Michael Froomkin is a law professor, a prolific blogger, and an aspiring treadmill owner. Unfortunately for him, he’s not also a regular Consumerist reader, so he thought that ordering a treadmill from Sears to be delivered to his house was a great idea. Sears seemed like the best choice out of the options available to him. He didn’t know that his future held a smashed treadmill, lots of early-morning robocalls, and a cascade of incompetence. [More]
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Sears & Olive Garden To Give Workers Money To Go Choose Their Own Health Insurance
By 10.1.12
The powers that be at two large U.S. companies — Sears and Darden Restaurants (Olive Garden, Red Lobster, LongHorn Steakhouse, and others) — are looking to transition away from their traditional employer-sponsored health insurance and toward a model that gives employees a fixed amount of money with which to buy coverage. [More]
Sears Might Need Customers But Bears Are Not The Most Ideal Shoppers
By 7.23.12 — Updated: 9.25.13
Struggling retailer Sears should be cheered by the fact that it still has customers who want to check out its electronics — even if said customers happen to be fuzzy, 150 pounds and well, bears. A young brown bear wandered into a Sears over the weekend at a mall in Pittsburgh, but wasn’t even allowed to look around before it was tranquilized and taken away. Meanwhile, one of its furry friends showed up later for some grub. [More]
Sears Can’t Accept Your Return Because They Just Can’t
By 7.6.12 — Updated: 9.18.14
The Ooma Telo is a voice over IP device that looks like a spaceship and lets you connect up your home broadband connection, your existing landline handsets, and the Ooma service. Francesca ordered one of these devices last week from Sears.com while visiting family, and used in-store pickup to fetch it from a Sears store near where she was staying. She didn’t open or use the Telo, and decided not to keep it. But that’s the point of visiting large chain retailers, right? You can buy an item from one place, or online, and return it anywhere. That’s true in theory, but not at Sears. [More]
Consumerist Reader Puts Sears 5-Minute Pick-Up Guarantee To Test
By 6.14.12 — Updated: 3.11.13
After reading about another reader’s lengthy ordeal with Sears’ “5-Minute Guarantee” for customers who order items for in-store pick-up, Tony decided to put the retailer through its paces to see how it performed with his order. [More]
Sears, Where “5-Minute Guarantee” Means “We Guarantee To Stop The Clock Before It Reaches 5 Minutes”
By 6.12.12 — Updated: 9.18.14
Consumerist reader Anna says years of unpleasant experiences have soured her on shopping at Sears. But when she saw the store was selling a 20-inch toolbox for only $9.99 with free in-store pick-up — and a guarantee that she would get that order within five minutes of showing up at the counter of get a $5 coupon — she decided to give the once-great retailer another shot. Oops. [More]
Sears Might Repair Your Fridge, Isn’t Really Sure
By 2.8.12 — Updated: 1.9.13
For generations of Americans, Sears has simply been where you go when it’s time to outfit your new home. (At one point, you could even order your house itself out of the Sears, Roebuck catalog.) They, and their Kenmore appliances, were trustworthy, reliable, and quintessentially American. Now? Is Sears any of those things?
Waiting for the second repair on her two-year-old fridge, Joyce was surprised to learn that her Kenmore is just an LG with a badge slapped on it. Oh, and no one knows when the new compressor is coming, or whether it’s actually been ordered at all.
Sears Helpfully Pre-Assembles Your Grill So It Won’t Fit In Your Car
By 4.20.11 — Updated: 5.2.16
The bad news: Sears has started channeling the Geek Squad, pre-optimizing all merchandise in stock before customers have a choice in the matter. The worse news: they’re failing at it terribly. Ron tried to purchase a gas grill on sale at Sears. He placed his order online for instore pickup, only to discover that all of the grills in stock were already assembled. Fine, except an already-assembled grill won’t fit in his car. The only bright spot for consumers: unlike Geek Squad, Sears doesn’t even have the foresight to charge for the optimization service. [More]
Sears Finally Runs Out Of Living Customers, Reaches Out To Zombies
By 10.28.10 — Updated: 2.28.13
In an encouraging step, Sears has made its merchandise and web shopping experience more accessible to a marginalized population that most retailers ignore: zombies. They’ve even translated the site into Zombian. As they put it, “Zerger bargarz zambah barg!” Yes. [More]
It’s Sears’ Fault That Norad Tracks Santa
By 12.24.09 — Updated: 12.25.12
Santa is, as of this posting, heading towards Mount Everest. We know this because NORAD (North American Aerospace Defense Command), tracks Santa. Apparently, they started doing this because Sears accidentally printed the phone number to the CONAD (Continental Air Defense Command) Commander-in-Chief’s operations “hotline,” as a number to call Santa. [More]
Sears Chairman Unleashes 15-Page Manifesto About Um, Everything
By 2.27.09 — Updated: 12.9.16
Sears Holdings chairman Eddie Lampert has unleashed a 15-page manifesto about the current economic meltdown, short-selling rules, civil liberties, and even offers a suggested reading list that includes free-market Austrian economist Friedrich Hayek.
What’s Wrong With Sears?
By 11.29.07
Sears’ earnings are down 99% and there’s really no denying that something is going wrong with the retailer. Same store sales, the most important indicator of the health of a store, fell 4.2 percent in the third quarter.
Contact Sears Executive Customer Service
By 5.9.07 — Updated: 6.1.16
Got a Sears complaint regular customer service can’t handle? Kick it to the top.
