MY REPLY TO EVER-SO-WISE SEARS

The following note is a reply to the last letter Sears has sent me reguarding the mess they created. You can read the last letter to me at the link below:


http://motivated-motion.blogspot.com/2010/08/sears-saga-continues-here-is-latest.html

My Newest Reply:

Dear Courtney,

I appreciate that you have gone over my grievances.
I see that you refer to policy several times. I also think that what you have said means that some of the things I have addressed cannot be changed until you get more complaints about the similar issues from other customers.

Seriously now....the issue with your protection agreement department not having an ID saying Sears attached to the number is the #1 catalyst to this whole thing. I have sited many many other grievances that have been made public and were available to me over the internet over this situation going back at least as far as 1988, and I do not believe that this situation should continue any longer. It has nothing to do with the service rep being able to open their ID when they call. It has to do with the number being assigned getting an actual name of Sears on the ID. Perhaps this situation is occurring because you are not doing the Sears work with Sears employees and you are using a contracted company to do the work that refuses to carry the Sears ID. If this is the case then they cannot identify themselves as Sears.....can they? Of course this is only speculation on my part that you must be contracting out the calls, but it seems the only logical reason a Sears ID could not be on all the lines of the customer service reps for warranty.

You are inviting problems with your customers questioning your reps and asking to speak to management immediately if they doubt the validity of the call, and by asking them to hold on for 48hours to get a manager is really bad form under the circumstances you are creating by not having a Sears ID on attached to the telephone numbers that are being used for these purposes.

Your customer base that holds the Sears Credit card is aging. This means we are becoming more vulnerable as the information technology age grows at a faster rate than our own knowledge base can grow. We rely on being able to still speak to a person of authority immediately if we request it, especially if we are concerned about our private information security, and about giving out our credit card number to someone who initiates a call to us. Older folks are being frauded all the time by folks who call them to provide bogus service. Sears used to be counted on to provide good customer service. This means actually providing it. Not promising to provide it in 48 hours.

You have also neglected to inform me about the ISO rating of Sears. I need to know which ISO rating you are compliant with so I know if the policies you have told me about in this note are compliant with the rating you hold. I have been waiting for info from you on this issue, yet none has been provided. I believe I asked for someone policies and compliance to write me on this point, once already.

Reguarding me replying promptly to your emails or not.
When I took two days to deal with the company on the telephone with zero satisfaction and zero service, I used up all of my free time. Now I have to take the time where I can get it to reply to you and to contact you in whichever way necessary when I can, as the first two days of giving you all my time resulted in nothing. Unfortunately I am not about to rush some other important aspect of my life which will attain results in the proper timing and format, just to appease Sears so they can clean up a mess they created. You will just have to be patient with me like I have had to be with you.

I am still reserving my right to deny or accept your offer after I have learned all I needed to from you reguarding policies and compliance.

Sincerely,
Lynn Tucker

It looks like we need a list of complaints about the same problem to effect change. If you have documented a similar problem could you please contact me through comments.

http://motivated-motion.blogspot.com/2010/08/my-reply-to-ever-so-wise-sears.html

A Piece Of My Life Is Officially Closed,


My partner and friend has died quite suddenly.
Many know of my years driving truck with Deb. We spent night and day together driving all over North America, then in 2003, after I was diagnosed with diabetes, I hung up my driving hat, and left Deb to make her way along the highway without me.

When we drove together Deb did the days and I did the nights. We traveled the highways and biways lookin for adventure. Don't know what we were more like.......Thelma and Louise, or BJ and The Bear? I guess some folks sway one way on that opinion, and some sway the other. We kinda just swayed in the wind. Half the time, hangin by the seat of our pants, haulin loads of Just-in-time freight.

Well Deb was the girly girl and I was toughy girl. Deb was 6ft tall and I skidded in just short of 5 ft. Her hair was perfect and her nails always painted, and I never painted my nails and I wore overalls or velour lounge suits, while she wore dresses. She made me seem kind of butchy, but I wasn't.....she was just way more prissy than me. A funny pair of girls rolling down the road.



We had two weaknesses......casinos and shopping. We were relentless shoppers. I was always looking for unique shirts for my boys and Deb was looking for the next bargain at Tall Girl! We knew where all the best shopping was and we would do our best to plan down-days on the road in good shopping towns. We also liked to site see. Once in a while we would get to see something really cool, or meet some really awesome people. Deb definitely taught me how to shop. She also taught me the toughest parts of my job. I learned the details and intricacies of the logistics business from Deb. We actually did make a good team. But when I got diabetes I did not have the stamina for the job any longer and I decided to retire from the long haul and stay closer to home.....teaching driving and safety instead. I missed the road. Sometimes I still miss it.

Until now I always knew that if I wanted to have one last ride in the truck I could have just asked Deb to indulge me, and I knew she would. But I never got the chance to fulfill the one-last-ride. So now that Deb has died I will turn in the dream.

When you ride together you spend more time in the truck than you do with your friends and family. We spent day and night together and then she lived here on our down time. Deb was an integral part of our family the whole time we drove together. She had a roll here. Stories about our life with Deb are part of family dinner conversations all the time.

