I had a gift card given to me as a gift. When looking at it one day, I noticed it said in the fine print that it expired after a year. There was no date on the card, so I called the toll free number for Sears. The Sears representative told me their gift cards do not expire. I said it said they expire on the back of the card, and they said "no, there is no expiry date".
Because of the call, I felt no rush to use the card. This past September, I went to use the card at a Sears store and the cashier told me it was expired. I told the cashier what was told to me (about the card not expiring), and they said "well that's what my till tells me".
I contacted Sears customer service and explained the issue. It turns out that cards purchased before October 2007 were set to expire after 2 years. (I suspect that the person on their toll free number was reading me a gift card script that applied to cards sold after this date.)
In any case, the end result was that their "customer service" (I use this term very lightly) all but said I was a liar, refused to give me the monies from the gift card, and really had no care for me as a consumer.
Christine from Sears Corporate Customer Service emailed me on October 20, 2008. To quote her exactly "Sears will not give you the amount of the gift card". She also said "there is no information from Customer Service that you called in before and they advised you that this card does not expire".
The end result was that Sears took the complete value of the gift card (a gift from my Grandmother) for their own use, and never had to give any product in return. They must figure they have a good scam going.
Sears lied to me (telling me the card didn't expire), outright stole my money (emptying my card), and to add insult to injury they basically called me a liar (tell me there was no record of my call to them, like this is my fault).
I truly do feel that Sears had no regard for me, and it sickens me that they feel justified keeping money that they did not earn in any way. Because of their blatant disregard for me as a customer, I reported them to the Better Business Bureau. (Although, seeing the number of complaints against Sears on the BBB, I don't have any illusions that Sears will even care about this at all.)
I'm reporting this here, so that hopefully others can see how out of touch with consumers Sears has become. I don't have any plans on shopping at Sears in the future. If Sears treats people like this, they will eventually run themselves out of business.
Dave
St Albert, Alberta
Canada
0 comments