mean “the wrong part.”

I ordered a part from sears parts direct on January 29th for delivery to [redacted], Georgia. I was charged for rush delivery which I imagine meant two days or so. Just out of curiousity, I checked the order status on January 31st only to find that the part had been back-ordered. No one had bothered to call to tell me this.

On feb 5th I called sears’ logistics people who claimed they called the manufacturer and were advised the part would be shipped to Sears logistics the following day. Foolish me for swallowing that. Today I checked the order status and it shows expected delivery on Feb 11th.

I called sears parts direct again and was told no one could call the manufacturer to find out who had my part and why it couldn’t be put on the next Fedex or UPS plane. I find it ludicrous that a company of that size has no one who can take responsibility when their supplier screws up.

I might add that the customer service people at both offices I called have been really understanding and extremely polite. Unfortunately, they seem to work for a bunch of clowns.

We wrote back to Mike to check in on the part, and he answered:

Part arrived yesterday. Naturally they sent the wrong part.

Oddly enough, although I had been told the part had to be manufactured, two labels on separate locations had a bar-coded label that read "nov '09" go figure. They have agreed to take back the part and refund me my purchase price so I am waiting to see if UPS picks up the box from my porch tomorrow or thursday.

Luckily I have located the correct part elsewhere. Had sears not changed the last digit of the part number, I would now be sitting pretty.

Mystery solved. Stay warm, Mike.

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