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My Mom bought a refrigerator from Sears in 1969. Every year for the next 34 years she paid the annual service contract payment. I don't know how much she ended up paying in all during those 34 years, but I'm just estimating it came to about $2000. This is in addition to whatever she paid for the refrigerator in the first place.
In 2003, the refrigerator finally stopped working. We called Sears right away, and they sent a service man the next day, and he said it needed a new compressor or something. He thought they didn't make the parts any more for that model, but said he would some calls and did some research. Three days later he called us and said the parts for it were no longer available.
The service supervisor in San Diego decided that the next step would be for them to locate another old refrigerator of the same model, somewhere. I assume they went to junkyards or wherever old refrigerators are found. This took four weeks, with no results. I kept calling every four days to see what was up with it, and they always said that the service supervisor was not in, but he would call me back when he got in. Whenever he called back, which was usually a couple of days after I called, he would just say that they were still trying to locate the old part.
I finally got tired of waiting and called the corporate headquarters in Chicago. I can't remember what department I called, I think I got the phone number from their web site. I talked to someone and told the story, then they said they would talk to their supervisor and put me on hold. They came back and said that the matter would be handled locally, by the local service department. I said that they were already working on it and they didn't produce any result. They said that if they couldn't resolve it to call them back again. I said OK and hung up.
A few more days went by with no progress and I called the Chicago offices again. I first got the same response, but I told them that it had been three weeks that we had no refrigerator, and I thought that was unacceptable since we had, after all, been paying for this service contract for 34 years. After paying faithfully for so long, for them to make us go without a refrigerator for 4 weeks seemed a big letdown. The person on the phone agreed and said she would connect me to someone higher up. She did, but all I got that day was a voice mail message.
I left a message, and a couple of days later a lady called me back, and she was apparently higher up in the company. I told her the whole story, and by the time I was talking with her, it had been exactly five weeks since the refrigerator broke down. She agreed with me that it was unacceptable, and she said she would personally call the service department in San Diego and make arrangements for a replacement refrigerator, as it was becoming apparent that they were not going to be able to find a part to fix the old one with. A couple of days later a local manager called me and said that he had received approval for us to come in and pick out a new refrigerator. I think there was an $850 limit on it though.
So we came in the next day and picked out a refrigerator for about $800, and they delivered it to us the next day. Everyone we dealt with was polite and professional, but it was just the fact that we went for five weeks with no refrigerator (in August and September) that made it into a "horror story." Fortunately, our next-door neighbors were away for most of that time, so we could store some necessary items in their refrigerator, but it was inconvenient having to go to their house every time we needed a pat of butter or whatever. We did end up with a brand new, nice fridge from Sears, but we went through a huge inconvenience.
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