Por Qué Odio A Sears (¡No Compren Ahí! ¡En Serio!)

Mi esposa y yo estamos buscando nuevos enseres para la cocina, y hoy me comenta que Sears tenía buenos precios y ofertas. A esto contesté rápidamente y sin titubear "No voy a comprar en Sears". Prefiero ir a Best Buy y pedir que me igualen el precio. ¿Por qué? Porque esos desgraciados te clavan, por eso.

Hace un tiempo tenía un blog llamado "The Unwanted Opinion" que era básicamente lo mismo que éste pero en inglés, y escribí una entrada completa sobre esto. Procedo a copiarla, porque captura perfectamente lo endemoniado que estaba en ese tiempo con Sears y detalla como es que opera esa gente. Ignoren el lenguaje soez por favor. Oh, by the way, esa fue solo la primera de una serie de artículos que escribí sobre ese tema, porque después que escribí eso, pasaron un par de cosas más. Les digo más luego.

Y por último, no compren nunca ahí. En serio. :-P

Have I ever told you how much I hate Sears?

So, why this title you may ask? Well, I was doing some major cleaning downstairs today and I found my old Sears card, along with the new Sears card they sent me like a month back. I have not activated it and never will. Why, do you ask? Because they have lost my business. Forever. Honest to God. It has become a principles kind of thing for me.

I bought my house a year back, and of course I had to get home appliances. Specifically, a fridge and a washer and dryer. So, I went appliance shopping, and I ended up in Sears. Turned out they had this offer going of 18 months interest free financing, plus 15% off if I applied for a Sears card. Great deal right? Sure thing, so I signed the papers, got my appliances, and that was that.. Of course, you know that was not it, because if it was, I would not be writing this. Let me give you a hint: I gave them my cell phone number, so the people doing the delivery could contact me. (I heard you say "idiot". It's ok, I deserve it). Assume from this point forward that all calls made by Sears were to my cell phone at very inoportune times.

So, the Sears card comes in, and I had to call them to correct my home address, which was wrong (the mailman did a good job figuring out it was for me), and they ask me if I want to apply for their Account Care insurance program. Basically, you pay almost a dollar for every 100 of your account balance, and the balance will get paid in full if you lose your job or something like that. I took the interest free, 15% off offer just because I wanted to pay it slowly, and be able to have more money in the bank. If I accepted the account insurance, I'm basically throwing money away, it would have made more sense to pay cash right there in the store, so I said no. A week later, I get a letter offering the program once again, and I rejected the offer. Two weeks after that, they called me again, and they tried to get sneaky on me. The marketer started asking me some questions like if it was a survey. The thing is that I realized at the very end that they were trying to sign me up for the insurance program, and I stopped them right there and said very clearly that I did not want it. What didn't they understand when I did not return their application form, or told the first person that talked to me that I did not want it? Don't they have a field in their form that indicates "Does not want insurance?" At this point I was getting annoyed.

During their attempts to get me to sign up for their Protection Program (that's what it should be called, take it and we'll "protect you" from our telemarketers), they also called to allegedly find out how my appliances were doing so far, but it pretty quick turned into a sales pitch about upgrading my service agreement with them from 3 years to 5 years. I said no. A week later, they called again trying to get me to upgrade the service agreement, and I said no, unequivocally. Then they called *a third time*, and this was the call where they really really pissed me off. They were going to give me the extension on the service agreement on a discounted price of what they were offering me before. What? If I had said yes the first time I would have been screwed? At this point I was irrational, this was bordering on harrasment, and I was hell bent on not taking any of their offers. They could have offered me Salvation and Eternal Life and I would have rejected it. So I said no, again. At that point the conversation went like this with the Bitch Marketer from Hell (BMfH).

BMfH - Sir, this is a very good offer.
Me- I'm aware of that.
BMfH -Then why won't you accept this offer? (I know the drill, she had her list of reasons a customer gives with the corresponding rebuttals on her hand, so I decide to go with the unanswerable reply)
Me- Because I'm not interested.(I know... I was being a dick at this point.)
BMfH- Sir, you're telling me that you do not want to take advantage of this great offer I'm making you? (really, she said that).
Me- Yes. (translation- fuck you)
BMfH- (She does a barely audible "ha", really). Well sir, thank you very much for your time. Good luck with your appliances. (FUCK YOU TOO).

Good luck with my appliances? What the hell is that supposed to mean? The conversation should have ended at "thank you very much for your time". What? Trying to give me a guilt trip for not taking the offer? You know what, fuck you.

But now comes the kicker. The first invoice statement came in, and it had a charge of like 20 dollars, try to guess for what. You guessed it, their Account Care program, the one I had said "no" to 3 times. That was fucking it, I did not want to talk to those assholes anymore, so I paid the balance in full right there and swore to never make any business with them ever again. Let them keep my fucking 20 dollars. If that's the price I have to pay so I don't have to talk to any of those assholes again for the rest of my life, I say that's a great offer. I guess I did end up paying protection money after all.

I will never make business with Sears again. Their marketing borders pretty much in harassment, and their Account Care program is a scam. I'll go to Best Buy, Fry's, Walmart, K-Mart (nota de editor, en ese tiempo no sabía que Sears era dueño de KMart), Target,or hell, even a Flea Market, but never to Sears. I'll never recommend them, and I'll make sure that anyone that asks me finds out how they try to make you buy their services and insurance no matter what.

Is my outrage justified, or am I just being bitchy about it? My sister says I'm overreacting. I say they disrespected me and they don't deserve my business ever again. I'm fucking serious, not even for buying a T-Shirt.

God I hate Sears.