Sears is making it hard to be angry (long)....

[trunks2k]

Not sure exactly where to put this, since it's a mix of bad and good employees at sears. I guess this is the best place.

I recently moved into a new apartment a couple weeks ago. Being the first time I was fully living on my own, it meant that I had to buy a ton of stuff. Part of my shopping spree meant going to Sears. I decided I was going to buy a table and chairs, as well as an expensive vacuum.

Since the total was going to be over $600, I decided that I'd open a credit account with Sears so I could get no interest for a couple months and pay it off over a bit of time. So first I buy the vacuum, before I open the account, I tell the girl I want to buy the table & chairs too. She says it's no problem and continues to process my application. As she's doing this, she really gives off a feeling of "I'm not exactly sure I'm doing this right." But whatever. I finish that with no problem and try to buy the table and chairs. But they're not in stock. OK, no problem, she can order them. So she calls sears.com and goes to place the order. Hands me the phone to talk to the girl on the other end to get my info. No problem.

Then the girl at the other end can't get the order to process. Can she get my number and call me back? Ummm.. ok. A few minutes later she calls back, she finally gets it through and needs my payment information. What's my account number? I dunno, I JUST opened the account, I thought the other girl had taken care of that. I spend a good 20 minutes (in real time, not customer time) trying to figure out how she can get my info. No dice. So she tells me to go back into the store and talk to an associate, they should be able to get my info. By this time I'm a bit mad at the initial girl, and a little annoyed at the girl on the phone but I know it's not her fault.

So I go back inside and find someone. He tells me they can't get my account number, but the barcoe on my reciept will work. Of course this doesn't help the girl on the phone. They decide to to use my barcode to buy a gift card for the amount and use the gift card to pay for the table. That's a bit convoluted.... but whatever. I wait a couple minutes for the guy, who is being very nice and helpful, to get a gift card. He gets the gift card and can't process it. Finally I give up with the girl on the phone (on my CELLPHONE btw, lucky I have a lot of minutes), and cancel the order.

Guy continues to be helpful and finds out my credit limit is only $500, b/c they apparently will only give enough credit for the purchase requested when I applied for the card. Hence why I wanted to buy the table and vacuum at the same time. So now I gotta put it on my normal credit card, which I didn't want to do. But I really want the table. It has now been like 45 minutes.

Helpful guy then asks "BTW why where you talking to sears.com?". I tell him that's because that is who the initial girl called. He tells me there's no reason she had to do that and they can order directly from the system. Which he does and in two minutes flat my table and chairs are ordered. I'm annoyed that it took so long to get it all done, but I'm not gonna take it out on this guy; he was helpful, so I bottle up my anger and let it go.

*flash foreward till two days ago*

Sears calls and says they have my stuff. I go to pick it up. Doesn't look like it would be what I ordered, but I figure it is possible. Guy checks the reciept, so I figure it must be right, and manages to make it fit in my tiny car, and I have a very uncomfortable ride home. I get home and start to take out my box. Fuck this is waaaay too lite to be table and chairs. Get the box out, and open it up. Not even CLOSE to the right thing. Now fuming mad at both myself and Sears, I shove the two chairs they sent me back into the car, and have another uncomfortable ride back to sears. By this point I'm really angry, and trying to keep myself from just yelling at the shipping guy, after all why did he bother checking my reciept if the box has the wrong item number on it?

The shipping guy comes and helps me unload the car, and is really nice and helpful. Damnit... must bottle anger now. No being mean to nice people. He looks at the box and finds that the item number on the box matches my reciept, so that's why he sent me off with the box in the first place. He decides to cancel my order and figure out why the item numbers are the same. Once that's figured out, they'll call me back and we can arrange it all, so that I don't accidentally get the same thing again.

So I head home. Angry at Sears for screwing up so much, but nobody to be angry AT, I really just need to vent at someone. But that's wrong.

A few hours later I get a call from Sears, they figured out the problem. Offer me to reorder the stuff at the new sale price ($50 off) plus free delivery so I don't have to drive back to the mall. So I'm happy now.

Then a few minutes later I get another call from them "Your credit card won't let us process the transaction, you need to call them and clear the alert you have". So I call my credit card company, clear the fraud alert and tell sears to give it another shot. They say ok, and hang up. 10 minutes later, they call back "It still won't go through" so I figure the alert clear hasn't fully processed yet and just give them a different card to use.

