I bought a dishwasher from sears on a transfer sale. I live in Tn & was
to be installed in Florida. I asked sales clerk in Florida ( calling
from sear store) if was in stock & when could install, immediately was
reply. I paid with check, big mistake.This was a rental condo in Destin
with guests in it & right before July 4. Three days later no dishwasher,
just got to sears store ( sez clerk ) installation a week away. So I
cancelled contract , got maintenance man to go borg get on e & install.
Asked sears clerk how to get my check back. He sez "Sears will issue a
refund check but not send it to me, will only send to address of
installation. " No matter how hard I tried could not get past clerk to
manger or higher up. So I stopped payment on check. Get letter from a
collection agency they bought check from sears & I owe them $$$$. Did
not matter that I did not receive merchandise, told me to prove it.
Sears clerk would not provide a proof of cancellation . Remember ' clerk
in Florida & I am in Tn. & Tn sears clerk just shined me on' Called a
local T V station they got involved & got it cleared up. Asked me what
I learned " Don't pay with a check, use the plastic instead."
T V people said manger of Sears store treated him like crap ,I said 'How
you think they treated me?'

Michael Lane

It ain't bragging, if you can back it up___
Dizzy Dean

(Michael Lane) wrote in news:14124-46C1B1F8-264
@storefull-3133.bay.webtv.net:

I bought a dishwasher from sears on a transfer sale. I live in Tn & was
to be installed in Florida. I asked sales clerk in Florida ( calling
from sear store) if was in stock & when could install, immediately was
reply. I paid with check, big mistake.This was a rental condo in Destin
with guests in it & right before July 4. Three days later no dishwasher,
just got to sears store ( sez clerk ) installation a week away. So I
cancelled contract , got maintenance man to go borg get on e & install.
Asked sears clerk how to get my check back. He sez "Sears will issue a
refund check but not send it to me, will only send to address of
installation. " No matter how hard I tried could not get past clerk to
manger or higher up. So I stopped payment on check. Get letter from a
collection agency they bought check from sears & I owe them $$$$. Did
not matter that I did not receive merchandise, told me to prove it.
Sears clerk would not provide a proof of cancellation . Remember ' clerk
in Florida & I am in Tn. & Tn sears clerk just shined me on' Called a
local T V station they got involved & got it cleared up. Asked me what
I learned " Don't pay with a check, use the plastic instead."
T V people said manger of Sears store treated him like crap ,I said 'How
you think they treated me?'

Michael Lane


Interesting. I've always had a good opinion of Sears, mainly because
of their customer service. While any operation as large as Sears will
be somewhat impersonal I am a little surprised at your experience.

The fact that you were not able to show up in person to deal with it
no doubt had a negative effect - A manager will likely want to make
an irate customer standing in his store happy at any cost.

But once the cash is pocketed I'm sure they must follow their refund
procedures - which apparently are "we'll mail you a check".

I am curious as to why you think a CC purchase is better than Check?
How would this have improved the situation?

kpg

kpg* wrote:


MUCH SNIPPED


I am curious as to why you think a CC purchase is better than Check?
How would this have improved the situation?

kpg

Because under federal law, administered by the FTC (Federal Trade
Commission)
a credit card charge can be contested for 60 days after the charge
first shows up
on the credit card statement and becase when its an issue of non
delivery of
merchandise ( and according to OP Sears sure as hell didn't deliver in
Florida or
anywhere else) the burden of proof as to actual delivery of the
merchandise is on
the vendor / merchant.

If Sears can't proove they actually delivered and installed the DW in
Florida,
Sears gets the charge back.

QED

"kpg*" wrote in message

Interesting. I've always had a good opinion of Sears, mainly because
of their customer service. While any operation as large as Sears will
be somewhat impersonal I am a little surprised at your experience.

Sears is not Sears any more, they are now K-Mart and whoever owns them.
Years ago, you went to Sears because of their reputation for customer
satisfaction. Times change.



The fact that you were not able to show up in person to deal with it
no doubt had a negative effect - A manager will likely want to make
an irate customer standing in his store happy at any cost.

Years ago, they built much of their reputation on the catalog. You did not
have to stand in front of the manger. I guess that went to hell years ago
too.



But once the cash is pocketed I'm sure they must follow their refund
procedures - which apparently are "we'll mail you a check".


Yes, but to who? They state the delivery adres but it is recorded someplace
that the check was recived at another location. Money should go to the
buyer, not the recipient.
A CC would have fixed that problem.

On Aug 14, 2:29 pm, "Edwin Pawlowski" wrote:
"kpg*" wrote in message

Interesting. I've always had a good opinion of Sears, mainly because
of their customer service. While any operation as large as Sears will
be somewhat impersonal I am a little surprised at your experience.

Sears is not Sears any more, they are now K-Mart and whoever owns them.
Years ago, you went to Sears because of their reputation for customer
satisfaction. Times change.



The fact that you were not able to show up in person to deal with it
no doubt had a negative effect - A manager will likely want to make
an irate customer standing in his store happy at any cost.

Years ago, they built much of their reputation on the catalog. You did not
have to stand in front of the manger. I guess that went to hell years ago
too.



