Sears
This is a painfully long story, and might be uninteresting to anyone but myself and anyone considering buying a large home appliance from Sears and which might require delivery. At the risk of boring my audience, albeit small, I will share my experience with Sears. Consider yourself warned.
Somewhere around January 11th of 2006 we headed in to Sears with the intent to buy a dishwasher for the new house. I dread dishes so much that merely the thought of functioning without one was (and incidentally is) intolerable. My mother and Carl were kind enough to give me a $300 gift certificate for Sears so I could get a dishwasher as a housewarming gift. So, gift card in hand, we head in to Sears to look for dishwasher. We left Sears having ordered a dishwasher, a double wall oven and a side by side refrigerator. We are true Americans.
They told us that they wouldn't be able to deliver the appliances until the 30th of January. I was really disappointed, and not at all happy about having to wait for 3 weeks to get my dishwasher, but figured nowhere else would be any better.
The week before the appliances were to be delivered, they called to tell me that the wall oven and dishwasher had been "delayed" (the woman didn't speak much english and so there was no explanation as to why it was not going to be delivered as expected.) Its expected arrival date was February 30th. A month later. Do they assemble these appliances out of dung beetles in remote african tribes? The refrigerator had not been delayed and they were to deliver it on the 30th of January as expected.
The 30th of January came, and I took the day off of work, anticipating the delivery sometime that day. They had not graced me with a call to inform me of the time frame in which to expect them, so I sat at home the whole day. Sometime nearing 5:00 the delivery people call and ask "So, did you receive your appliance satisfactorily?" To which I respond "Why no, I have yet to hear from the delivery person." He responds with concern about the whereabouts of the delivery person. Several hours and several calls later I offer to go out myself and examine the roads to make sure he hasn't driven off a cliff, which is a lot more possible than one might think in my neighborhood. I drive around all known back roads in my "neighborhood" to no avail, no sign of the missing man and his truck. After another hour or so I get another call telling me that the delivery person finally made contact again, and informed call central that he was unable to fit his large truck through the gate on our road. (could he not call to let us know this hours before? did he go out for beers afterward because the experience was so traumatic? who knows) Sears called back the next day to inform me that they would be sending out a different and smaller truck for the refrigerator delivery the day following, which would be two days later than expected. Another lost day of work. No time frame given this time either, so sit at home the whole day. The end of the day comes around and the delivery person arrives with a refrigerator. Not OUR refrigerator. They get the fridge in to the house and try to slide it into place and it's too big. They brought the wrong one. No dishwasher, no fridge, no wall oven. Hm.
February 27th comes, and they give us a time frame this time. They are supposed to arrive early in the day. We get a call from them shortly after they are scheduled to arrive "We're sorry, we couldn't fit our truck through your gate. We're going to have to return with a smaller truck." Is it just my inflated expectation of your average company's abilities to function well, or should they *not* have written a note in my file somewhere saying "SMALL GATE. BRING SMALL TRUCK." No appliances.
End of February behind us now. No dishwasher, no fridge, no wall oven. Hm.
Sears calls us ot inform us that they will deliver the wall oven and the dishwasher the following day. By some serious miracle, they arrive, they get in the gate, and they unload a dishwasher AND a wall oven, both the proper appliances.
Hallelujia.
No, I am not the type to hire someone to install something that I can do myself and since the estimated installation person's first opportunity to come to our house was about a month out, I get all the proper gear and get started installing the dishwasher myself. Matt helped, and we get done with just about everything and discover that Maytag, in its brilliance, failed to place a PLUG at the end of the POWER CABLES. I'm ready to slap a stupid 3 prong plug on there, but Matt won't let it happen. He wants someone else to be responsible for this if it goes wrong.
ratsafratsareigndeer
It's the beginning of March, and we have a nonfunctional dishwasher and a nonfunctional wall oven and no refrigerator to speak of.
Finally, we get the fridge situation sorted out and they decide they will deliver the fridge on March 25th. Upon learning that they deliver on Saturday I supress the urge to yell in the man's face about my 5 lost days of work thus far. I am impressed with my self control.
Saturday comes and goes. Late in the day Matt says to me "ring ring! Hi, this is Sears home delivery. we were unable to get through your gate because our truck was too big..." But, no. Not a word. Not a peep. They just didn't bother to call at all. No arrival, no call, no recognition from Sears that the delivery date has come and gone and they never arrived. End of March...no refrigerator, nonfunctional dishwasher, nonfunctional wall oven. Good thing we paid good money for this stuff.
I keep seeing advertisements for Sears which say "Are you ready for all new appliances in your kitchen?" I say "why yes, I am."
My opinion of Sears has sunk. I really honestly didn't think that was possible.
**UPDATE**
Sears left a message telling us that unfortunately, they couldn't get through the gate with the truck.
Somewhere around January 11th of 2006 we headed in to Sears with the intent to buy a dishwasher for the new house. I dread dishes so much that merely the thought of functioning without one was (and incidentally is) intolerable. My mother and Carl were kind enough to give me a $300 gift certificate for Sears so I could get a dishwasher as a housewarming gift. So, gift card in hand, we head in to Sears to look for dishwasher. We left Sears having ordered a dishwasher, a double wall oven and a side by side refrigerator. We are true Americans.
They told us that they wouldn't be able to deliver the appliances until the 30th of January. I was really disappointed, and not at all happy about having to wait for 3 weeks to get my dishwasher, but figured nowhere else would be any better.
