Here's my Sears horror story of the week -- this one from a reader in response to my post titled Sears Finally Gets It Right, But Ends Up "Ok" at Best in My Book; Fine with Mrs. FMF; You Decide Who is Right. It's a bit choppy, but I've tried to even it out with proper punctuation and spacing. I think you'll get the meaning:
We had a contract with Sears for termites for a period of 12 years including previous owners. They came out every year for inspection and said everything was fine. We came home one day and the house was full of dead termites. I called them and they sent an inspector, who did in fact agree they were termites and inspected the house. He found the problem in the kitchen ceiling (he was good and honest, also got fired right after that.) Repair people came out to repair the ceiling. They wanted to just replace a tile that was not available anymore. I refused so the whole ceiling was redone.
Of course the contract fee went up the next year. The next year inspection was done and of course no termites. Oh yeah [we] came home again to [a] house full of dead termites, called them, they sent an inspector and he said they weren't termites. I told him they were and I would take a sample to the university, then they suddenly became termites.
More repairmen (we fired the first one, he had no tools, had to use ours and didn't have a clue on what he was doing. The termites were in a beam in the kitchen. He tore the beam out with a crowbar and proceeded to wreck a brand new cabinet [and] tore up a brand new floor by Armstrong.) Second repairman put in the new beam crooked, repainted my cabinets with a roller with some left over paint from another job and got paint all over the hinges. We fired him [and] called wonderful Sears again.
They came out [and] were supposed to have [the] floor replaced [and] redo the beam so it was straight. They blamed the termites on faulty installation of aluminum siding. Funny because Sears installed it. Haven't seen or heard from them since and that has only been 5 years ago. Needless to say we dropped our contract which did go up again. We redid the kitchen at our own expense. We wouldn't purchase a spool of thread from Sears.
I can't believe this horrible company is still in business.
We bought a new hot water heater from them back in 1990. The Sears installer was incredibly rude while he was working on it, but finished and made us sign the paperwork that it was installed properly. In our town, a water heater installation has to be signed off by the city - a permit is required. The City inspector came out, took one look at it for two seconds, then turned to us and said, "Sears installed this, right?" Because they don't know what they're doing. It's not right and will have to be done over."
They refused to stand by their install. We had to pay someone else to do it, and it passed inspection afterward. Apparently, the Sears repair people are not (or were not at the time) actual employees of Sears. They are handymen who answer ads that Sears places in newspapers, and as such are independent contractors.
I would never, ever buy anything from them.
Posted by: Kim | September 28, 2006 at 05:55 PM
Happy to see that theres some talk about Sears going on here. I have numerous stories I wish to discuss here about them. However before anyone can feel free enough to cast an ill light on the company, it would be fair and prudent to at least allow a representative from the company to be able to rebut any comments made about them.There's always two sides to every story. Before I write one single opinion on the company I will at least have proof in my bACK POCKET./
Posted by: Jay | February 09, 2007 at 03:57 AM
Jay --
Oh I have proof -- that's for sure. Like it's doing me any good. ;-)
No one from Sears has shown up to defend themselves. Guess they don't read blogs or care about the web. Search "Sears elliptical" on Google and see what the #2 result is. ;-)
Posted by: FMF | February 09, 2007 at 07:41 AM