But once the cash is pocketed I'm sure they must follow their refund
procedures - which apparently are "we'll mail you a check".

Yes, but to who? They state the delivery adres but it is recorded someplace
that the check was recived at another location. Money should go to the
buyer, not the recipient.
A CC would have fixed that problem.

I used to work for Sears catalog installing their 800 number calling
center equipment, I helped built about 16 call centers across the US
with thousands of terminals per call center. In 1993 they liquidated
the Sears catalog (for a write off), then 2 years later the Internet
age arrived with on-line shopping. Talk about fate, stupidity, or
whatever, but Sears could have been the king of the Internet had they
kept catalog and plugged that massive distribution/credit
infrastructure into the web, along with a 100 year old history/
reputation of that catalog. After a mistake like that they deserve to
be a KMart, which never learned its lesson either about customer
service after emerging from bankruptcy over bad customer service...

on 8/14/2007 3:29 PM Edwin Pawlowski said the following:
"kpg*" wrote in message

Interesting. I've always had a good opinion of Sears, mainly because
of their customer service. While any operation as large as Sears will
be somewhat impersonal I am a little surprised at your experience.


Sears is not Sears any more, they are now K-Mart and whoever owns them.
Years ago, you went to Sears because of their reputation for customer
satisfaction. Times change.


You got it backwards. Sears owns K-Mart.
http://www.searsholdings.com/



The fact that you were not able to show up in person to deal with it
no doubt had a negative effect - A manager will likely want to make
an irate customer standing in his store happy at any cost.


Years ago, they built much of their reputation on the catalog. You did not
have to stand in front of the manger. I guess that went to hell years ago
too.



But once the cash is pocketed I'm sure they must follow their refund
procedures - which apparently are "we'll mail you a check".



Yes, but to who? They state the delivery adres but it is recorded someplace
that the check was recived at another location. Money should go to the
buyer, not the recipient.
A CC would have fixed that problem.







--

Bill
In Hamptonburgh, NY
To email, remove the double zeroes after @

"willshak" wrote in message

You got it backwards. Sears owns K-Mart.
http://www.searsholdings.com/


Nope. Sears Holdings is a paper corporation that owns both corporations.
K-Mart bought Sears but they are using the Sears name because they had a
better reputation.

on 8/14/2007 4:02 PM Edwin Pawlowski said the following:
"willshak" wrote in message

You got it backwards. Sears owns K-Mart.
http://www.searsholdings.com/



Nope. Sears Holdings is a paper corporation that owns both corporations.
K-Mart bought Sears but they are using the Sears name because they had a
better reputation.


After checking further, I see you are right. But, do you think that
Craftsman, Kenmore, et al, will suffer?


--

Bill
In Hamptonburgh, NY
To email, remove the double zeroes after @

On Aug 14, 4:30 pm, willshak wrote:
on 8/14/2007 4:02 PM Edwin Pawlowski said the following:

"willshak" wrote in message

You got it backwards. Sears owns K-Mart.
http://www.searsholdings.com/

Nope. Sears Holdings is a paper corporation that owns both corporations.
K-Mart bought Sears but they are using the Sears name because they had a
better reputation.

After checking further, I see you are right. But, do you think that
Craftsman, Kenmore, et al, will suffer?

How could they suffer? the only reason to buy Craftsman tools is
because of the guarantee, if it weren't for that they aren't any
better than any other tools and worse than many (S-K, K-D, Matco, Snap-
On, etc.) Kenmore branded appliances are just relabels of GE,
Whirlpool, etc. you can do better at an independent appliance store

nate

On Aug 14, 3:38 pm, N8N wrote:


How could they suffer? the only reason to buy Craftsman tools is
because of the guarantee, if it weren't for that they aren't any
better than any other tools....

I see that Harbor Freight now has a lifetime guarantee on hand tools.
Guess that really negates that reason to buy Craftsman.

Red

I posted ,

Called a local T V station they got
involved & got it cleared up. Asked me
what I learned " Don't pay with a check,
use the plastic instead." T V people said
manger of Sears store treated him like
crap ,I said 'How you think they treated
me?'
----------------------------------------

I had several calls today about sears + e-mails. Everybody found it hard
to believe what happened. sears got a lot of bad publicity. sears store
was in cool springs galleria, brentwood tn & other sears was in mary
esther Flordia, goes as Fort Walton Beach.

Michael Lane

It ain't bragging, if you can back it up___
Dizzy Dean

After a continuing and really, really awful problem with my Sears-
installed central air conditioning system (read the horror he
http://www.BrainChampagne.com/Sears.html) I spoke to my local
department of consumer affairs. They said that after the hedge fund
that controls KMart bought Sears they got rid of a lot of the customer
service people. Which explains why I have spent over a hundred hours
dealing with their customer service people, most of that time on hold.

On Aug 14, 4:13 pm, Red wrote:
On Aug 14, 3:38 pm, N8N wrote:



How could they suffer? the only reason to buy Craftsman tools is
because of the guarantee, if it weren't for that they aren't any
better than any other tools....

