One more reason never to shop at Sears!!!

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Jenny Lynn
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Post by Jenny Lynn »

Redrose100,
How long did it take you to write that post above? Wow, I say I can understand why you are not a Sears lover.
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Julieanne
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Post by Julieanne »

Well, at least I understand where you are coming from now.

We have never had any issues w/ any of our appliances, or their delivery, and customer service has always been more than expected as well - I guess we've just been lucky that the stores we have dealt w/ have good management guidance. It's unfortunate that others have had issues.
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Post by BadMuther »

Interesting. I did not know Sears went so far down hill since I worked there.

My grandpa was an old-time Sears guy...travelled the globe setting up new stores for them.
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cams
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Re: A few of the Reasons

Post by cams »

[quote="Redrose100"]Gentlemen and Ladies,
As one of my previous replies was a tad long and I promised to mostly lurk from that point on I will try and be brief.

On point I simply think this is a step in the wrong direction. Knowing absolutely nothing regarding the heraldry rules I believe that most veterans are proud of the unit affiliations they have earned by serving in these units. I have met some great people over the years after striking up a conversation because I saw a patch or emblem that I have an affiliation with. Now I have to be a little leery the next time I see someone sporting a 2 ID patch for fear that if I tap them on the shoulder they may turn and I will be confronted by another twit wearing a Che Guevara tee shirt who purchased his Indian emblem at Sears to prove he is into the whole right to grow hemp on native lands issue. (Because everyone knows hemp will grow through the asphalt of the casino parking lot)

It is a shame that the services seem willing to open the commercial door to acquire funds. We have a process for this and if the men and women on active duty are not getting the equipment, services, and salaries they require we need to address that through our common voice aimed directly at the legislators that hold the purse strings. As they say in Chicago, call you politician early, call often, and then have a few dead friends call as well. Americans realize there is a cost for our defense and in the end they will pay it. If they are willing to shuck out 4.00 a gallon for gas to fella's we may or may not really like imagine what they will fork out for the fellows watching the wall at night.

If this is allowed where will it stop? I fear that I will see active duty troops manning bake sales for equipment funds or holding ten bucks a head days at the obstacle course for the local froot loop club to play soldier for a day.

I can only imagine the response if this would have been the Sapper Tab they had traded away for a few coins. Imagine the scream coming off the Engineers web pages.

In the end I just think some things are not for sale and never should be.

Julieanne and RTO - You are correct that Sears was and in some areas still is a very veteran friendly workplace and for that I am truly appreciative. But in the very near future this will fade as they continue to downgrade their workforce. You can have the most generous veteran’s policy in the world if you employ very few veterans that are in a position to serve. With most employees being listed as part timers with less than 32 hours per week I was told by a very good source that they do not qualify for company provided benefits. Basically they will get their job back when they return from active duty. I believe there are federal laws that cover this so Sears has actually given up very little here for great PR. (Quite similar to their extended warranty policy which will be covered in great detail in the near future)

