To Whom It May Concern:
First, let me start off by saying that I have been a big fan of Sears for my entire life. They have always represented quality products and good customer service. They have always stood behind their products and have done their best to assist whenever issues did arise. That was then. Now, for the rest of the story. I have bought numerous appliances from Sears in the last couple years, including a stainless steel refrigerator, a stainless steel convection oven, a stainless steel microwave as well as smaller items like my vacuum cleaner and other kitchen appliances. Even my tractor is from Sears! At issue is my Kenmore water softener. Since I have well water, and my well is extremely deep, we have a large amount of iron in our water. You do not see it but it turns sinks and such orange. For this reason, we have the water softener. This is a very important piece of equipment for us. Without it, we cannot do laundry (orange clothes) and all our sinks, toilets, cups, bathtubs, dog water bowls (anything that gets wet) is stained dark orange. On September 25th, my water softener started leaking. It proceeded to flood my laundry room, closet and our family room (soaking the carpet). I immediately unplugged the unit and called Sears. They said they could get someone out on Wednesday the 27th if that was okay. I agreed and called off work for the morning appointment. The repairman never showed up so I called Sears and was told they made a mistake and the appointment was put in for Wednesday August 3rd. After numerous people and apologies they scheduled it for Friday September 29th. The repairman came out and found that he needed three parts and had none of them so they had to be ordered. He wrote it up and scheduled the installation for Friday August 5th between 1 and 4pm. When I came home from work on Wednesday August 3rd, I found the packages at my door. I also had a message on my answering machine that I had to call Sears to schedule my appointment. I called the number they left and explained that I had an appointment AND that I had the paperwork in my hand that the repairman printed. I spent the next three hours in phone hell trying to straighten everything out, only to finally be told that they had the appointment and just needed to know if the boxes came yet!!! Now it is Friday August 5th and I am at home, missing my third day of work for this water softener fiasco. I get an automated call telling me that I needed to call Sears and reschedule my appointment. The appointment that I am sitting home waiting for!!! I call and am told by Valarie that they do not have anyone available today so I need to reschedule. I explain that I cannot do this. They escalate me to Desire (in Texas) who looks into having it done tomorrow (Saturday) so I do not have to miss any more work. Of course, this cannot be done. They instead schedule it for Monday morning. That will be the fourth day of work that I will have to miss so Sears can attempt to come and repair their water softener. I still cannot wash clothes, everything is continuing to stain, and Sears doesn’t care. After all, I already gave them all my money. I call the Hotline (1.800.795.5030) and ask for help. I explain my whole story for what seems like the hundredth time. I am told that there is nothing they can do. This is not the first time something like this has happened and it won’t be the last. I am flabbergasted that they would say this to me!!! I ask to have this escalated and am told over and over that there is nothing that will be done. They are fulfilling their agreement. I explain that I will have missed FOUR days of work for a simple repair job that most companies would schedule outside of the 8-5 that Sears demands. He tells me “I guess you will be going to the BBB then.” I let him know that I would indeed be filing a complaint with them and anyone else who would listen and that I would post this story to every web site out there. I also informed him that I would not be ordering my planned new flooring from Sears after all. I also would not be shopping at Sears or any of their other holdings ever again. On Monday August 8th the repairman FINALLY came out. He replaced the parts and told me to cycle the softener. When the water was finally draining out of the softener I noticed a crack in the cylinder wall and something shooting into the water. I immediately called the Kenmore Waterline who informed me that this could not be fixed and the unit would need to be replaced. I then called the service number and was told someone would call me back to schedule the replacement. When nobody bothered to call me, I again called in and eventually ended up speaking with Dewayne (#251248). He told me that I would first need a technician to come out and verify the issue, and then they would order the replacement, and then schedule installation. The issue is that they cannot have someone look at this until August 16th!!! I have to wait until the 16th just to have to wait again for the next installation! We are now talking 6 days of missed work! With all the problems and calls I have into Sears, making me wait ANOTHER 8 days just to look at something they have already looked at twice (out of 4 scheduled visits) is ridiculous! I don’t know which is worse. The fact that I have missed so much work and spent so many hours on the phone for a stupid repair or the fact that I have lost respect for a company I grew up with. Shame on you SEARS! Shame on you!
Nick M. D’Angelo, Sr.
(Former SEARS’s customer)
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