Sears is about to lose our repair business, our extended warranty business, and our purchase of appliances, because of the shockingly bad customer service that has cost us so much time and frustration.
I have made six telephone calls and my husband has made two just to get an appointment to get our under-warranty washer fixed. I first called to schedule a non-covered dishwasher to be fixed in the same time block as the washer. I was told that this could not be done because one was under warranty and the other was not. The dishwasher repair was scheduled and I was transferred to someone to schedule the washing machine.
The representative who answered insisted that the washer was NOT under warranty. I suspected that he was talking about a machine I gave away more than two years ago, not the one that my husband bought under the customer number he had before we were married, the model and serial number - and he still insisted it was not under warranty. He also refused to make the appointment for the same time block as the dishwasher.
Next, my husband called about the warranty on the washer; he had paid for the extended agreement and had just confirmed it on his end. He was told to have me cancel the appointments, and reschedule both, to avoid future billing problems because of the warranty. I did this.
But the next guy ALSO insisted that the washer was not under warranty. I gave him the customer number, the washer model and serial number, and our home phone number, but he evidently didn't even bother to look them up. He just kept insisting that we were not under warranty. I rescheduled. Once again, my husband was told that we ARE under warranty on the washer, and he was told to cancel the existing appointments and reschedule or we would have billing problems.
I finally got through to a woman representative who finally agreed to look at the customer number, phone number (we have more than one), and washer model and serial numbers and determined that yes, we ARE under warranty. She confirmed that the original appointments were for the washer I gave away more than two years ago - exactly what I had tried so hard to explain to the two previous representatives. She made an appointment for both the washer (under warranty) and rescheduled the dishwasher repair, so that they would be in the same time block. (Why couldn't the first representative done that?)
The representative then agreed to transfer me to a supervisor so that I could complain about how the other two appointment attempts had been handled; the phone rang and rang and was never answered, and there was no voicemail.
Today, the dishwasher guy showed up. The washer repair guy never did. When I called, I was told that the service had never been ordered. I tried to make a complaint to the supervisor. I was put on hold for more than five minutes, and was then told that the supervisor was in a meeting. I asked for an address to write a written complaint. The representative refused and gave me an 800 number to call for the address. It was the wrong number; it was for business accounts. They transferred me to a second number, which responded that they were also the wrong number. The second wrong number declined to give me the correct number, claiming that they didn't know it because it was on auto-dial. It was a dead number. I called back. I asked to speak to a supervisor and was told that I would be called back. That never happened.
The washer is still not fixed. I think it likely that a court would find that Sears has failed to fulfill the extended warranty contract because it has failed to schedule service - in fact, has made such service essentially impossible. It is striking that it will seem so much easier to explain this to a judge than to a Sears representative.
0 comments