Browse Categories

• Airlines
• Appliances, Equipment, Tools
• Arts, Crafts
• Books
• Building, Construction
• Business, Finances
• Cars, Motorcycles, Boats, Vehicles
• Clothing, Shoes, Apparel
• Computers, Software
• Consumer Electronics
• Delivery, Moving Services, Storage
• Education
• Entertainment
• Food
• Furniture
• Gambling Games
• Games, Gaming Consoles
• Government, Police
• Health, Beauty
• Home, Garden
• Hotels
• Internet Services
• Jewelry, Watches
• Job, Career
• Kids, Baby
• Law, Civil Rights
• Magazines, Newspapers
• Nature, Environment
• News, Media
• Online Scams
• Online Shopping
• Other
• Pets, Animals
• Products, Services
• Public Transportation, Taxi
• Real Estate
• Restaurants, Bars
• Scam Contests
• Society, Culture
• Sports, Recreation
• Stores, Shopping
• Telecommunications
• Telemarketing
• Travel, Vacations
• TV, Music, Video
• Unauthorized Charges
• Unsolicited Phone Calls
• Wedding Services

Company: Sears will not honour warranty in Northern Ontario

Category: Other

I bought a fridge from Sears in January of this year. By May, the

knocking noise it made was so loud and often that I sometimes awoke at

night thinking that someone was pounding at my front door. I

contacted the Sears Customer Service number at 800-265-3675 at the end

of May. They told me that the repair service in my area of Northern

Ontario was contracted out and that they would put in a request for

the contractor to contact me. I phoned the number again ten days

later to complain that things were no better and that I had not been

contacted. I was assured that the contractor would contact me in a

couple of days.

In mid-June I sent an email to Sears Customer Service again requesting

that someone contact me to service the fridge. I received an

immediate reply asking for my name and telephone number, which were

both clearly listed at the end of my original email. I resent the

information, including the serial and model numbers of the item in

question. I also phoned the 800 number again and was told yet again

that the contractor would be calling me in a couple of days. I was

told that since I had already called several times, that I would be

placed on a priority list.

When the contractor did finally call in early July, he informed me

that Sears refrigerators should come with a Woody Woodpecker sticker

as they all knock. He further informed me that this was because they

used so little Freon, for environmental reasons, and that they also

used underpowered compressors. He claimed that my best bet was to

place the fridge between some cabinets to muffle the sound. He also

said that there was nothing he could do about it, and that I would

just have to learn to live with the noise. He specifically said that

Sears refrigerators were garbage.

On July 9th, I sent a synopsis of my conversation with the contractor

to Sears customer service and requested that the fridge be replaced if

it could not be serviced. I received an immediate reply that my case

would be referred to Corporate customer service.

Ten days later on July 19th, I received an email from Corporate

customer service saying that they could not locate my file, would I

please send them the phone number used at the time of purchase. Even

though every customer service rep I talked to was able to call up the

purchase details using the appliance serial number, Corporate customer

service was unable (or simply unwilling?!?) to use that same number to

call up the file. So on July 20th, I resent all of the information

from the first email I had sent, including my wife's name, our

address, phone number, and the serial number of the appliance.

I sent more emails on August 5th. One to Product Repair =96 In Home

that I found on the Amercian Sears site, which came back as

"Unfortunately, we are unable to provide the information you

requested". They are obviously not interested in forwarding it or me

on to anyplace that can actually provide me with assistance. And I

also sent another email to Sears Canada Customer Service, which sent

me back a response saying "Thank you for your recent email. It has

been added to previous correspondence dealing with this issue and will

be addressed by one of our Corporate Customer Service associates."

Since it takes Corporate customer service anywhere from 10 days to

infinity to respond, I doubt I will see anything arise from that

complaint either. Unfortunately, there are no avenues to complain

about poor service on neither the Canadian nor American websites for

Sears.

I have waited two months during which I have called Sears six times

and emailed an equal number of times. I have decided to send this

synopsis to as many blogs, msg boards and discussion groups as I can

find to alert others to this untenable situation. I feel that Sears

had defrauded me by refusing to service their appliances despite the

claim that we have a warranty.

We have six or sever major appliances that we purchased from Sears,

many of them with extended warranties. These warranties are obviously

worthless since Sears cannot or will not service appliances in

Northern Ontario. I have forwarded this message to as many people as

I can at Sears in the hope that someone will take responsibility for

this problem and get it solved. If they cannot honour their warranty

by servicing the appliance, then simply replace the product. And stop

taking people's money for extended warranties when you cannot even

provide service on the regular warranty.

--=20

Mitch Grawbarger

IT Training & Consulting

GrawbTech.com

705.266.8862