Flash foreward to this morning and I try to use my card, still getting denied. Call up the credit card company and ask about the alert. Sears had bene using hte wrong expriation date. Grrr.............. Now it's too late to yell at anyone.

[Plaidman]

I swear I'm laughing at yo-... err with you =). I'm sorry it went so bad, but hey, at least they tried miseribly right? Ya gotta love that. It'll all work out in the end, I promise.

[Dips]

Plaidman is right. It will all work out in the end. If only getting to the end wasn't so darn...ummm...interesting.

I've been there recently. I'm going to have to start a thread about the several frustrating weeks of misinformation and errors which came after a tree fell during a storm...

[CanadaGirl]

In my opinion, Sears is the most expensive place around here to buy furniture. Walmart, Zellers, Home Outfitters, and Ikea are ten times cheaper than Sears. But if you like the store, I guess dealing with all that mess is manageable. But one thing, why didn't you apply for the Sears credit card before you bought the dinette set and vacuum? That way there would be no confusion and you'd actually have the card on hand.

[trunks2k]

Quoth CanadaGirl

In my opinion, Sears is the most expensive place around here to buy furniture. Walmart, Zellers, Home Outfitters, and Ikea are ten times cheaper than Sears.

I refuse to shop at Walmart. Don't have Zellers or Home Outfitters.

Ikea is actually not any cheaper than sears when you consider the quality of the items. The table and chairs I got is made out of oak, and only cost $199 (on sale). A similar item at Ikea which was made out of much softer wood, and quite frankly didn't look even nearly as as nice, cost about the same.

But I did buy a TV stand thing at Ikea plus some other miscellaneous crap.

I had actually gone into sears because my mom told me they had a good set of pots and pans on sale. I ended up buying those from Costco.

[One-Fang]

Sears may be more expensive, but some people don't shop on price alone.

Although, it doesn't as if the service made up for any of it!

Does remind me though of when we ordered a new computer desk. Three weeks it took to build and arrive, so we go down to pick it up. I pull out the receipt, and it has the wrong colour written on it. Um, uh-oh. Sure enough, the table in store is that colour, not what we ordered. We did specifically order the right colour, but didn't check the receipt well enough, obviously. Our fault. But the store was exceptionally good about it. They took it back, ordered the right one, knocked $50 off, *and* gave us free delivery.

I think it slipped through because the colour written was the one the display model was, and we maybe though it was the model or a reference to which table rather than the specifics on our actual one. Not a really great excuse, but mildly conceivable.

[Crosshair]

Wait, you actualy got approved for a Sears Credit Card. Never saw that before. I worked at Sears for 3 whole months before being laid off because of bad Christmas sales. I never shop at Sears anymore because of now they treated their workers.

[Mr. Rager!]

I work at Sears. I actually really like working there too...

It sounds like the first gal you worked with wasn't trained in properly, or enough. If the item is carried at the store, you can order it through the store. It's easier that way.

The managers *could* actually bring up your account number right after you open an account and buy something. They can print an office receipt that has your account number on it.

Sears (at least the one I work at) will typically try and go out of their way to make sure you have a good shopping experience. That's because we have a mission, vision and values.

[trunks2k]

Quoth Crosshair

Wait, you actualy got approved for a Sears Credit Card.

Only with a $500 limit. Just enough to buy the vacuum. I have pretty decent credit for a recent college grad.

[trunks2k]

Quoth Fashion Lad!

Sears (at least the one I work at) will typically try and go out of their way to make sure you have a good shopping experience. That's because we have a mission, vision and values.

See that's kinda what I found annoying. Everytime something happened due to someone's incompetence/bad training/mistake, someone else would step in and be all helpful. So I was angry at the previous person, but couldn't give the new person an attitude. So my anger just got all bottled up. I'm a very patient person, and rarely get annoyed enough to the point that I'm willing to start being mean to someone, by that point just let me yell at someone or something. ANYTHING. I need to let my anger go, even if it's just an angry "Just let me speak to a manager please, because this just unacceptable," but I can't let it out at someone that doesn't deserve it.