The week before the appliances were to be delivered, they called to tell me that the wall oven and dishwasher had been "delayed" (the woman didn't speak much english and so there was no explanation as to why it was not going to be delivered as expected.) Its expected arrival date was February 30th. A month later. Do they assemble these appliances out of dung beetles in remote african tribes? The refrigerator had not been delayed and they were to deliver it on the 30th of January as expected.
The 30th of January came, and I took the day off of work, anticipating the delivery sometime that day. They had not graced me with a call to inform me of the time frame in which to expect them, so I sat at home the whole day. Sometime nearing 5:00 the delivery people call and ask "So, did you receive your appliance satisfactorily?" To which I respond "Why no, I have yet to hear from the delivery person." He responds with concern about the whereabouts of the delivery person. Several hours and several calls later I offer to go out myself and examine the roads to make sure he hasn't driven off a cliff, which is a lot more possible than one might think in my neighborhood. I drive around all known back roads in my "neighborhood" to no avail, no sign of the missing man and his truck. After another hour or so I get another call telling me that the delivery person finally made contact again, and informed call central that he was unable to fit his large truck through the gate on our road. (could he not call to let us know this hours before? did he go out for beers afterward because the experience was so traumatic? who knows) Sears called back the next day to inform me that they would be sending out a different and smaller truck for the refrigerator delivery the day following, which would be two days later than expected. Another lost day of work. No time frame given this time either, so sit at home the whole day. The end of the day comes around and the delivery person arrives with a refrigerator. Not OUR refrigerator. They get the fridge in to the house and try to slide it into place and it's too big. They brought the wrong one. No dishwasher, no fridge, no wall oven. Hm.
February 27th comes, and they give us a time frame this time. They are supposed to arrive early in the day. We get a call from them shortly after they are scheduled to arrive "We're sorry, we couldn't fit our truck through your gate. We're going to have to return with a smaller truck." Is it just my inflated expectation of your average company's abilities to function well, or should they *not* have written a note in my file somewhere saying "SMALL GATE. BRING SMALL TRUCK." No appliances.
End of February behind us now. No dishwasher, no fridge, no wall oven. Hm.
Sears calls us ot inform us that they will deliver the wall oven and the dishwasher the following day. By some serious miracle, they arrive, they get in the gate, and they unload a dishwasher AND a wall oven, both the proper appliances.
Hallelujia.
No, I am not the type to hire someone to install something that I can do myself and since the estimated installation person's first opportunity to come to our house was about a month out, I get all the proper gear and get started installing the dishwasher myself. Matt helped, and we get done with just about everything and discover that Maytag, in its brilliance, failed to place a PLUG at the end of the POWER CABLES. I'm ready to slap a stupid 3 prong plug on there, but Matt won't let it happen. He wants someone else to be responsible for this if it goes wrong.
ratsafratsareigndeer
It's the beginning of March, and we have a nonfunctional dishwasher and a nonfunctional wall oven and no refrigerator to speak of.
Finally, we get the fridge situation sorted out and they decide they will deliver the fridge on March 25th. Upon learning that they deliver on Saturday I supress the urge to yell in the man's face about my 5 lost days of work thus far. I am impressed with my self control.
Saturday comes and goes. Late in the day Matt says to me "ring ring! Hi, this is Sears home delivery. we were unable to get through your gate because our truck was too big..." But, no. Not a word. Not a peep. They just didn't bother to call at all. No arrival, no call, no recognition from Sears that the delivery date has come and gone and they never arrived. End of March...no refrigerator, nonfunctional dishwasher, nonfunctional wall oven. Good thing we paid good money for this stuff.
I keep seeing advertisements for Sears which say "Are you ready for all new appliances in your kitchen?" I say "why yes, I am."
My opinion of Sears has sunk. I really honestly didn't think that was possible.
**UPDATE**
Sears left a message telling us that unfortunately, they couldn't get through the gate with the truck.
posted by rebecca at 6:00 PM
5 Comments:
grr. this is when you write a really biting letter to sears management. seriously. ask for EVERYONE's names that have been involved and ask them for their managers names. this would only take a small fraction of the time that's already been wasted. do it.
I can so sympathize. We bought our dryer there and ended up returning it for all our pain. We made them come back out and pick it up. Reason: they couldn't swap a plug outlet and that they coudln't be responsible for it. *shrug* ok.
Our dishwasher was something similar except instead of waiting for the idiots to coordinate the installation *rolling eyes* we did it with a friends help. Never did get the reimpbursement that was due for the cost of installation. *sigh*. Needless to say..I don't go back there for any sort of stuff like that. We went to a smaller store and got much better support.
at this point I think laughing is my best defense.
also, i think it's time to take a good, hard look at your relationship with dishes. i mean really, have you given them a fair chance? if memory serves correctly, the two of you (you and dishes) got off to a really rocky start. perhaps it would just take a change of heart on your part? dishes aren't all that bad. i love doing dishes. it's simple and easy and quick. i have no dishwasher and don't miss it at all. i think this is could be a simple mental exercise for you. then again, you'd have to train yourself and your family to wash their dishes after using them. therin lies the secret. and the rub.
yeah, "I love doing dishes. it's simple and easy and quick" is spoken TRULY like a bachelorette.
this does nothing for a double wall oven and refrigerator solution.
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