Complaint Review: Sears Hardware - Patchogue New York

The Merchandise Replacement Agreement which has been discussed her is now a thing of the past, and steps have been taken to avoid any further problems such as this. Now, at the same pricing scale, a new offer is made. It is called a Sears Purchase Protect plan. With it, you are given up to three years on Craftsman and Kenmore products (two on all others) after the original return period in which you can call to a toll-free phone number to resolve your issue. The first step after the phone call is that you are sent a return label that will handle the shipping of your item. Once your item is received at a Sears processing center, a Gift Card is mailed to you to refund you in full whatever you paid for the item. I can understand some people would rather have cash than a gift card, but it is neither safe nor is it reasonable to expect a cash refund to be sent through the mail. While waiting for your refund, you can replace the item at your discretion with whatever you'd like, because your gift card will have centuries left until it expires. Hopefully this small step will help to avoid conflicts like those described above in the future.

I am glad to report the Better Business Bureau of Chicago, Sears headquarters, sent this report to the "Real" general manager of my shopping store, and she called and offered me a replacement of a cordless drill, trimsaw and light all using 18Volt batteries, as requested. To her credit, she was very polite, and agreed what I purchased was an agreement for replacement, and that was exactly what I should be getting. "Real?" I thought you be wondering. When I originally went in the store back on Sept. 18, the manager on duty after I asked, "Are you the store manager, not an assistant?" He had answered me, "Yes, I am the store manager." Thank you Sears for taking care of me, I'll be back.

To Jim in Aberdeen, It's good to see that someone in the Sears realm really does care, as you seem to. However, at the same time you need to recognize that the consumer concerns voiced on this website could be genuine. As for my earlier post about the tools/your response to it, I do agree with you on the single manufacturer concept being widely used in this day and age. I've been to the hillsides in China and Korea and I have seen exactly what you're talking about. But there are still other brands that aren't chinese made that do have better quality and a better reputation than Craftsman. As for your comment to Steven about running into problems in one store, I could relate three incidents with three Sears stores (Mt. Vernon WA, San Diego and Murfreesboro TN) that support the fact that Sears as a whole is unresponsive to many consumer concerns. I won't go into details of each incident except to say that one involved a defective tire that had the potential of causing a life threating situation. I honestly tried to work with the local management in each case as well as regional contacts within the organization. No real resolution was ever offered. The manager of the Murfreesboro store where the tire incident occurred flatly denied that it could have happened! I took my lessons learned and haven't been to a Sears store in over 10 years as a result. Sears used to have a good reputation. I don't know why things changed, but it seems to me that when a corporation has the marketing problems Sears has gone through, someone would wake up and find out why. Surely SOMEONE realizes that consumer confidence is a major factor in company growth! Sears has a long way to go to regain the respect it once had, and to regain the lost trust in its customers. With the merger with Kmart, maybe the process has begun...time will tell. But, judging by the number of recent posts here, things are certainly starting slowly. This website exists to enable consumers to vent their frustrations of their dealings with any company in order to let others know to beware of unknown situations they could get into themselves. Anyone with an ounce of common sense can filter out the obviously frivolous posts. When a company begins to have a high number of posts against it, the "moaning in public" as you put it could be very legitimate and should be addressed by the company concerned. Knowing that there are two sides to every story, it is my belief that many of the posters here have truly attempted to work out the problems with the company with little or no satisfaction. Therefore my challenge to you as an obviously concerned "insider" is to bring the complaints posted on this website to the corporation's attention so maybe the public can see some change in their operating policies. Your efforts in that direction would be more effective than trying to excuse the company through your posts. I'm not trying to sound mean by saying that because I know you're giving helpful suggestions, but I think that you could have a large part in getting Steven's concern addressed in some way. Hopefully your upper echelon would be concerned enough to resolve very public complaints! Good luck!

I do appreciate your position and concerns as a consumer, Steven, and given the opportunity to satisfy you in this situation, my tactic for settling this would have been much diferent than what you described. I was just trying to remind the public that you were describing what you had run across in one store. If you requested contact info for the district manager and it wasn't provided, they have done you a misservice. My recommendation stands at contacting another local SEARS to get that info. It sounds as if your biggest problem is the store itself, or possibly a miscommunication. When you are able to speak to either the district manager or a different store's manager, try offering to exchange your set for a comparable set, and remember that you may be asked to pay a small differenc in pricing if the set you select is an upgrade (higher voltage, more accesories, etc.). I will be watching this thread to see how things turn out for you, because I do want to see this resolved to your satisfaction. Remember always that there are bad seeds and bad days within any company, but there are some of us who will always keep your best interests as a consumer in mind.

