Sears Roebuck and

I used to be a big fan of Sears, even though I’ve had my share of bad experiences with the company. However, my experience trying to get a dehumidifier fixed under warranty has made me despise the company.
About 4 years after I purchased a Kenmore dehumidifier from Sears, the compressor stopped working. Since I knew the compressor had a 5-​year warranty, I took it to the nearest Sears, which was an hour away (my local Sears had closed a couple of years prior). Once I was there, I asked the person at the front desk where to take my broken dehumidifier. He directed me to the appliance department. After standing around for 45 minutes waiting for someone in appliances to talk to me and seeing them dodge me just to talk to other customers who were looking to spend $ 2k on a new fridge, I finally decided to interrupt them. They directed me to the pick-​up area, which – as I soon found out – was poorly marked and hidden around a corner. I had to ask for directions twice before finding it, but fortunately someone came out to help me check in the dehumidifier right away once I got there.
So I checked the dehumidifier in, confirmed that the compressor was still under warranty, and requested that Sears call me if the repairs were going to cost anything. I was told the repair should take a week or two.
About a month later, I received an automated phone message from Sears telling me that my dehumidifier was ready to be picked up. I drove all the way to Sears only to find out they didn’t open until an hour and a half later, so my wife and I had to go kill time at Target since we really didn’t have anything else we needed to do in Des Moines that day.
Once the store was open, we went directly to the well-​hidden pick-​up area to get our dehumidifier, and were greeted by no fewer than 4 workers who apparently had nothing better to do than stand in the hall with us in dead silence while we waited for 35 minutes for the one guy with a key to come and unlock the trailer that had our dehumidifier in it. It was awkward, to say the least.
Finally, the guy with the key arrived, and all the other workers continued to stand around while he brought out our dehumidifier and brought up the service ticket on the computer. He told us we owed $ 90 for a fan replacement and cleaning. WHAT!?? I protested, saying that the original problem was the compressor, and that it should have been covered under warranty. Furthermore, I knew the fan was working before I brought the thing into Sears. I specifically remembered feeling the warm air blowing on my hand when I was trying to figure out why the machine wasn’t sucking water out of the air, and I also remembered the compressor not kicking in.
We went back and forth for several rounds – me, complaining that nobody even bothered to call me, and them, telling me that they had my authorization – and when they finally pulled out the paperwork, OOPS! There was no signature authorizing any repairs, because I never signed anything when I dropped the machine off. Nonetheless, the store would not let me take my dehumidifier without charging me $ 90, so I was stuck – I had already wasted 6 hours of my time driving back and forth and waiting for customer service, and I was not going to waste more of my gas and time because of Sears’ screw-​up.
When I finally got the dehumidifier home, I popped the back cover off to see if they had really replaced the fan. To my astonishment, they had removed most of the metal tubing for the compressor and replaced it with some kind of foam tubing – my guess is, they fixed the thing just well enough so that it would work for one more summer, then I’d be out of luck and I’d have to buy another dehumidifier once the compressor warranty expired. So not only is Sears incompetent, but they also do everything in their power to screw their customers.
The sad thing is, with the money I spent on gas and the repair charge, I could have bought a brand new dehumidifier… from a company that doesn’t abuse its customers every chance they get.