Complaint Review: Sears - Nationwide

The duct cleaning industry has a reputation for having shady operators, and of bate and switch promotions. Because of that, I wanted to deal with the most reputable company available, and I chose Sears. Never again will I deal with this company.

I ordered the 20 duct special to have my ducts cleaned. The service was to cost approximately $200, and include the cleaning of up tpo 20 ducts and 2 returns. They sent a crew which arrived hours late, and when they arrived the crew chief tried to sell me various add-ons which would have brought the total cost to over $1000. I declined the add-ons one by one, and finally the crew chief agreed to do what I had contracted for, explaining that he would do it because he could not handle dealing with another complaint. By then it was so late that we decided to reschedule for another time. We were told it would take as much as 4 hours to do the job.

Three weeks later a new crew arrived, and the new crew cheif began his sales pitch. He was rude and arrogant, and early into his pitch I explained to him that i had already been through that, and that I wanted to decline all extras and have him proceed with the duct cleaning. At that point he told me that he would use his machine to suck out the dust at the point the returning air entered my two air handlers. I pointed out that the price I agreed to pay included cleaning 20 ducts, but he rudely told me he would not clean any ducts unless i agreed to pay for the extras, so I asked him to take his crew and leave.

I then called the Sears toll free number. There the customer service rep profusely appologized and asked me to hold while she contacted the manager of the crew that came to my home. After a minute or so, she came back on the line and asked me if I wanted to continue to hold or get a call back. I asked to continue to hold, and she left me on the line for over 26 minutes. Finally i gave up, hung up, and called back. This time a guy answered. He was very applogetic also, and this time I gave him my number and asked for a call back. A couple of hours later a manager called me, I explained what happened, and he appologized and asked me what he could do to make things right.

I suggested that he send out a crew which could do a professional job of cleaning my ducts without the sales pitch for additional services, and that while I was not insisting on a price adjustment, it would be nice. We duscussed rescheduling, but the subject of a price adjustment never came up again. Because of the dust stirred up by the cleaning process, I wanted to make sure our cleaning lady was there the day after Sears, so the manager gave me his number and we arranged to me to call him to reschedule once I new what days were onvenient. I have called him several times since then, and he has not bothered to return my call.

It seems that this is not the Sears that I grew up knowing, I will never deal with them again, and I recommend that everyone reading this stear clear of them as well.