As I can appreciate the employees adding rebuttals, I wanted to clerify a few things. After all, this is debate season with November 7 just around the corner! I only made this a "public" complaint as a last resort. As "Jim-employee" I believe it was suggested, I should try to contact a district manager or write to corporate. Did you not read that I had contacted the National Support Center several times, and asked to speak to or have the name of the District Manager and was told they couldn't provide, I'm sorry, "didn't have" that information? When asked at a later date why the district manager hadn't contacted me, I was told the complaint was noted as the general manager had offered an acceptable solution. Shouldn't I have a say in if it is acceptable or not? I am after all the customer who is involved. Why should I try to keep Sears name clean an not have it public when they have tried so hard to make sure I don't get a dime of the promise purchased by Sears. They sure don't looked at me as just one person, "Oh well." I did get a notification from the Chicago Better Business 4 days ago that they are looking in to it now. We'll see. When purchasing the replacement agreement, I was told by the employee, if anything happened to my purchased items, I would getting a REPLACEMENT at no cost. Webster's dictionary defines that like this: 1 : the ACTION or process of replacing : the state of being replaced 2 : one that replaces another especially in a job or function How can I be told that anything else is acceptable? I have never said by the way that I don't like Craftsman, nearly everything in my Craftsman tool cart, is Craftsman. It's not the tool that is the problem, it is the company sitting tight on their money.

What Paul says is true, in part. Craftsman is not the same as it was "back in the day", but the same can be said for Chevy, Ford, Chrysler, and so many other companies from so many other venues. Truth be told, if you check the manufacturer tags, you'll find that Craftsman, like many other brand names, is not manufactured by the brand name, but for the brand name. To find the same quality, you would need to research who else is having products made by the same manufacturer, and if you find a lower price,buy the base line product made by that manufacturer rather than the premium. This will save money up front, but it is not a wise investment. These companies that will sell at the lower price will only honor a warranty for repair due to defective parts, and the store you buy them at will not do anything about shipping it for you. You will need the address, and pay for shipping. On another note raised, Paul brings to ight another misconception. Craftsman hand tools do not carry a lifetime warranty like everyone else does. Craftsman carries a forever warranty, and if your local SEARS is giving you a hassle about exchange, I would encourage you to talk to the management at another store, write a letter to the corporate offices, or find the number for your district manager and voice your concerns. In this day and age, it has become far too easy to moan in public rather than trying to seek resolution from the company in question. I am confident that, if you seek resolution within the company rather than through internet complaint to the pubic, you will have your needs satisfied within the confines of SEARS policy.

I've found that any powered tool with the Craftsman label is a tool to stay away from. They are of poor quality. Period. Perhaps that's why Sears tries to push these extended warranties on their products. They know what they sell is crappy. When I buy a power tool, I expect it to last for years...more than one or two! My opinion of any company that tries to pressure people into an extended warranty is they know that the product isn't likely to perform as the customer expects. As for Craftsman hand tools, they are good quality, but no better that what Lowe's or Walmart sells at substantially less cost with identical lifetime warranties. Not only that, they won't give you an attitude like Sears does when trying to exchange a defective hand tool.

In the first case cited, the replacement agreement purchased on the drill combo allows for replacement with like product, OR reund for a total of one year past the manufacturer's warranty, at the store's discretion. I know this to be true, for I have sold many of these agreements, and my customers were always happy with the terms, especially since I reminded them to do what common sense should have told them- read the terms, and get a refund right away if you are sure you want to have just the manufacturer's warranty. In the second case, what your local store was trying to say was that the technician had not yet released an authorization for replacement. It is understandable that waiting for these authorizations gets frustrating, but try to remember that the same systems that can be a royal pain in the a*s are in place to protect consumers at large from the inevitably inflated prices that would happen if the unscrupulous few were allowed to take advantge by having repairable items replaced every few months. In short, even though there may be a wait, or you my get a refund rather thn a replacement, you are being taken care of better than the manufacturer's warranty would have offered. The drill combo, at thirteen months, was out of warranty, and the appliance would most likely be covered only for defective parts, not labor, diagnosis, or replacement. Keep in contact with your local store managers, and they will surely see to it that you are taken care of. One thing I have learned in my time at Sears is that the company is, now more than in the recent past, looking out for the customer.

Only it was with a warranty I purchased for my washing machine in Hesperia, California. To make a long story short a service technician came out and attempted to repair my washing machine. He was unable to do so and because of Sears informing me that the technician didn't do something he was supposed to do they're not going to do anything about either issuing me a credit or refunding what I paid for the warranty.