Sears

People who are in a position to know say that Sears is in financial trouble. The chain has been losing money and is selling off assets to pay bills. It may go out of business because it is losing customers.

My local Sears store will be closing in January, along with more than 60 other Sears stores. I feel sympathy for the people will be losing their jobs. But I really don’t care if Sears closes. Sears lost this customer a long time ago.

There was a time that I shopped at the Sears Auto Center (and the main store, as well). This was my experience: every time I tried to tell the salesman what I wanted to buy, the store phone would ring. He would say, “Excuse me” and answer the phone. “Yadda yadda yadda … I think we have that in stock … let me go check.” Then he would disappear into the racks of tires and batteries at the back of the store. Five minutes later he would reappear and pick up the phone. “Yes, we have that in stock. Do you want me to hold it for you to pick up? Yadda yadda yadda …” I waited patiently. Finally, after about ten minutes, he would hang up the phone. I would start to tell him what I wanted to buy, and the phone would ring again. Finally I asked if he could delay answering the phone until after he took my order. He said he couldn’t and explained that store rules gave the phone call precedence over customers standing right in front of him. I put up with that several times but I sure didn’t consider it “customer service.”

But here is the capper. One evening after work, I went to the Auto Center because my car had a tire that was out of balance and shaking at highway speed. I had purchased the tires at Sears and had paid for lifetime balancing. I knew a tire was out of balance from years of driving experience. Not only did I know that a tire was out of balance, I was pretty sure I knew which tire was the problem. I told the Auto Center manager that I wanted the left rear tire rebalanced.

The Auto Center manager told me the shaking was not caused by an out-of-balance tire — rather, it was a “bad strut.” I knew he was referring to a McPherson strut which was part of the suspension. I told him it couldn’t be a strut because the tire shook only at 60 mph, and a bad strut couldn’t cause that. He insisted my car needed new struts. This went back-and-forth for several minutes until I finally told him, “I bought these tires here. I paid for lifetime balancing, and I want the tire balanced.” He agreed to do it, but as a parting shot he told me it wouldn’t fix the problem.

When I got the car back, I took it out on the Interstate for a test drive. The car rode as smooth as glass — no shaking or vibration whatsoever. I had gone to the Auto Center for a simple tire balancing — already paid for — and the manager had tried his best to upsell me new struts.

The egregious part of this was that Sears had already been caught scamming Auto Center customers in several states. It had been in the news, so I was aware of it. But I’m not going to accuse that particular manager of attempting to scam me. It’s possible he was simply incompetent. But either way, I decided not to give them any more business. And I haven’t.

Now maybe — just maybe — Sears plays by different rules today. I hope they do. But it doesn’t matter to me. As the old saying goes, “Fool me once, shame on you — fool me twice, shame on me.”