Sears review: promised rebate not honored ( 1 comment)

On September 7, 2010, we purchased a range from Sears at Countryside Mall, marked down $50 to a price of $349.93. Our salesperson Teresa asked if we wanted delivery and haul off, and we told her that it wasn't necessary because we had driven a pickup truck specifically for the purpose of handling that ourselves. When she explained that we would be issued a gift card rebate for the full amount of delivery and haul off ($69.99 plus $10.00), in effect making it free, we agreed - as she said, "Why not?" Teresa provided us with information on the website to visit and the information we'd need to enter from our receipt, and we did so that very evening.

About six weeks later, we inquired about the status of the rebate, which was still listed as "pending." We were told that our purchase didn't qualify because the amount we spent was $50 too low, so we would not be issued the promised rebate of almost $80 in delivery/haul off charges.

We spoke to our salesperson, Teresa, who says that she can't remember the exact conversation but is sure she would not have told us that we would receive a rebate gift card on this purchase because she's worked at Sears too long to make such a mistake. Using the same hypothetical reasoning, we are both sure that we would not have accepted a $50 discount on an item which caused us to incur a $80 delivery/haul off charge for a net loss of $30.00, but it's unnecessary to argue hypotheticals because we both clearly remember the conversation that our salesperson doesn't remember: Again, we drove to Sears in a pickup truck with a hand cart for the express purpose of transporting the range ourselves and no intention of paying anyone for delivery, then accepted this option only because we were told that the full cost would be rebated to us.

We are being charged $80 for a service we did not need and would never have agreed to without the promise of a full rebate. We have phoned Sears over a dozen times throughout the past few weeks. Each call, including the call directly to our salesperson, resulted in our number being taken and assurance that a manager (who was each time off for the day, in a meeting, on a conference call, etc) would call us back to resolve the matter. No manager, or anyone else from Sears, has bothered to return a single one of these calls.

Michael J Coomes
Elizabeth A Broom