Complaint Review: Sears - Nationwide

 My Letter to Sears.......

I experienced a problem with Sears that I never would have expected. 

After being treated like trash and deciding I don’t want to do business with your company, I was left to decide between the following;

1. Keep my home warranty active and let you install a part in my oven 23 days after this fiasco began, 15 days after the part arrived at my home.  After the treatment I have received from your firm, I don’t want anything to do with you anymore much less keeping the warranty.  And that assumes that you even keep the appointment which you don’t have a very good track record of.
2. Let you come and install the part and pay cash.  Only you wouldn’t tell me how much I had to pay for the repaired part.  That wasn’t a smart choice because I had no idea how much it would cost me.
3. Let your repairman come and pick up the part.  But it is my part, it came out of my oven.  If you pick it up I will have to but a new oven.
4. Pay for the repair and have some other company install it.  Again, I had no idea how much you were going to charge me to fix the part that came out of my oven.  Also not a smart choice.

I once looked to your company as an upright, honest, consumer friendly organization but, with what I have endured over the past 3 weeks I have to come to the point that I do not believe I will ever have any business dealings with Sears again.  As someone that owns a side business that buys tools and equipment regularly, it looks like that will not be done with Sears anymore.

It all started with a broken oven in the home that I purchased two years ago.  After calling local repair companies and parts stores, the only solution I found for this Kenmore oven was that Sears could remove and repair the part that had malfunctioned.  I was presented with the Sears Home Warranty program which would cover all of the appliances in my home and told that if I signed up for this program at a cost of $39.95 per month, the oven would be covered up to $500 in repair costs, with a $60.00 deductible.  Again, having grown up with Sears being “The Family Store” a brand you could trust, I thought yes, this would be a good move.

Two days later, on January 7^th 2015 a repairman came as scheduled, removed the defective part, and set a return appointment for the 21^st of January.  That seemed like a long time but I rationalized that it was logical since the part had to be repaired and sent back.

On the 13^th of January we received the part.  On January 20^th I received a call from Sears reminding me of the appointment on the 21^st and saying that the technician would be calling before he arrived for the appointment which would take place between 8:00 am and 12:00 noon.  I took a half day off and waited, and waited.  At 12:30 I called the repair line.  The young lady that took the call placed me on a brief hold and when she came back informed me that the technician had called in sick.

I would be willing to bet that he called in before the beginning of his shift, and someone could have called me to let me know he would be there that day.  This one act of common sense customer service would have saved, or at least limited the aggravation that was to follow. 

I said, “What?  He called in sick, and I didn’t get a phone call?”  She responded with, “I can reschedule the appointment”.  No apology, just a monotone voice that she can reschedule the appointment.  I earn $42.00 per hour.  I took half a day off.

I asked to be transferred to a supervisor.  The supervisor that first took the call didn’t apologize either, she just put me hold saying she would check the appointment schedule.  She dropped my call.  I called back and asked for a supervisor again.  This one did say she was sorry, and put me on hold to check with dispatch.  When she came back on the line she informed me that the soonest they could reschedule was January 30^th! Another 10 days away!

I told her that was unacceptable.  I told her that good customer service under the circumstances would be for the repair company to call another customer and reschedule, in advance so as not to cause them a great upset, and go and install Mr. Hook’s part since we dropped the ball on him or at the very least pay a technician overtime to come after normal hours.  She said that she could not do anything like that and that the 30^th is the best she could do. 

I told her I had a better Idea.  How about cancelling my home warranty and refunding my money so I could get a local appliance repair person to come out and put it in for me.  She said she would transfer me to the warranty department so they could do that.

Once transferred the person I spoke to said they were sorry about the trouble and asked me if I could hold for a minute.  I agreed to and when she came back she said she had spoken to a supervisor and that they could put me on a 24 to 48 hour call so that someone would be at my house in the next two days to install the part.  That was acceptable to me and I agreed and they left everything as it was.  That was Wednesday the 21st at around 12:50 pm. 

By 4:30 pm on Friday the 23^rd I had again heard nothing, so I called, yet again.  No one could give me any explanation as to why I was told 24 to 48 hours and nothing happened, I was only told the 30th was only a week away.  So I was flat lied to by the person that told me 24 to 48 hours!  I again told the agent, no, I wanted my warranty cancelled and I would find someone to install the part.  Most appliance companies around here offer same or next day service if they can get the part.  I was told someone would call me within 24 hours to cancel the warranty.

By Monday at 4:30 pm I had again heard nothing from Sears.  I called and was told they still see the appointment for Friday the 30^th.  I asked again from a supervisor and was told after an extended period of Music on hold with the representative that she could email the supervisor and I would get a call back by 7:00 pm.  This was the 4^th promise of a call that never came.

On, the 27^th of January, I was on the phone another 5 hours with various departments including being given the number to Corporate and told to call and ask for the legal department (where I left a message).  That day was so crazy I even had one of your supervisors (Joseph, Badge # 816473) first offer me a $50 gift card and then told me he was going to have to disconnect the call after I told him the call was being recorded.   He also told me there was no one higher than him I could talk to.

Again, I was left with this position;

I either have to let your repair man come out and install the part, or give the part back.  Oh, but wait, that is my part, it came out of my oven.  Yes, but we fixed it.  Well then charge me for the repair, how much will it be?  We will charge you but we don’t know how much.

I ask you how you can possibly do business like this.  The Sears I trusted has become a den of thieves!  How can I make an informed decision about whether to deal with being bent over a barrel in this gotcha game or pay for the repair and cut my losses and run, when I don’t know what the loss is going to be?

Your company has cost me big, in lost wages, in aggravation, in raised blood pressure.  You hide behind a series of telephone transfers, low level phone personnel, some of which call themselves supervisors but have no authority, and blind email addresses.  Even your operators at Corporate in Chicago are rude and transfer disgruntled customers back into the mindless telephone call centers, and you dare call them “Customer Care Centers”!  You have become a disease and the symptoms all smack of FRAUD!

I must state that it was not so much the fact that I may have to wait the time to have the part installed as it was the attitudes of, the treatment I received from, and the stonewalling by every single employee of Sears that brought me to this.  If even one of your employees would have tried to do the right thing it might have turned this whole situation around.  And the fact that I was promised calls back on four separate occasions, and lied to about the 24 to 48 hour repair pushed me farther that you can imagine.

I have left you my contact information several times to see if anyone with more than a minimum wage position will have the decency to contact me (which has not happened yet), so let this letter and all of the copies going online (social media and consumer complaint websites) serve as my penultimate attempt at customer satisfaction.