Sears BUYER BEWARE/APPLIANCE BAIT & SWITCH Puyallup, Washington

WE WILL NEVER BUY ANOTHER APPLIANCE FROM SEARS AGAIN!!!

Late on Friday July 27th our freezer died and we were going to loose a side of beef unless we purchased a freezer within 24 hours..  We went immediately to the Puyallup Sears store at 9 a.m. on the 28th.  We asked to buy the floor model of this Frigidaire 20.6 cu.ft. upright freezer. We had researched this Frigidaire freezer on the web and discovered that this was a highly rated model.

The clerk in the appliance department said Sears won't sell the floor model.  We requested to talk to the manager of the store and a person who said she was the manager (We later found out she was not a manager.) confirmed that Sears won't sell floor models but assured us that she had this exact model in the Kent warehouse.  But Sears couldn't deliver the freezer until Tuesday. 

However, Sears said we could rent a trailer and pick up the freezer ourselves the next day, Sunday. On Sunday, we rented the trailer, picked up the boxed up Frigidaire freezer in Kent and returned to our home in Puyallup.  We cut open the box only to discover that while the carton was labeled Frigidaire Model Number FKFJ21F7H, the freezer in the box was a "Crosley" brand freezer and not a Frigidaire.

We immediately took a digital photo of the freezer door that said, Crosley, and went right back to the Appliance department at the Puyallup Sears.  None of the store clerks we dealt with on Saturday including the manager were in the store.  So we had to explain to a whole new set of folks what happened.  In the meantime our meat was rapidly defrosting.

After a couple of hours of discussions and phone calls on Sunday Sears agreed that we should keep the Crosley freezer for the next few days and load our meat into it until Sears could figure out what to do. Sears continually insisted that they dont sell a Crosley Freezer and had no idea how one got into a Frigidaire box with Frigidaire labeling.  In fact on closer inspection we found that while the freezer door was a Crosley brand the actual body of the freezer and the motor were made by Electrolux.  Yet all of the warranty paper work and operating books were labeled Frigidaire.

By Tuesday Sears suggested that we just keep the Crosley freezer and dont worry that it wasnt a Frigidaire.  Since we paid nearly full price for a Frigidaire, we wanted a Frigidaire.  Additionally, since Crosley is made by Whirlpool, we knew that this freezer would have no manufacturers warranty because we didn't buy it from an authorized dealer.  Sears told us that we should just buy their extended warranty and not to worry about the manufacturers warranty!!!  We refused because the Crosley freezer door with an Electrolux body would void any warranty that Sears was trying to sell us.

A week later Sears delivered the correct Frigidaire Freezer but they tried to take back the Crosley freezer before we even plugged in the new Frigidaire Freezer to see if it would work.  We refused to release the Crosley freezer which held our side of beef.  Once we determined that the new Frigidaire Freezer worked we transferred our meat and called Sears to schedule a pick-up of the Crosley freezer.  Sears was unwilling to pick up the freezer for another week.

To insult to injury, the Frigidaire Freezer was missing the shelf bookends which we paid for and they are on order.  To date (August 17th) we havent received these bookends and dont know if we every will.  Sears ordered for us around August 1st.

In the numerous Customer Service phone calls to Sears we never spoke to an American based call center.  All call center representatives were in India. In multiple phone calls to the Puyallup store and in multiple trips to the store we never spoke to the same person twice.  In fact we never again saw the lady and man who wrote up the initial sale and charged our credit card!

Sears never offered us any compensation for our rental trailer or for even Im sorry.  There never was any follow-up by anyone to see if the Frigidaire freezer was working or to see if we were satisfied customers!  In fact after Sears charged our credit card/made the sale, they acted like they didnt care if we ever come back in the store!

Weve been Sears customers for over 40 years but well spend our money elsewhere after this experience!!!