Sometimes tips come in and they’re too insane not to be true. Not that you people don’t have imagination, but a Sears Repair Guy that pours your olive oil all over the inside of the dishwasher? We had to ask for photos. Joseph writes in after two experiences with Sears Repair Guys. The first guy was nice, on-time, and couldn’t fix Joseph’s dryer. So he didn’t charge. No problem. The second guy was, apparently, insane. From Joseph’s email:

“Next the repairman pulls a tube of super glue from his pocket and informs me he will now attempt to fix the problem by gluing it back together. He then went ahead and wiped off his excess super glue on my F***ING counter-top !! It was at that point I told him that,
“We pay for a service plan, which means new parts to replace broken parts, not super glue wiped all over everything”
“Fine. I’ll order the new part, when you receive it, go ahead and replace it yourself”
” Well actually, Sears told us you already ordered the new part (supposedly) and thats why you’re here, to put in the new part. And also, once again we pay for a service plan, which means we want you to put in the new part for us, why would we pay to do our own labor?”
His response?
Without a word, he grabbed a bottle of olive oil from our counter and then dumped half the contents of the oil all over the internal components of the dishwasher. WTF!!! I still don’t know why he did that. “

Dude. We do not know either. Unfortunately, we are the Consumerists, not psychiatrists. Even if there is a pressing need for olive oil to be inside the inner workings of a dishwasher, he should have brought his own. The good news is that Joseph seems to have the situation well in hand.

“Being the loyal Consumerist.com reader that I am, I knew it was time to escalate, escalate, escalate….I live a mere 15 minutes away from from Colorados only Sears Grand, and since I am a retail merchandiser, I am 1) In Sears Grand every single week 2) have complete access to all levels of upper-management. So this isn’t just going away, Sears. And you’d better make it right ! “

Sears, your repair guy dumped the man’s olive oil inside the internal workings of his dishwasher and then told him to install his own replacement parts. You’re already the most hated repair service in the history of the planet, now you’re just showing off. —MEGHANN MARCO

Joseph’s email inside.

I’ve read some of the horror stories about Sears repair men, and this morning I had the pleasure of experiencing it myself.

One year ago our dishwasher conked out, it was no big deal and we’ve since been hand-washing our dishes. Last week our clothes dryer conked out, and so we broke down and called Sears, and we made an appointment for two different service calls, one for the dryer and one for the dishwasher.

The dryer repair men were very professional and also very nice, waiving the 60$ fee since they couldn’t fix the dryer. A few days later (yesterday) we were called by an automatic messenger informing us that we would need to have a NINE HOUR window available on Monday. Fine, whatever. It’s no big deal to totally re-arrange entire work schedules in order to accommodate Sears blase approach to service.
No Big Deal, IF Sears would actually 1) fix the appliance, which they didn’t 2) send a repairman with an ounce of professional courtesy, which they didn’t.

It started like this, 8am this morning I get a call from a surly sounding repairman informing me that,

“I’ll be at your place inna minute…*CLICK* “.

..dial tone without waiting for a confirmation or response from me. That sent up a red-flag right away as to what this encounter would be like. Ten minutes later the repairman shows up, without a word to me he storms over to the dishwasher, opens it up and proceeds to do the following,

Raises an eyebrow and admonishes me that,

“You all are using too much soap”

“Is that what broke it?”

“No”

“Whats your point then?”

Then I remind him that we couldn’t possibly be using “too much soap” because we haven’t even used the thing in over a year. He didn’t respond.

Next the repairman pulls a tube of super glue from his pocket and informs me he will now attempt to fix the problem by gluing it back together. He then went ahead and wiped off his excess super glue on my F***ING counter-top !! It was at that point I told him that,

“We pay for a service plan, which means new parts to replace broken parts, not super glue wiped all over everything”

“Fine. I’ll order the new part, when you receive it, go ahead and replace it yourself”

” Well actually, Sears told us you already ordered the new part (supposedly) and thats why you’re here, to put in the new part. And also, once again we pay for a service plan, which means we want you to put in the new part for us, why would we pay to do our own labor?”

His response?

Without a word, he grabbed a bottle of olive oil from our counter and then dumped half the contents of the oil all over the internal components of the dishwasher. WTF!!! I still don’t know why he did that.

He stood up, threw the broken arm and screws on our counter and said,

“Leave these parts here until I come back”

” When will you be back?”

“Whenever the part I need arrives from Kentucky”

“We have many children around here, could we put the parts inside the dishwasher?”

“Do whatever you want”

Then he left.

Being the loyal Consumerist.com reader that I am, I knew it was time to escalate, escalate, escalate.
I phone up Sears Customer Service, which was a whole different pile of BS, and I wont go into it here. Suffice to say the phone rep was just as bad, and ABSOLUETLY NOTHING was resolved, except I now know that Sears will be shipping the new part to my address instead of the repair-shop. I explained to the phone rep that i receive dozens of packages daily from Fedex, UPS and USPS, and their part might get lost. She went ahead and confessed that she didnt really know who would receive the new part, it could be us, it could be them. Her advice was to call back later and see if they knew more, basically doing everything she could to get us off the line, threats to cancel our service plan ignored.

Thats OK, because I live a mere 15 minutes away from from Colorados only Sears Grand, and since I am a retail merchandiser, I am 1) In Sears Grand every single week 2) have complete access to all levels of upper-management. So this isn’t just going away, Sears. And you’d better make it right !

Thanks Consumerist,
Joseph in Colorado.