Oh, how I love our refrigerator. We bought it almost two years ago from Sears and also bought the extended 5 year warranty. The additional warranty allows Sears to come to the house once a year and do a cleaning and tune-up and will fix anything that is going wrong.

I noticed that the seal on both of the French doors was ripped at the top where the doors meet. So I called Sears last Friday and they were great and said someone would be out on Monday between 12-5. Perfect.

Only Monday comes and goes and no Sears dude. I called them at 5:30 and they said he was running behind and would I like him to call before he comes. Sure.

Fifteen minutes later the repair center calls and says that he won't be able to make it. Would I like to reschedule? Duh, considering we dropped an additional $400 for this extra warranty plan I would think so. The next available service date was for today and I chose 8-12 assuming that if they were running late, they could get us in the afternoon.

Noon comes and goes and at 12:30 Ohtobe calls them and guess what? Give up? They are running late again and they could fit us in but it would be after 5. At 4:30 I called to verify they were still coming and they said they would have the technician call us before he was to arrive. He calls at 5:50 and arrives at 6:10. And stayed 10 minutes and did nothing. Nothing!

Now when I called originally and I asked for my tune up I explained to them the seal was gone. The service rep said they would be sure the technician would have the part on the truck when he came. Well he didn't. And he didn't do the tune-up since he has to come back to install the seal. He'll be back next Wednesday. Sure he will.

Besides the obvious things that went wrong what really drove me crazy was having to call into the service center. They have a cutesy number 1-800-4-my-home and once you dial in and enter in your phone number you get their automated voice rep. I hate those things and usually refuse to follow their prompts and keep saying 'human' until I get a human being. But not with Sears, oh no. The 'conversations' went like this:

Sears: If you would like service, say service. If you would like parts, say parts. If you would like a lobotomy, say lobotomy.

Mrs. O: Representative. (Because I want a human)

Sears: Oh, ok, I didn't understand you. If you would like service, say service. Etc.

Oh, ok? Oh? Ok? Is that supposed to make me feel like I am actually speaking to someone who 1. cares or 2. can help me? Oh, no. So after calling the repair center to complain and being transferred to the warranty department to complain and being told they would expedite my complaint to customer service, they end the call thanking me for shopping with Sears and tell me how important I am to them.

Oh, ok. Really?

Next time I'm going to APSCO.

~ame