Sunday, June 12, 2011

The Refrigerator Saga: Pt. 2

On Wednesday, My "new" refrigerator arrived. I say "new" because we purchased it at the Sears Outlet.   The tags on the fridge said "New with Cosmetic Damage"  but as I was preparing to put MY food in the fridge  I found food smears, crumbs and hairs inside.
Maybe "new" means something different to Sears?

I called Sears and I was hoppin' mad, mad because we had noticed a little "something" on the inside of the freezer at the store and the salesman assured us that is was probably just dirt from the "testing facility."  He lied to us.  The labels lied to us.  I do NOT tolerate lying. The manager was very understanding and apologetic.  He offered to refund us some money.  I was mollified.
Then I turned to the missing parts.  In the store we noticed 2 rubber gaskets missing from the drawer shelves.  The salesman assured us that these parts could easily be obtained at the Sears Parts store which was just down the road, BUT, this store was closed at 6 pm on a Saturday and just down the road was the complete other side of town for me.  So I planned to make a trip to the store later in the week.  After the refrigerator was filled I called the Sears Parts Store to make sure they had my parts in stock.  Not only did they not have the parts in stock they couldn't even find the parts list for the fridge that I bought.  Not only that but the lady on the phone Did. Not. Care.  She was having a conversation on with someone else while we were on the phone and she made ME get online and start looking for parts.  After about 30 minutes of this I just hung up on her as she was continuing her other conversation.
Then I called Sears.  The central location Sears not the local outlet store or the parts store and the girl was VERY polite but ultimately unhelpful because, as before, she could not  find the parts list for my fridge.  She will get back to me in about 5 business days.
 I spent all of my Wednesday dealing with a fridge that I already spent a week or two buying.
When the Fridge was delivered the delivery man was unable to connect the water to the fridge because "the customer has a leak in the water pipe."  I agreed to let him off the hook because he claimed he could not remedy this situation even though I was led to believe that no matter the condition of our water pipe the delivery man could (pardon the pun) hook us up.
 He left and I called a plumber.  (I love our plumbers, they are top notch.  The dissatisfaction in this post should in no way be attached to the awesomeness of Pro Drain. Oh, did you know I was in a commercial for them?  Check it out and then call them for all your plumbing needs.)  The plumber came on Friday and he just screwed on the valve.  There wasn't a leak, it was just loose.  YUP.  Thanks Sears!  So the PLUMBER hooked me up and then I eagerly attempted to get water from the dispenser.  Nothing.  I looked up the owner's manual online (yeah, the outlet store didn't have a manual either) and did all the trouble shooting and learned that the fridge is indeed getting the water.  The icemaker is even making ice but the dispenser is not dispensing.  When the lever is pressed there isn't even a sound.
So, I called Sears again!  The friendly gentleman at Sears duly read the owner's manual and ran me through all the steps again and made an appointment for the repair man.  He will be here on Tuesday.
What do you want to be that the owner of the hair and food crumbs I found in the fridge had this same problem?

I am so beyond annoyed at this situation.  I have 50+ guests coming THIS FRIDAY!  I should be living my life, cleaning my house, preparing fro guests, serving my neighbors and family not calling Sears all day every day.
At this point I am thinking I would have been better off finding a fridge on Craigslist.  I thought that buying a fridge from Sears would have provided a little less stress but it turns out to be the opposite. We chose this one at Sears because of it's size but reluctantly  as we gave up the color we wanted and the layout we wanted for the correct size and a water dispenser, the water dispenser that does not work.  So, really, we like nothing about this fridge other than the fact that it fits in the kitchen.
I thought that the HARD part was finding a refrigerator that would fit in our little kitchen but still have enough space.  Turns out, that was just the beginning.

1 comment:

Evan and Holly said...

I hate Sears. After our problems with our freezer we bought that was still under warranty---let me just say that it took 2 months to fix it and 9 automated calls and 3 technician visits---it was fixed. Because it was only 3 visits they only extended our warranty for a few months, we didn't qualify for more compensation. WTF??? Sears is awful. So sorry. I understand your pain.