The great Sears drill press debacle

[Ralph Wiggum]

I like many tried to get one of the 17 inch drill presses last year when Sears put them on sale. Our local store only had the floor model, so I had to order one. I paid for it in full, and was told I would get it in a couple of weeks. Well a week or so later I get a letter saying it was all a big mistake and they would not honor the sale, along with a check refunding my money.
Well imagine my surprise last night when I get home and find a letter in my mail box from Sears trying to sell me a extended warranty on the very same drill press....I know it was a computer generated letter, from some database who knows where, but talk about pouring salt in a old wound.

R.W. who no longer shops at Sears

[John Keeton]

R.W. who no longer shops at Sears

Ralph, wise decision! There are other threads on the creek regarding the customer service, or lack thereof, with Sears, and I have my own personal history that lead me to the same conclusion. Sorry about your experience, though. The real question - did you end up getting a drill press? What kind?

[Wade Lippman]

I even got an email from Sears saying my drillpress was ready for backup. I went in and, after waiting 2 hours, was told that it wasn't ready and probably never would be. HOWEVER they would cancel my internet order and place a store order for the same thing. The first one that came in would be mine. A month later they called and said they were canceling that order too. But, they appreciated my patience and knew I was being treated poorly; they would make it up to me. I never heard from then again.

Haven't shopped at Sears again either. I don't even look at their supplements. I got an offer of an extended warranty on something last week; but since I hadn't bought anything from them I threw it out without reading it. Must have been the drill press.

(Well, thats not quite true; I DID buy a Bosch 1617 from them on closeout for $40. That doesn't make me a bad person, does it?)

[John Keeton]

(Well, thats not quite true; I DID buy a Bosch 1617 from them on closeout for $40. That doesn't make me a bad person, does it?)

Depends on your level of boycott! In one of the larger malls in our area, one of the main entrances is through Sears. I have told my wife that if we are there, the Mall catches on fire and Sears is the only available exit - she needs to run for her life, and make my funeral arrangements because it is my day to die!! I will never darken their doors again.

[Dave Anderson NH]

The first credit card I ever got was a Sears when I had just finished college. I've had it for almost 37 years. Las tyear they sold the cards to another one of those mega credit card companies with the hidden and out rageous fees, cut the grace period to 14 days, and raised the interest rates for everyone. My card went into the shredder. I have excellent credit and won't put up with such crap. On the very rare occasions now when I even venture into a Sears, I pay cash or use a MC or Visa.

Nothing they sell anymore is at all price competetive for a given quality level whether it's tools or clothing. It's too bad to have been watching the steady decline of what was once a great retailer.

[Stan Urbas]

Quite a few years ago I bought a 23" color TV from Sears. VERY expensive. Only problem was, it didn't get the cable channels above ch 13. But back then I checked with the cable company, and they assured my they would probably NEVER go beyond ch 13. Of course, 3 months later they did, so I was stuck using a cable box. I also was asked it I wanted an extended service contract and of course, I didn't.

A year later the warrantee on the TV expired. A week after that the picture tube started going black after about 30 minutes. Over the next week or so, the "on" time of the tube became less and less, until it was down to about a minute. So there I was, with a TV that I really no longer wanted and would no longer work.

About that time I got a call from Sears. They noticed that my warrantee had expired and wanted to know if I was interested in an extended contract. Of course I said yes, and signed up right then and there. Two days later I hauled it into the local Sears store.

Well, they fooled around with it for several weeks, kept sending it back as "fixed" and I kept having the same problem. At that point I got a call from Sears customer service asking if I was satisfied with my repairs. I told her what had happened and she decided to refund my full purchase price! She also refunded the cost of the service contract.

So at that pointed, armed with my cash, I went out to buy a new TV. I found that in that year, the TVs now all had cable channels above ch 13, they had more features, and they DROPPED IN PRICE! Bought one on the spot. And when they asked my if I wanted an extended service contract I declined.

So you wonder why Sears was bought out by K-Mart and will probably go out of business in 2009!

[Ben Martin]

So you wonder why Sears was bought out by K-Mart and will probably go out of business in 2009!

You have that backwards there. Sears bought K-Mart...

[Marty Rose]

I was watching The Fox Business News last night. They said
"Sears is in T R O U B L E Financially" with that said it is no wonder that the above problems exist

[Justin Leiwig]

I was watching The Fox Business News last night. They said
"Sears is in T R O U B L E Financially" with that said it is no wonder that the above problems exist

This is the stupid truth about big businesses. I used to work for a company called wacamaw...which was the predicessor to bed, bath and beyond. They bought the failing homeplace franchise from sears because it was cheap. They changed their name to wacamaw homeplace at all their stores, not just the homeplace ones and adopted all of sears homeplace marketing and management team. A year later they were out of business.

