The temperature hit 83 degrees on June 11.
And the temperature was rising inside Barbara Scull’s refrigerator.
It died.
At least the Kenmore appliance, which she purchased from Sears in 2016, was covered by a service plan. For two years, she’s been paying $60.77 per month — or $729.24 a year — for the
Sears Protect Home Warranty
, which covers up to 12 appliances.
Scull reported the issue, and a technician came to take a look the next day. The temperature outside hit 90 degrees when the verdict came down. The compressor needed to be replaced.
The technician ordered the parts, which arrived at Scull’s home in Clark three days later. Then she called the warranty service back to arrange for the installation.
“My first appointment was for June 20. No one showed up even though I had gotten an email stating that someone would be at my home anywhere from 8 to 5,” said Scull, 74. “I called Sears and questioned why the tech didn’t show, and I was told it was due to a ‘technical problem.’”
She said the representative didn’t explain exactly what that meant, but that wasn’t her biggest worry. It was eight days without the refrigerator.
”Fortunately, we have a refrigerator in the garage, but it’s very inconvenient,” said Scull, 74, who noted that her husband has fallen twice while trying to bring items back and forth from the garage fridge.
A new appointment was set for June 24. But again, the tech was a no-show. It was, once again, a “technical problem,” Scull said she was told.
Another new appointment was set, this time for July 2, which would be the 22nd day without a working fridge.
Can you guess what happened then?
Yup. No tech. No working refrigerator.
“Now they want to reschedule for July 15,” she said, noting that would make 34 days without the fridge. During the hottest weeks of the year.
“I think they just want us to go out and buy a new refrigerator so they don’t have to fix this one — even though the parts have been sitting in our house since June 12,” she said. “I pay monthly for this plan so it seems I’m just paying for nothing.”
“I feel this is very unethical and extremely poor service — if you can actually call it a ‘service’ since no service had been provided,” she said, and she asked Bamboozled for help.
MORE:
Sears took more than 200 days to honor this warranty. What took so long?
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Sears warranty should replace broken washing machine. But, of course, it wasn’t that simple.
We contacted Transformco, which purchased Sears in 2019, and it said it would see what it could do.
Later that day, it confirmed it could move the appointment up to July 10. That was an improvement.
But Scull and her husband couldn’t take it anymore. She called an independent tech on July 8 to replace the compressor, and the job was done in two hours. But it came with a hefty price tag: $650.
We asked the folks at Transformco if they’d consider covering that charge, and quickly, they said yes.
The company also explained that there wasn’t a “technical problem,” but the technicians on those days were unable to make it in time. It could have been for any number of reasons, including because they were stuck at jobs that took longer than expected, or their truck broke down, or they called out sick.
When a customer’s service call is rescheduled, the case is supposed to be marked with a higher priority level so they hopefully won’t be rescheduled again, a spokesperson said. But for Scull, the priority level somehow went back to the base level, which is probably why it happened more than once.
Scull was grateful to be reimbursed the $650, but she’s still annoyed that it happened in the first place.
“It was just a runaround, and a runaround, and a runaround,” she said.
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Karin Price Mueller
may be reached at [email protected]. Follow her on X at
@KPMueller
.
