Sears Gift Cards

California.

Sears gift cards cannot be used at Sears.com.

I received two Sears gift cards for my birthday from family members who

wanted to help me purchase a product that Sears sells on line at

Sears.com. Imagine my surprise when I discovered that Sears gift cards

are NOT HONORED at Sears.com. Not only is it not possible to use the

cards to order on line, but Sears makes NO PROVISIONS whatsoever for

their gift cards to be applied to the purchase of any items from

Sears.com. I have worked my way all the way up the customer support food

chain, ending with an email to the CEO and have met with the same

response at every level. "Sorry. But feel free to use the cards in our

retail stores." They do not stock this item in their retail stores.

I have verified with customer service that I cannot:

a) Use the cards on line

b) Redeem the cards for cash

c) Use the cards in-store to order the item from Sears.com

d) Apply the balance of the gift cards to a Sears charge card which I

could then use on Sears.com

Under California law: Business and Professions Code Section

17537.11(a)., it states "Gift certificates cannot be offered in a manner

that is untrue or misleading."

In my opinion it is completely misleading for Sears to offer gift cards

that cannot be used at a sears store, on line or otherwise, without a

large and clear indication at the point of purchase that discloses this

fact. The family members who purchased the cards for me are not stupid,

one is a high level network engineer for a large telecommunications

company, it never crossed their minds that these cards might not work on

Sears.com and I think that is true for the majority of people. Not only

that but these cards are advertised ALL OVER the Sears.com web site

which is further misleading. Yes the fine print discloses the

limitation, however most people would not think to check the fine print

to find out if a *Sears* gift card could be used at *Sears*.