I see that Harbor Freight now has a lifetime guarantee on hand tools.
Guess that really negates that reason to buy Craftsman.

Red

And I see that Stanley dropped their lifetime guarantee on their tape
measures. I used to turn in my tape measure for a new one, no
questions asked, whenever they went bad. I have not had to buy a new
tape measure for years. Last week I tried to exchange one where the
spring went bad, Home Depot said Stanley no longer guarantees their
tape measures and they would not take the old one. So I bought a
different brand.

On Aug 14, 8:18 pm, Shaun Eli wrote:
After a continuing and really, really awful problem with my Sears-
installed central air conditioning system (read the horror hehttp://www.BrainChampagne.com/Sears.html) I spoke to my local
department of consumer affairs. They said that after the hedge fund
that controls KMart bought Sears they got rid of a lot of the customer
service people. Which explains why I have spent over a hundred hours
dealing with their customer service people, most of that time on hold.



The catalog infrastructure I helped build for them years ago supported
about 15000 call handlers (if demand required it), every one of them
could take a catalog order, or provide service or route calls to other
non-catalog areas. Triple redundancy on all the voice switching and
SNA network equipment with double main power feeds to the calling
centers and generators to maintain about 200 operators in an outage.
Now you're lucky if you get someone from Banladesh with a cell phone.
What always set Sears apart was the catalog, when they dropped that in
93 they basically stopped differentiating themselves, with management
not figuring out how to turn 4 billion per year of gross catalog
demand into a profit (so they stupidly took a write off). If you cant
figure out how to turn 4 billion in demand (excluding the Sears credit
card interest created) into a profit then you probably cant find your
ass with both hands and a mirror either. Thier vast service network
was also the first in the country to radio track truck locations, send
part orders over RF, all before cell phones, best service fleet
anywhere. And their distribution/logistic centers were the "Wal Mart"
of their day. Yeah the whole company went to hell, go to any mall
with at least 4 anchor stores and you just wonder why that Sears store
is still there at all.

Now we have better technology, but the Sears enterprise is weaker in
service delivery than it was then (pre 93), all the support people are
in India and the store clerks are on prozac.

"RickH" wrote in message
What always set Sears apart was the catalog, when they dropped that in
93 they basically stopped differentiating themselves, with management
not figuring out how to turn 4 billion per year of gross catalog
demand into a profit (so they stupidly took a write off). If you cant
figure out how to turn 4 billion in demand (excluding the Sears credit
card interest created) into a profit then you probably cant find your
ass with both hands and a mirror either. Thier vast service network
was also the first in the country to radio track truck locations, send
part orders over RF, all before cell phones, best service fleet
anywhere. And their distribution/logistic centers were the "Wal Mart"
of their day. Yeah the whole company went to hell, go to any mall
with at least 4 anchor stores and you just wonder why that Sears store
is still there at all.

Now we have better technology, but the Sears enterprise is weaker in
service delivery than it was then (pre 93), all the support people are
in India and the store clerks are on prozac.

Many years ago mail order was very common and the Sears catalog was the
best. I used to call in an order and use the pickup at our local store. It
was always crowded. Had they hung in and made the right choices, Amazon
would probably not exist today.

On Aug 14, 1:29 pm, "Edwin Pawlowski" wrote:
"kpg*" wrote in message

Interesting. I've always had a good opinion of Sears, mainly because
of their customer service. While any operation as large as Sears will
be somewhat impersonal I am a little surprised at your experience.

Sears is not Sears any more, they are now K-Mart and whoever owns them.
Years ago, you went to Sears because of their reputation for customer
satisfaction. Times change.



The fact that you were not able to show up in person to deal with it
no doubt had a negative effect - A manager will likely want to make
an irate customer standing in his store happy at any cost.

Years ago, they built much of their reputation on the catalog. You did not
have to stand in front of the manger. I guess that went to hell years ago
too.



But once the cash is pocketed I'm sure they must follow their refund
procedures - which apparently are "we'll mail you a check".

Yes, but to who? They state the delivery adres but it is recorded someplace
that the check was recived at another location. Money should go to the
buyer, not the recipient.
A CC would have fixed that problem.


My father used to swear by craftsman. He would get everything at
sears, tools, cloths, lawnmowers, and even car batteries. I'll bet he
hasn't been to a sears in 3 years.

John

On Aug 14, 2:02 pm, "Edwin Pawlowski" wrote:
"willshak" wrote in message

You got it backwards. Sears owns K-Mart.
http://www.searsholdings.com/

Nope. Sears Holdings is a paper corporation that owns both corporations.
K-Mart bought Sears but they are using the Sears name because they had a
better reputation.

I think the true Wall Street term was they merged...

RickH wrote:


And I see that Stanley dropped their lifetime guarantee on their tape
measures. I used to turn in my tape measure for a new one, no
questions asked, whenever they went bad. I have not had to buy a new
tape measure for years. Last week I tried to exchange one where the
spring went bad, Home Depot said Stanley no longer guarantees their
tape measures and they would not take the old one. So I bought a
different brand.


Why not? The one you were returning WAS lifetime guaranteed. Should
have gotten your money back and gone sears & hockbuck; theirs still are.