Sounds like a rip off to me

i had a LONG rant about sears service over the last few years and my PC rebooted before i coudl post it.

long and short of it is my parents pay sears over 1100.00 a year for a BUNCH of maintenance. not one single thing has ever been covered nor has Sears every shown up on the day promised, usually at least 2 weeks later.

Sears charges the fee for all calls, but the tech usually will waive the fee if they determine the work was covered under maint/warranty. not always, btu usually. this still does not excuse the POOR CUSTOMER SERVICE they hav egiven in the last 5-6 years. parents will be without their fridge for 2 weeks cause sears says they scheduled it for 2 weeks from now instead of yesterday. good thign we had a spare fridge at work i brought to them to get them by.

That Sears fridge story reminds me... My Dad purchased a Sears fridge many years ago. It was delivered and plugged it in. The fan ran and ran and ran. Never got cold. He called customer service, they said it might take 24 hours to cool down. 24 hours later it was still not cold. So he called them again and had the service person come out. Found that one of the wires was not connected to the compressor and hooked it back up.

Dad told them to get him a new fridge as he was not satisfied with this one. They protested but eventually did replace it.

As to a spare fridge - there was one in the garage - probably late '50s vintage. Used to store auto parts except on special occasions when it was cleaned out to be filled with beer or to serve as a stand in for a new one in the house which had failed. I will have to check with my sister and see if it is still there.

Hi Taylorkh, I am not suprised at the cost for the warranty fee, just look at what they want to charge you if you use the Sears charge card and don't pay it off before 30 days, how about 24.99% on the unpaid balance regardless of what your credit rating is. I destroyed my Sears card that I had for 20 plus years ! In the old days they would not take any other charge card.
Glenn

Not only that, but I have a protection agreement on my GT. Well, a several visits later and a new engine I'm feeling pretty good about having that P/A with them. The tech that came to the house to do the work asks me if I wanted to extend it. I said how much and he said $399 for the first year. WHAT!! Hell, it was $299 for three years before.

He said he thought he could do better after my warranty runs out and that $399/yr figure is automatically building in the "loss" that Sears incurred through the first 3 year span. Loss?!?!? What the hell are protection agreements for if not to cover these things. What a bunch of thieves.

Jimtnc

I think what he was trying to say is that Extended Warranties, like Life (Death) Insurance rates go up as you get older.

Nothing surprising about that.

You could have taken that $299 and bought a better tractor in the first place and not had to worry about replacing engines ; ) Extended warranties are a farce.

When you pay the steep price for a name brand mower what do you think you are paying for? You are paying for a warranty! The mom and pops just hide the cost of the warranty into the price of the mower. Sears keeps their price down and then asks you to purchase the extended warranty for an additional charge. Dont get me wrong I agree with some of the crazy fees that Sears does but so do 99% of the other companies. I see on a regular basis for mom and pops to "look" at your mower there is a $30.00 look fee that they will apply to the cost of fixing the mower it they do it. Yea, Sears credit card fees are a joke but who is going to regulate them? Your taking a gamble with the warranties that is why I make it a point to learn about the products I purchase so if the time comes to fix them I can within reason...

Doesn't Sears tell you about these fees when they sell you that kind of thing? I know they have told us before, but I wonder if it isn't standard procedure.