Sears Makes My List

We all have those lists.  I have one too.  This though is about adding just one more store to the list of ones I will refuse to do business with in the future.  Wal-Mart is already on that list and I can honestly say that I personally haven't done business with them in 18 months.

The day started out good enough.  J was helping out around the house while I was dealing with the cramps from the miscarriage.  Yes, I'm still in pain but that is neither here nor there and I'll just chalk it up to the endo pain.  Back to my story.  J was vacuuming.  My vacuum is a Kenmore and I've always found it to be quite adequate though my spouse finds it rather lacking in suction power on the bare floors.  Well the belt broke yesterday.  So I had to get another one.

J offered to run down to the mall to the Sears store off exit 130 in Tacoma and get me a new belt.  3 hours later he returns with no belt and a lot of frustration. 

Here is where the story gets interesting.  J asked a store clerk for some assistance in finding the part he needed.  Not only did my spouse write down the vacuum model and part number but he also took the broken belt with him to the store.  The clerk said, without looking, that they didn't carry the part in the store.  She tells him to go to the computer and order it for himself there.  Nice huh?  She didn't even try to look it up for him.

J goes over to the computer and looks up the part number himself.  He clicks on the appropriate items and tries to find out the shipping charges before purchasing the items.  It wouldn't let him.  After he has "paid" for the item it then gives him the total.  He calls me and tells me about the outrageous $8 shipping fee on just one belt and one light bulb.  Really it came to just under $18 with shipping for the parts.  I went online to another place and was able to find the same stuff with not one belt in the pack but two for a total of $11.65 including the shipping.  I told him to cancel the order.

This is where the hours slip by.  J tried really hard to get someone to help him cancel the order. Not only did the store manager on duty tell him that he couldn't help him but he told him that they couldn't cancel the order.  Yeah right, um I used to work for Sears and that is a bunch of BS!

I called up our bank and had them file a purchase dispute.  I hope this goes through.  I explained to my bank what happened and they assured me that the order could have been easily canceled but that Sears obviously didn't want to comply.

When J got home we went to his email and found the purchase order.  I followed up with Sears online and emailed them with the appropriate information asking them to cancel the order.  Hopefully it will be done without too much fuss.

So the real reason why I refuse to shop at Sears ever again is because the quality of customer assistance sucks!  Not only do the employees act helpless, they don't want to help and will walk away.  Seriously all they had to do was call their warehouse in Tacoma and ask if they had the part there.  Now I have to wait this all out for up to 90 days.  Thankfully this isn't the only vacuum we own.  I will never buy from Sears again in my lifetime if I can help prevent doing so.

Sears you are akin to Wal-mart in my book.  For shame.  You, Sears, who claim to support our troops actually don't.  Sure you run that once a year "Holiday" type contest to help out select few first come first serve troops but the funds aren't actually coming out of your pockets but from others from what I read. 

Sears you might have been my first job out of high school and you might have taught me that the customer comes first and is always right but I dare say you forgot that yesterday.  Thanks for nothing.

Oh for those of you that are family minded take note that Sears Online  used to sell pornographic DVDs!