Badmuther - Sears had exceptional customer service until the great Kmart takeover. Seems a few of the Detroit boys made it down to Hoffman Estates in mid 2005 and put a quick end to that. This applies mostly to the appliance division. I do believe that the older Sears employees try hard to satisfy their customers. The service simply fails. Yes you will get a response if you start shaking the walls but not until you have wasted hours on the phone and several days waiting. Oh and have to put up with at least one pitch to buy that extended warranty. Now do not get me wrong. I think Lampert is simply trying to figure out what to do to survive. I jumped in when Sear's acquired Lands' End and thought this would lead to big profits. Old management basically tanked that concept. When Lampert took over with Kmart and tried the store in a store idea I jumped ship. Upgrade a deck and watch the ship sink. From 2005 on I have simply been amazed at how far Sears has fallen. Kmart in a mall. The stores in the Midwest and Northwest are simply shabby, some of which went through major remodels in the last few years. The new product lines are a failure (Unless polyester and floral prints are coming back) and they have failed to incorporate the Martha Stewart brands effectively. Several of you mentioned the Craftsman brand. I agree huge draw, brought people into the stores. Come in to exchange a 1.00 socket and buy 50.00 on the way out the door. Unfortunately they weakened the Craftsman brand by introducing several crap lines on the same shelves. Plus the warranty is getting harder and harder to use. I returned a cracked 1 1/8" socket a few months back and was told to go punt. Screamed and yelled and got a new one for free but was told never again. I guess lifetime warranty means until the tool meets the end of its life not my life. When Nike and several other brands refused to be cross merchandised between Kmart and Sears I thought the end was near. I am impressed with both the Grand and Essentials concepts and believe these will survive if they are spun off and let alone, very similar to what has been done with Lands' End. I think the acquisition of Restoration Hardware is going to be a bomb. They will dump a ton of cash into this concept and it will fall out of favor. Financially I believe the current operation is being carried by the Lands' End brand and the Canadian operations. I had the pleasure of shopping in Canada last year and it was like days of yore with lots of Eh's. Great service, clean store, decent prices and they delivered everything we bought to the middle of nowhere on time and installed everything with no problems. Maybe it's time to sneak a few of the canucks across to show us how it is supposed to be done.

I would like to say I was a huge sears fan. I grew up in a rural area and have fond memories of bloodying up my brothers and an occasional sister when the new catalogue arrived. Mom and Dad would let us circle what we wanted for Christmas and Birthdays and work off the list. Good kid meant 1/3 of what you asked for and for the record when you burn down the tobacco shed you get nothing. Well almost nothing, Dad had a sense of humor and did stuff the catalogue page with the Daisy air rifle I wanted and a thing of life savers in my stocking and proffered yet again the story of all the Christmas's where he only got an Orange in his stocking. Most of Mom's household stuff came via Sears’s mail order as the nearest store was 110 miles away. Dad would piss Mom off, Mom would call Sears and a week later lots of boxes would come, Dad would get pissed off, Mom would take Dad upstairs, Strange sounds, Mom and Dad are happy for a week, cycle repeats. So I and 16 siblings more or less grew up with Sear's products everywhere.

I have many fond memories of trips to the Sears stores in Madison, WI, Peru, IL and Minneapolis, MN. store.

I remember being about five and we were at the Sears in MN buying batteries I could not carry to the truck. My brother had to go to the restroom and disappeared. He came back some time later and still had to go to the bathroom and when my father asked why he did not take care of his business he was told that there were strange men in the restroom. I then got to watch my father rail some guy with the white trash can. For the next decade I thought all men with fruity beards were royalty.

I remember that at about eight I found out about full length mirrors at Sears. We were buying suits for a wedding and as my brothers and I had been fitted we were chasing each other around the store while the girls were being dealt with. While running at full speed when you see a hallway with someone running at you that look just like you, you should put on the brakes, not accelerate until you slam into the mirror and need 21 stitches in your head.

I remember about a year after the stitches I found the other use for all the mirrors at Sears. If you stood by the Perfume case and looked into the mirror in the door of the changing area at some point you had a clear view of dressing room way in back. Note that you should not show your brothers this as one will always try and realign the door for a better view and you will all get pinched.

I remember when Sears had Guns, lots and lots of Guns. You could spend all morning with your Dad looking at Guns.

I remember buying overalls at Sears which were my daily attire until I was around 14. Sears overalls had several benefits the first of which was to show off your first four chest hairs (Note that this benefit ends the minute you acquire 4 back hairs) but the most important thing about Sears’s coveralls was that with the proper shoulder dislocation you could be completely out of them in 2.1 seconds. For those of you who grew up around Quaker girls you will know the benefit of this feature. Now I realize some of my fellow farm boys will want to extol the benefits of Keyes Overalls and we can bandy this back and forth in another thread. I would hate to go off on a strange tangent.

