For instance, we just bought ourselves a new lawnmower, something that in times past we would have purchased at Sears. This time however, we went to Walmart – $168.00

My wife bought new runners at New Balance store – $99.99

etc, etc, etc

just try to understand my post it’s a little messy..
GOD BLESS to all..

To whoever suggested contacting Dene Rogers, President and CEO—

I am the person with the botched roof job by Sears Canada. I got nowhere with Customer Service so I emailed Rogers twice. Twice it got hijacked by Customer Service. Here is the reply from Diane in Customer Service, Belleville Ont—

Stonewalling from Sears (Note? "We apologize", but we won't fix it)

Hello Ms **

As stated by our? service manager, Sears is not responsible for this repair.

Please be aware that once you have reached the Customer Service level, you have reached the supervisory level and all final decisions are made and followed from here.

We do apologize for the difficulties that you encountered.
Regards,

Diane

We have shopped Sears for all of our 40+ years of marriage and have always been so very pleased with how any inevitable difficulties were handled by their customer service people. The focus has always been on customer satisfaction. Our positive experiences of 40 years were completely overshadowed yesterday when we brought in for return the Eureka® Vacuum because we were just frustrated with its inability to handle even the smallest tasks with any sort of dependability.

We purchased the vacuum from Sears.ca web site in late Feb of this year and it was delivered to our local Sears outlet near the end of the first week of March 2010. Our intent was to have a small easy to use vacuum which would be capable of handling small & quick cleanups without the hassle of our having to haul out our larger, full-size, plug-in vacuum. Initially the vacuum seemed to be doing just what we had hoped it would. Although we dutifully emptied the canister and shook out the filter after each use we began to notice after a few weeks that it was becoming less and less able to pick even the smallest bits up from the carpet. On Saturday, April 3rd things came to a head when we found that the vacuum was doing almost nothing at all. The batteries were charged full and when we disassembled the machine the suction seemed to be there . . . it was just not doing the job. As we had 30 days in which to return the machine we drove quickly into Calgary with it to your Chinook Centre store and brought it around to the Catalog Centre and explained our dilemma to the clerk in attendance.

Her first response was that we could not return it just because we didn’t like how it worked. It had to be broken in order to return it. Taken aback, it seemed as if she were suggesting we should bring it back outside, break it and then bring it back in to her for return. Her follow-up to that was that the hand/stick vacuum was never intended to replace a full size vacuum. We explained that we knew that, we had a full size vacuum. All we wanted it for was to do quick carpet touch-ups. "Well", she said, "this machine was never intended to be used on carpets, that’s what full size vacuums were for." I pointed out that the machine had a ‘FLOOR’ setting & a ‘CARPET’ setting, right there on the body of the vacuum.

After this she said we would still be unable to return it because we didn’t have the original packaging. I explained that the machine had seemed to be working in the beginning, and that after 3 weeks or so we sent the box off to recycling, as we do with all of our extra boxes. Not good enough she said, “No original box, No returns.” Period. As she herself had already packaged up the vacuum in a box she had with her at the catalog counter, I asked why that box wouldn’t be suitable for sending it back to wherever it gets returned to. Her unflinching response . . . “No original box, No returns.”

Next she said we could not return it because we had no receipt. Ah, I thought, there you are wrong. When we ordered the vacuum on the Sears.ca website we were given a receipt to print out immediately after payment was made which included our order number, confirmation number, destination, date of purchase, method of payment, amount of payment, etc., which I promptly handed to her. "No", she said, "that is not a receipt. The receipt is taped to the package when it is shipped to customers. It contains the UPC and proof of purchase." All of my past experience suggested that this was a shipping label, not a receipt. As a result it got recycled with the box. She replied, "No proof of purchase means no returns, period." I responded that the very fact Sears had taken money from my account and the information contained in the paperwork the website had given me to print off should prove more than adequate as proof of purchase. "No", she said . . . “No Proof of Purchase, No Returns.”

I confess to being a little overwhelmed at all this apparently obstructionist behavior. I should interject that the desk clerk remained very calm throughout all of this and never raised her voice once and, in fact, seemed somewhat empathetic to our plight. However, she said, policy is policy and there would be no getting around that.

Never in all of my years dealing with Sears had I run into such refusal to use logic. I said it seemed all sense of fair play had been eradicated and that the quality of the product now took a backseat to the wording of the policy. My pointing out that there was absolutely nothing on the website telling me that the receipt would come inside a plastic bag taped to the package when I received it fell on deaf ears. Any reasonable person would assume the paperwork generated by Sears.ca upon their receipt of my payment was indeed a receipt, “No Proof of Purchase, No Returns.”

So, there I was, having spent over half an hour on a procedure that should have taken mere minutes and I was absolutely no further ahead than when I walked in the store. Seeing my look of frustration, she told me that Sears had introduced a whole new set of guidelines for returns and that my situation was covered by them. Ironically, there were two very different sets of return guidelines mounted on the very counter over which we were talking. Upon arriving home yesterday I went to Sears.ca site and took a look at their Returns Policy:

Sears Canada Inc. Return Policy
Effective May 4th 2009
Our goal is that you are completely satisfied with your purchase. If for any reason you are not satisfied, simply return your purchase with your receipt for an exchange or refund within 90 days when purchased on your Sears Card, Sears® MasterCard® or Sears Gift Card.

I wish to draw your attention to the opening line of that policy. I have always in the past believed customer satisfaction to be the very fundamental reason why we wanted return to Sears time & time again. This past Christmas alone, we purchased some $200 in Sears Gift Cards and received even more back as gifts from our family. At the present moment we have a fridge, washer, dryer, water softener, (almost all of my power tools are Craftsman) all purchased from Sears. Not because Sears price is the lowest. Walmart, Zellers, Canadian Tire all often are able to beat the Sears price. Why we have always shopped Sears is because Sears can be counted on in those rare instances when the products they sell cannot be. Our experience yesterday has suggested that is no longer the case. We left your store as upset as we have ever been and left our unwanted vacuum on the floor behind the catalog desk, much to the protestations of your clerk.

I am aware that we are powerless to make Sears do anything. They have our money. They have our vacuum. What they don’t have is our confidence, our trust and now, our patronage, all over a $60 item. There are just too many other retailers trying hard to win our business for us to put this behind us as just a one-off, bad experience. Truth be told, my wife and I have always enjoyed shopping at Sears. That enjoyment has been taken from us. Sadly, we will no longer be able to tell friends, “I’m glad you asked; we got this at Sears.”

THE RESPONSE FROM SEARS CUSTOMER SERVICE

In spite of their stating on their website, "Our goal is that you are completely satisfied with your purchase. If for any reason you are not satisfied, simply return your purchase with your receipt for an exchange or refund . . ." and in spite of my having told them I no longer have the vacuum, The following is their response:

The vacuum can not be accepted back as a return as it is used and out of the original packaging. However, if the unit is not working the way it is designed to, the suction is not there, then we would order a replacement one. Please take the unit back . . . At that time it will be determined if the unit is defective and then they will reorder the same product for you. Please note the Associate at the Store does have the final decision to determine if the vacuum is defective or not.

Thanks for using Sears online.

Regards,

Christine
Sears Corporate Customer Service