Megan hates Sears. Oh boy, does she hate Sears.

Wow!! I thought my experience with trying to get Sears to fix my dishwasher was bad! This is Division of Motor Vehicles bad!!! This is old Soviet Union customer service bad! The person who contacted their state attorney general is on the right track. Most state attornies general offices have some sort of consumer fraud protection unit. This is what happened to me: got a mail solicitation to 3 days at a resort in Colonial Williamsburg. I realized it was probably a timeshare presentation thing but thought, oh well, I have sales resistance, it will be a nice little vacation. It cost $135 to book the trip and it had to be taken within a certain time frame. I later realized that we would not be able to take the trip within the certain time so I called to cancell. They said you could not cancel. (this was never told to me before) What do you mean I said, you can always cancel hotel reservations at least 48 hours ahead of time at the least. Well, we don't allow that, she said. Let me speak to your manager, I said. Well, I can give you their phone number but they never answer the phone, she says. (she was right). So, I decided to file a complaint with the Attorney General's office. I wrote a certified letter to the resort with a photocopy of the complaint I was filling out with the state AG office. I had not filed the complaint yet. The next week after sending the letter, I got my credit card bill and saw a credit for $135 from the resort (I was also planning to dispute the charge with my CC company if necessary). I hadn't even had to file with the AG and they refunded my money, which shows me they knew what they did was not legal! But get this, they never wrote or called me to tell me they were refunding my money, or apologized or anything like that. Maybe I should have gone ahead and filed the complaint anyway but I was just glad to get my money back.

My other pet peeve about customer service: Call centers with people from India and the Phillipines who speak English (after a fashion) but their accents are so heavy, I can't understand a word they say! This is beyond frustrating when I reflect some American call center drone probably lost their job so it could be outsourced to people who cannot be understood by an American English speaker. Incredible!

We just bought a stove, microwave, refrigerator, dish washer, upright washer and dryer from Sears. The salesperson was very helpful and we spent hours with her over several trips. Sears always has some type of sale going on and she told us to come back for in a week for some of the items. I forgot about an old Sears card I had and they had a 10% off special purchases so she took that off the sales price. She was very knowledgeable and told us to call Lowes and Best Buy. Sears beat their prices for the same models. She convinced us to buy the satin finish on the fridge instead of the stainless, which was a very smart move. The items were shipped when promised and one was not on time but they called to let us know. Consumer Reports rates Sears in the middle of pack for repairs. Of course you locally owned store rates the highest by far, but they can't match the price.

She needs to call a local appliance shop and ask them to do the repair. Contrary to popular belief, techs not under contract to Sears can get parts and do repairs on Kenmores. You might have to wait a little longer to get the part, but you'd get the service much faster, so you'd probably come out ahead, and if it's a shop with a good reputation to maintain, you'll definitely be happier.

If it's still under warranty, that's another matter, but at this point, paying for it herself might be worth ending the cycle of grief.