Complaint Review: Sears Home Services

I requested a roofing estimate from Sears Home Services in October, 2011.

The salesman provided an estimate for $15,000, which was more than twice as high as the estimate for the same job that we had received 10 months ago.  However, he said that if I agreed to go forward, he could knock off about $4000.

I agreed to proceed with the job, which was then quoted at $11,000.  But when I said that I wanted to finance it through Sears, I was told that an additional $800 had to be added to the total, whether I wanted it or not.  I would receive a check for that $800, but would be paying interest on it at 18.4%.  Even though the roofing job would not start for at least 3 weeks, I was told that I would immediately be charged for one-third of the job, on the Sears credit card.  This seemed wrong to me.

I was asked to sign the various contracts and credit applications digitally, and was never given an opportunity to sign a hard copy.  I told the salesman that I needed to have immediate access to these documents via Email.  He promised to arrange that, and mentioned that I had a 3-day right of recission, though he never gave me any paperwork to document that.

When two business days passed and I still had not received anything in writing, I became quite concerned, and I called the regional Boston office to ask that copies of all of the documents I signed be Emailed to me immediately.  Initially, the person to whom I was speaking refused to do so, saying that she was not permitted to provide this information.

It was only when I threatened to file a complaint with the Massachusetts Attorney General's Office (which I later did) that the documents, credit application, and notice of cancellation were Emailed to me.  At that point, I had grave misgivings about working with Sears, so I immediately signed and Emailed the Notice of Cancellation back to the regional manager, Ryan Kirnan.  Mr. Kirnan was rude and quite nasty, insisting that because my digital signature was on the notice of cancellation, it proved that I had been given two hard copies of it.  That was not true.

I received a written acknowledgement of my cancellation by Email, but one week later, I was astonished to find that Sears Home Services had failed to lift the $4000 hold on my credit, and in fact, had proceeded to open a $13,000 credit line in my name, which I did not need and did not want.  This is wrong and illegal, as far as I am concerned.  The credit line should have immediately been cancelled by Mr. Kirnan when I submitted the notice of cancellation of the job, and the credit hold should have been released.

Because of the Sears credit hold, I was unable to secure financing with a competing vendor to do the work (at 50% of the cost of the Sears estimate).

I feel that Sears has tried to rip me off in every conceivable way, and I will never do business with them again.  Mr. Kirnan was rude and uncooperative, and if he is towing the company line, this is a company that consumers would do best to avoid when they are choosing a vendor for major home improvement projects.