[Note: Jamshid’s refrigerator went caput on Jan. 25, precisely 84 days after delivery. Service Dude stop-gap fixed it for two weeks on Jan. 26, and then came back on Feb.8 only to find that the warehouse had mailed the wrong part. Fridge stopped working again immediately after Service Dude departed on Feb. 8.]
Epilogue to the fridge fiasco:
I went down to Sears, talked to two different people who were both very nice and polite and actually did not seem mentally retarded (as I would stereotype most of them as being). Unfortunately, they were unable to do anything to help remedy my situation; they kept getting shut down by people on the phone at Sears HQ, to which they responded “It’s too bad Rod (the store GM) isn’t in today – he’s really the only one who could do something about it. But the second person I talked to, a woman named Amanda, had pity on me b/c she went through a similar situation with Sears being slow to her repair her fridge when it broke back in December. So Amanda was kind enough to give me this semi-secret phone number for “escalated cases of customer dissatisfaction.”
I called the number, and they tried to placate me with promises of the service guy being able to come back on Tuesday, to which I asked what I was supposed to do in the meantime while all the food in my fridge spoiled for the second time in 15 days. The guy offered to buy me a mini-fridge, and I verbally tendered my acceptance. So I drove home with a 1.7 cubic foot mini-fridge (retail price: $74.88), and Sears is going to credit my Sears Card account with the full purchase price in 2-3 business days. Yeah, it was kind of a tiring process, and yes, I’m still going to embark on a letter-writing campaign once the normal fridge gets fixed to obtain compensation for said refrigerator’s sudden cessation on Jan. 25, a mere 85 days after delivery. But for now, I have something (a mini fridge) that I’ve always kind of wanted but never had the flexible income to obtain. In a weirdly ironic way, that dude offering me the mini-fridge transformed me from hating Sears Roebuck & Co.’s guts to being a big fan and potential lifetime customer. Lesson learned: If you’re ever caught in a bind w/ Sears, they’ll take care of you if you talk to the right person and don’t get rude. BTW, here’s some info you’ll need if ever dealing with Sears on a customer complaint issue:
Name of GM of Provo Sears: Rod Amussen (ask for him by name if an associate gives you the runaround or, as in my case, simply doesn’t have the power to make it right)
Semi-secret “escalated dissatisfaction” phone number: 847-286-5188 (ask the operator for customer relations)
Alternate “escalated dissatisfaction” phone number: 800-479-6351
Now if I can just get Hootz to settle my claim with him giving me a couple more fitted wool hats, then I’ll really be getting my “hook-up” on…
A few random, teeming thoughts from the recesses of my unusually large skull cavity:
I noticed on the drive home from Sears that there is actually a pay phone on Spanish Fork’s Main Street. I can understand pay phones at gas stations or by the bathrooms of restaurants, but right there on Main Street? Even Morgan and I have cell phones, and I know before we got them we both hemmed and hawed at the prospect. I mean, everybody not helping sheep over fences in Wyoming has one these days, right? And wasn’t it the premise of that Colin Farrell movie Phone Booth that he was talking in the last phone booth in NYC that was on the verge of being decommissioned? So I guess I don’t know what’s more amazing, the fact that there is still a town that has a pay phone on its Main St, or how it took me 783 times driving by the pay phone before I actually noticed it. Over/under on when “normal towns” would do away with pay phones located on main roads: June of 2005. Over/under on the same proposition, except interchanging “Spanish Fork” for “normal towns”: 2029.
I bite my thumb at the jackass Magleby’s Fresh employee who denied Chris and extra breadstick and shot Morgan down in his attempt to secure a to-go lid.
Chris, you were right about The Shield’s Michael Chiklis having previously been The Commish. You won’t often hear me say it, but mea culpa, baby. Mea culpa.
Epilogue to the fridge fiasco:
I went down to Sears, talked to two different people who were both very nice and polite and actually did not seem mentally retarded (as I would stereotype most of them as being). Unfortunately, they were unable to do anything to help remedy my situation; they kept getting shut down by people on the phone at Sears HQ, to which they responded “It’s too bad Rod (the store GM) isn’t in today – he’s really the only one who could do something about it. But the second person I talked to, a woman named Amanda, had pity on me b/c she went through a similar situation with Sears being slow to her repair her fridge when it broke back in December. So Amanda was kind enough to give me this semi-secret phone number for “escalated cases of customer dissatisfaction.”
I called the number, and they tried to placate me with promises of the service guy being able to come back on Tuesday, to which I asked what I was supposed to do in the meantime while all the food in my fridge spoiled for the second time in 15 days. The guy offered to buy me a mini-fridge, and I verbally tendered my acceptance. So I drove home with a 1.7 cubic foot mini-fridge (retail price: $74.88), and Sears is going to credit my Sears Card account with the full purchase price in 2-3 business days. Yeah, it was kind of a tiring process, and yes, I’m still going to embark on a letter-writing campaign once the normal fridge gets fixed to obtain compensation for said refrigerator’s sudden cessation on Jan. 25, a mere 85 days after delivery. But for now, I have something (a mini fridge) that I’ve always kind of wanted but never had the flexible income to obtain. In a weirdly ironic way, that dude offering me the mini-fridge transformed me from hating Sears Roebuck & Co.’s guts to being a big fan and potential lifetime customer. Lesson learned: If you’re ever caught in a bind w/ Sears, they’ll take care of you if you talk to the right person and don’t get rude. BTW, here’s some info you’ll need if ever dealing with Sears on a customer complaint issue:
Name of GM of Provo Sears: Rod Amussen (ask for him by name if an associate gives you the runaround or, as in my case, simply doesn’t have the power to make it right)
Semi-secret “escalated dissatisfaction” phone number: 847-286-5188 (ask the operator for customer relations)
Alternate “escalated dissatisfaction” phone number: 800-479-6351
Now if I can just get Hootz to settle my claim with him giving me a couple more fitted wool hats, then I’ll really be getting my “hook-up” on…
A few random, teeming thoughts from the recesses of my unusually large skull cavity:
I noticed on the drive home from Sears that there is actually a pay phone on Spanish Fork’s Main Street. I can understand pay phones at gas stations or by the bathrooms of restaurants, but right there on Main Street? Even Morgan and I have cell phones, and I know before we got them we both hemmed and hawed at the prospect. I mean, everybody not helping sheep over fences in Wyoming has one these days, right? And wasn’t it the premise of that Colin Farrell movie Phone Booth that he was talking in the last phone booth in NYC that was on the verge of being decommissioned? So I guess I don’t know what’s more amazing, the fact that there is still a town that has a pay phone on its Main St, or how it took me 783 times driving by the pay phone before I actually noticed it. Over/under on when “normal towns” would do away with pay phones located on main roads: June of 2005. Over/under on the same proposition, except interchanging “Spanish Fork” for “normal towns”: 2029.
I bite my thumb at the jackass Magleby’s Fresh employee who denied Chris and extra breadstick and shot Morgan down in his attempt to secure a to-go lid.
Chris, you were right about The Shield’s Michael Chiklis having previously been The Commish. You won’t often hear me say it, but mea culpa, baby. Mea culpa.
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