I remember getting my first credit card from Sears when no one would give me credit. (More on this card later)

I remember buying my first refrigerator from Sears and I still have it a 26 year old Kenmore in the basement that has been to 14 states and still keeps a variety of malty beverages at a crisp 34 degrees.

I remember remodeling 8 complete kitchens with all the appliances from Sears and spending roughly:

1984- Evil Wife - 2500 for a stove, refrigerator, and dishwasher in the first house
1986-Evil Wife - 4800 for a stove, refrigerator, dishwasher (They had to match) and a washer and dryer Note that you have to do this after two years when Evil wife finds out about future wife. Then you realize that Evil wife is going to give old stuff to sister and keep new stuff in Divorce.
1988 - Latin Nightmare - 5200 for all of the above but in stainless because she had to have more than Evil.
1990 - Latin Nightmares Brother - 6900 - For all the appliances and additional 1800 for a Sony TV. Note that when your soon to be ex-wife’s brother has plans to go to a Dodger game with you when he arrives with a case, yes a case not a carton, of cigarettes you should not tell him to put them on the counter and head out to the game. Only to return to find that he assumed a gas cook top was a counter and the pilot had lit the entire case of cigs up thus accomplishing the complete destruction of most of the front of your house. Benefit is while I was remodeling I gave up smoking as I simply had to stand near a wall to get my nicotine fix. Downside is explaining to the LAPD what you were doing with a whole case of cigarettes that just happened to have no tax stamp. And yes due to the fact that I constantly reminded her that her brother was now an arsonist LN got all the new stuff in the divorce.
1991-Just me - Swinging single in California - Bought it all tapped the card and actually had to spend cash to leave the store. 9200 for all the appliances, TV, stereo, clock radio (That I still have and wakes people up four houses away, Magnavox, best clock radio ever) and an iron, why I have no idea. Six months after purchase you realize that the women you want to go out with don't care what kind of appliances you have.
1992- Dragon Lady 1 - New Wife, New House, New everything, those that have been there know. You just smile and pay up. A little more than 10000. You leave she keeps it all.
1995 - Dragon Lady 2 - Same as above - Just less smiling.
2001 - Dragon Lady 2 - Relocate to Midwest, New House. She is hot, you are not, she doesn't know, you smile and pay. All stainless cook top, dual ovens (1200.00 storage container for a turkey pan) refrigerator, dishwasher, Maytag’s, microwave, mixer, the whole deal around 15000.

With the addition of some freezers for the deer, fish and fowl I am going to eat someday (I have some aged venison going back to 1984) I would say I was a fairly loyal Sears customer at around 90K over 20 years. Ands to be completely honest the only thing I can ever remember having repaired was a dishwasher twice and I have a strange feeling that had more to do with the fact that Latin Nightmare would open the door and stand on it to reach the top shelf of the spice rack. So neatly said I have some very fond memories of my Sears experience.