K-mart was a failing franchise when Sears bought them and between that and the downturn, they have no chance of sucess.

[Tom Hargrove]

The customer service at Sears has gone away, and will be the death of them. Several years ago my father gave me a Craftsman sander for Christmas. Over the next three months, I used it about three times and it died. It wasn't even dusty.

I took it to Sears for a replacement, and was told that without the receipt, they would not honor the one year warranty, since the production date stamped on the label was more than a year old. I asked to see the manager. While I was waiting to see the manager, I saw a large display of the same sanders. The sample that was out of the box had a production date that was also more than a year old, and was older than the one that I had!

I was still standing next to the display when I spoke to the manager, who also refused to honor the warranty. I pulled the sample from the display and showed him that the units he was selling were older than the one that had failed. He literally turned red in the face. He pulled a new one from the pile, handed it to me and stormed away without another word.

Since then, I tried to return a failed ratchet wrench, and the customer service person tried to give me a used one as a replacement. At another store, the clerk gave me grief when I returned a broken screwdriver (which I had not used as chisel!). That was the last straw. I have a lot of Craftsman hand tools that have served me well over the past 30 years, but I will never shop there again.

[Todd Crawford]

A couple of years ago, I was in a tight place and really needed a detail biscuit jointer. I needed something that would do biscuits less than 1 3/4" I searched all over the place and couldn't find anything, but then I stumbled across one on the sears website and thought "This is exactly what I need." It was for a one time job, so top quality wasn't my main objective at this point, I just needed something and needed it right then. On the website, it said that it was available in my local store and I could purchase online and pick-up in the store. Not wanting them to sell out before I got there, I did this, even purchased the buscuits I would need. So I jump in the truck, with wife in tow and haul butt down to sears. i get there, with my receipt and online confirmation and pick-up slip. Get to the counter and the guy tells me they they do not carry that model but that they will order it for me and it will be in in a couple of days. I tell him that i can't wait that long and that he needs to find me one because when I bought it online it said it was in stock at this store. He calls managers, and they call a couple of numbers and come during all of this calling around, it I hear one of them say, "So we aren't going to carry the biscuits anymore?" So I ask about this and sure enough, they were going to sell a jointer that only they made biscuits for, but they weren't going to sell the biscuits anymore. I was outraged at the whole situation, and went off on them, which is really out of character for me. I got my money back and ended up the PC 557 and that was the best choice I ever made. I use it all the time now with the FF biscuits. I'm not 100% sure if I don't go in there anymore, or if I'm not allowed in there anymore, but either way, unless I something changes, I am done with them. I still have some Craftsman stuff, and some of it is very good stuff, but I am done with Sears!

[Wilbur Pan]

FWIW, when we bought our first house 4 years ago, we needed to get a washer, dryer, and refrigerator. We bought all of them from Sears, and got Kenmore appliances. Between my family and my wife's family, we figured out that we had about 210 appliance-years of trouble free experience with Kenmore.

One of the springs that act as a shock absorber for the clothes drum in our Kenmore washer broke after about six months. Sears got a repairman to our house the next day, who fixed it, and it has been fine ever since.

I still buy Craftsman hand tools: wrenches, screwdrivers, pliers, socket sets, etc.

[Ralph Wiggum]

Ralph, wise decision! There are other threads on the creek regarding the customer service, or lack thereof, with Sears, and I have my own personal history that lead me to the same conclusion. Sorry about your experience, though. The real question - did you end up getting a drill press? What kind?

Yea I bought a Delta drill press from Lowes, and bandsaw from Grizzly. At the time I talked with a manager at Sears, told him all the things I had bought from them in the past, and that I wasn't ever going to buy anything from them again. He didn't even seem to care....

[Justin Leiwig]

He didn't even seem to care....

Why would he? There are 99 million other people out there who will buy from sears. Same way Wal-Mart works. Customer service is no existent so they lower their prices and people come in droves.

[Rick Huelsbeck]

You have that backwards there. Sears bought K-Mart...

From MSNBC.com

NEW YORK - A resurgent Kmart, home of the blue light special, is buying the once-dominant Sears department store chain in a surprising $11 billion gamble it is counting on to help both better compete with Wal-Mart and other big-box retailers.


K-Mart bought Sears