Sears, Roseville, CA - $ 1,600 Samsung TV broke under Sears warranty - terrible, ongoing repair experience

# 12 for September 27, 2003

Complaints.com received the following on September 26, 2003:

From:

RE: Sears, Roseville, CA - $ 1,600 Samsung TV broke under Sears warranty - terrible, ongoing repair experience

Below is a letter I have sent to Sears regarding their very poor excuse of a service department. September 24, 2003

Alan Lacey, Chairman & CEO

Sears & Roebuck

3333 Beverly Road

Hoffmann Estates

IL 60179

Dear Mr. Lacey

Subject: Warranty Service

I am writing to you to express my extreme displeasure and absolute frustration at how a very simple problem that required a very simple solution was blown up into an absolute disaster mainly in part to the pure lack of concern of your service department. We purchased a Samsung TV from your Roseville store on April 8th costing us over $1600. By the end of August the TV had a convergence issue and was unwatchable. So when calling Sears to express our concern were told that we are still within warranty and someone would be over to fix the TV for us…Great!

On September 2nd, sure enough a very nice technician came to our house and after looking at it determined that the TV could not be fixed right then, and that he would have to order some parts and they would be arriving in the next few days. He then rescheduled us for a return visit on Sept 12th, asking us to call the service department letting them know that the parts had arrived. Although I thought this odd that parts were to be sent to me instead of your parts department, I reluctantly agreed.

Sept 11th rolls around and still no parts. I called your service department, to be informed that the parts were sent by US postal service and I should not expect them until at least the 14th. But we have a technician booked for the 12th? Why would he reschedule the appointment 10 days later, if the parts are to take 2 weeks??? I rescheduled for the 16th.

Sept 14th, still no parts. I called Sears again and was told that Airborne Express had attempted to deliver the parts, but because it's a gated community, they could not deliver. I WISH I lived in a gated community, fact of the matter is, I don't. Was Sears EVER going to call me to let me know this had happened? Please note the trend of this call….customer doing the leg work.

On the morning of the16th, I called Airborne express who verified this information and said they had sent 2 parts back and would deliver the 3rd part the next day. I also called Sears again and informed them that Airborne was doing this and would they send the other 2 parts, to which I was told they would be overnighted to me, and an emergency repair would be booked for the 18th. Sept 18th….No parts. I called Sears, they said that the parts would ship out on the 23rd, and overnight actually means that once the order is placed, it will be overnight. "Oh, did no one mention that the ordering process takes 3 days? Oh, sorry about that".

I then called Airborne Express who told me they had lost the 3rd part and I would have to file a lost package claim with the manufacturer and order a new part. I called Sears back, by this time obviously a little frustrated that I was getting pushed from A to B with nothing but an apology, and you know the thing that really got to me was at every point in the process absolutely NOBODY took any form of responsibility for the lack of customer service. No one. The "manager" ( I use that term loosely), was nothing short of worthless, and told me I should contact the store I bought it from to see if they could help. A manager who cannot make judgment calls and take action to resolve customer concerns has absolutely no right holding such a position. She then told me I should contact the store?????

How about you provide some darn service to me and you contact the store. Again, not one single person within your employ held any accountability, and again…look who's doing all the leg work. Airborne Express were equally at fault in this whole situation, however Mr. Lacey, I did not part with $1600 of my money to Airborne Express, their complete incompetence is a Sears issue, and not mine. I finally gave in and called the store and was fortunate enough to speak to the very nice gentleman who initially sold me the TV, he apologized profusely, and said that he would take some action to fix the issue. After speaking with his manager, he offered me an upgrade in TV (I've since seen this TV on sale for less than I paid for the original, so it's not an upgrade, but I did not know that at the time.)

However, the TV is out of stock until October 4th! So to present day…Airborne Express attempted to deliver the parts and called us for directions. This explained what originally happened, bone idleness was the root cause. Then, a technician from Sears came around to fix the TV, although no parts were on hand to do the job. I am still without TVand my belief in Sears as a reputable company is at rock bottom. Mr. Lacey, please don't lead me to believe that this is what Sears customer service is reduced to. In the last 6 months, we have purchased, a $1600 TV, a $1500 refrigerator, $1300 washer and dryer and a $300 vacuum cleaner from you.

Please don't tell me that you are happy to hear that no one really gives a damn about the customer, and no one wants to step up to the plate and take some responsibility in these situations. Your sales associates are very forward about offering $300 extended warranties, and frankly I'm glad I didn't waste the money, because if this is the indication of service I am going to get for my money, I'd feel even more robbed.

I don't expect to hear back from you personally, being a customer service manager I understand that you employ people to take care of these issues on your behalf, but I would like to hear back from someone with a bit more understanding than Ebony, the school girl minded supervisor/manager I had the displeasure of having handle my original issues. If you feel this is not worthy of such a reply I will take it as Sears really doesn't care and I really should learn to take my business elsewhere. Thank you for your time and I await your response. Respectfully yours, Michael Daley

cc: Kris Krow

Brenda Gill

Better Business Bureau

Complaints.com

Comment On This

I am in the early stages of a similar incident. So, what was the outcome of this letter?