Until 2003 - DL2 decided she needed another kitchen on the first floor of the house. I'm thinking great now maybe I can get an American meal. We will build it and then I will put up a "No Chinese Food" sign and I’m covered. Great plan, impossible to enforce without booking a room at the red roof. We build the kitchen and buy a stainless steel 2 door frig (Warrior Wife Odds on you got the same model as I vividly remember the mullet who delivered same saying "Leave er plugged in for 24 hours before you use it") and a dishwasher, I had just picked up a used commercial stove and ice maker and had them installed. Guaranteed five year warranty on Compressor and 3 year on dishwasher. 2 weeks in the dishwasher melts. Great. 5 week odyssey to hell to get them to admit the heat coil nearly burned the house down. They replaced it with a better model after 5 trips back and forth with the wrong parts. Good for 8 months and then the frig dies. This is what lost me. First it was the warranty is expired. 8 months into the deal and my five year warranty no longer exists and it is my fault because I could have purchased the extended warranty? Odd. I have my receipt, my manual, and info from their web page that clearly states I have a five year warranty. I am told by local parts manager that they changed the policy to 1 year. It does matter what my paper work says because they can change the warranty. Fair enough but he could not show me where in our agreement it stated that Sears could do this. I then called Kenmore and wasted a week going back and forth only to be told I had to go through Sears parts as Kenmore only sends service techs out for water filtration systems. Three weeks later I finally got a new compressor installed after literally sitting in a manager’s office and saying fuck it have me arrested. 4 months later the compressor goes to crap again. Same drama. This time the excuse is that they have already fixed it once. Back and forth for ten days and only the same manager got it fixed for me. This time I walked in with a pillow and made it clear I was camping out until my frig got fixed. At this point I have proven that I am a good paying customer who has had a credit account in good standing for more than 25 years and never missed a payment. I was just blasted by the fact that they would treat a customer like this. Three months later I am on the road working and I get the call that the downstairs frig has died yet again. Now sit in the back of a surveillance van and try and convince moron after moron that you frig has the same problem for the third time. At one point I am on a knee taking a leak into a milk bottle and I was screaming at the half-wit with such force I coated my driver’s lunch from subway with a fine stream. Yes I told him and it was his choice not to starve. After three days of the same back and forth I gave up and told my wife to toss it and buy a new one from Home Depot. I then called Sears and cancelled my card. Paid in full and closed. Or so I thought.

Here is where I failed - The secret is never to let LN drop off the kids to DL2 while you are out of town. Never give an ex the opportunity to sit and become good friends with current wife. Never let them shop together. You single men need to write this shit down. And never in a jest full way after a few bottles of Dragon's Milk let the words "Since you two have become so close why don’t we take this to the next level?" slip out of your mouth . This will incur a lengthy stay at the Marriott, several nasty attorney calls, and in the end 4 glorious weeks baking in the Philippines with no hope of getting to Bangkok.

These two do not throw away the old frig away. They do not go to Home Depot. The pair who I will hereafter refer to as Pansit Taco go back to Sears and cut a deal on a 4500.00 frig "That has juice in the door" and get 400.00 credit plus the repair for the broken frig that will now be picked up, repaired and then delivered to LN's mother. Oh and for good measure we may as well get a new washer and dryer as well as the neighbor needs a washer. I show up three weeks later and just sit in the kitchen for about 4 hours looking at my new frig "with Juice in the door" and wondering what dumbass at LG failed to realize that middle aged males could give two shits about juice in the door, throw a tap in the door and they couldn't make enough of the damn things. DL2 comes in and starts the new washer up, a front load LG which is the shit, this thing had to be bolted to the floor of the laundry room and the clothes come out of the spin cycle dry, barely need the dryer. So I decide I should just shut up as she is still hot and I’m not and I am slowly coming to the realization that she now knows this when all six of my dogs hear the washers spin cycle start and come ripping into the laundry room. 6 miniature pinschers following a drum spinning at around 3200 rpm until my stud drops to the floor and has some kind of small seizure. That in itself is enough to make you forget the cost and on top of that I have "Juice in the door". Fast forward 4 months or so later and I am buying a new van. Got what I want and I am waiting for the lease papers and I am told I cannot get the agreed upon terms because my credit is bad. Weird. I pay my bills. Seems some company has gone to collection because I did not pay a 6104.00 bill. News to me. I'll be back. Get into this and then I realize that while I was cancelling my account Pansit Taco are charging on the account and since the account was now shut down I never received any mail? So they sent this straight to collection. No mail, no phone call, no smoke signals, just straight to the attorney. Nice. I will give them credit for the LG line though nice equipment, ten year warranty that they may or may not honor, and from what I hear the repaired frig only gets to around 45 degrees so maybe my ex mother in law will catch a nasty case of the runs from her next day old bowl of menudo.

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