Sears appliance purchase and delivery extremely stressful

We ordered a washer and dryer from Sears.com on March 31. We were promised a delivery date of April 9. I arranged to have work off in order to be home during the "delivery window". I also had to unhook the old appliances, turn off the gas line and take a few doors off their hinges (old house)so that the deliverymen could fit the appliances in my house. Sears never showed up. I was angry about the lost wages and the hassle but nonetheless I re-scheduled delivery for a date the following week. I re-hooked every thing up so I could launder clothes in the meantime. The following week, I went through the preparations again and arranged to take work off so I could be home during the "delivery window". Once again, they never showed up at the promised time. I called Sears. After much waiting on hold, I was transferred to someone on the "Sears recovery team". The Sears representative admitted to me that they didn't have the appliances they had sold me and she had no idea when they would have them. She then suggested that we go through the Sears online catalog and pick out different models that were in stock. She sold me a similar washer and dryer and she promised me that she had double-checked the inventory and that we would have the dryer delivered on Saturday and the washer a few days later. I cleared out my schedule on Saturday and prepared my basement for the new delivery. But they never came. At this point, I was fed up with Sears and decided to cancel the whole thing and buy my new appliances from ApplianceSmart. When I called to cancel, I was unbelievably told that in order to "return" the appliances (at this point I was charged for 2 washers and 2 dryers on my credit card)I had to refuse delivery of them. What a catch 22! The appliances seemingly will never be delivered, and yet in order to cancel them I have to refuse delivery!

I called my credit card company and they promptly reversed the charges on my account so that I wouldn't have to pay a bill while Sears sorted this out. Since then, Sears has been slowly issuing me credits for the appliances. I am no longer on the hook for the appliances, but I can't believe the work, hassle and time that I went through just trying to give Sears my business. In addition to the hassle I have already described, telephoning Sears to find out what was going on with the delivery of my appliances was a thankless task. Every time I called Sears to ask them what was going on, I had to wait on hold, be transferred to various persons and explain the predicament anew. No phone call was under 30 minutes long, and twice I was on the phone for almost an hour.

Ordering these appliances from Sears turned out to be one of the most unpleasant consumer experiences I have ever had.

By the way, I ordered slightly better appliances form ApplianceSmart for the same price and they were delivered without incident four days later.