Even though Deb's death was sudden to us, she had been sick for a while. Her friend Leigh Ann explained in a note that Deb had taken ill, and it was discovered she had multiple blood clots throughout her body. While preparing to remove the clots and repair a defective heart valve, a clot from her lung moved into her heart and killed her. It is a tragic way to die. I wish I had known she was sick. I wish I could have said, "Goodbye"

Every day I look at the map that Deb and I put on the wall upstairs. Every time we would return home we would trace out the roads we traveled in RED ink on the map. I think of the hours we spent going without sleep so we could listen to the Harry Potter books on tape while the truck rolled along. And how Deb would yell at the tape at all the bad guys.

I will remember endless evenings with our friends....playing pool....eating on Church street...and goofing around.

The most of my memories I know I have shared with her is "The World From My Small Window"......all of the photographs I have from our trucking days. A million sunrises and sunsets, mountains, and oceans, forests and deserts. The thrill of finding little cool places. Of even tough times when we would be stranded by broken down trucks in the middle of no-where....too close to Christmas....and not with our family....And of course....where we were at 9/11 and how tough those first days of unrest were, and how crazy it was with immigration during that time.....

Once we made the most of a time we were stuck in Cheyenne Wyoming, just before Christmas, so we did the Christmas shopping and set out to do crafts in the room for a week waiting and waiting for the truck parts to come in.


Or the day we were offered Lamb fries for the first time.......or the day we were chased by the tornado, or the nights we slept through earth quakes in California........or the 5 days we were stuck in the ice in Nebraska.

We were transient souls visiting the majesty of the land one freeway after another. I have traveled some of our roads since. Back to New England twice, and without her on the road with me it was not the same. I would share stories of our trips with my traveling mates, but I could never quite bring myself to enjoy the road like I used to. The view is different from the car, than the big truck.........







So my days of trucking are now officially closed. The transient chapter of my life is done with the passing of Deb. She died way too young.....Just when she finally was putting all the pieces in place too. Perhaps in Deb's next life she will become the marmy school teacher I always joked with her, she always aspired to be.......and hopefully she will give up her love for pick-up trucks and go for a Jetta or somethin!!

Deb you will not be forgotten!

http://motivated-motion.blogspot.com/2010/08/piece-of-my-life-is-officially-closed.html

The Sears Saga Continues,

Here is the latest reply from Sears:

Hello Ms. Tucker,

Thank you for your patience while dealing with this issue.

We have reviewed your letter and the corresponding notes in our system regarding your protection agreement sale call. We will address each incident and explain the Sears policies regarding the way in which the associates handled the situation.

You had received a call from the protection agreement sales department regarding the renewal of your expired agreements and the sale of your vacuum agreement from Teresa. As you had stated the phone number in which the call is made from appears as an unknown number. All of our outgoing calls from the protection agreement can appear as an unknown number to our customers phones. Unfortunately, this is not a feature in which the sales associate is able to change.

As you had stated, Teresa had tried to speak to you regarding your air conditioning unit and furnace in which had not had their maintenance checks completed. This was to assure you that she was in fact a Sears associate as well as to help you as a customer, as the service in which you had been paying for was not being used to it's fullest potential. The maintenance agreement checks cannot be used during a previous date if the service is not used annually. This is why this issue had been mentioned.

In order for a transaction to be completed for a protection agreement sale, the credit card number must be stated by the customer, and under no circumstances should be read to the person over the phone to prevent giving confidential information to another person other than the card holder. Reading gout the first 4-5 digits of your card should have never taken place.

Due to the Canadian privacy act all credit card numbers that have been provided by our customers will be mashed in our system to avoid credit fraud. Our associates are able to see the customer's first 4 or 5 digits, however, the rest of the information needs to be stated by the customer so we do not give our customer's credit card number to another person over the phone. This is for your protection, and for the protection of your personal information.

The sale for the protection agreement had been finalized by yourself and Teresa. As stated later on in your email the transaction had been cancelled as the information was not in our system. This could have occurred for a number of reasons, however we are unable to determine the actual cause of the transaction not being finalized at that time.

Once the transactions had been completed, and realizing that the protection agreement may have been added to the wrong unit you had initially called to confirm this information, and as a result have spoken to a number of employees from the customer service second level associates. This is the escalated line for our customers to have more difficult issues resolved by our associates.

Our second level associates are trained at a supervisory level and are able to resolve all issues, and have the authority to make important decisions regarding all problems. They have been trained to resolve all issues on their own without escalating a call to their acting managers as long as they are confident that they are able to resolve the issue. If a customer requests a supervisor they will be contacted by the supervisor within a 48 hour period if requested.

Throughout these calls you had a number of associates who had spoken to you in a rude, unfriendly, and unhelpful manner, and for this we do apologize. Under no circumstances should the associates speak to our customers in this manner. We also apologize that you concerns we not addressed regarding the customer service aspect, rather than the sale. We also apologize for the breaches that may have been made during your initial call regarding the associate reading out your information. We are further researching these associates to ensure that they are coached internally by their acting supervisors.

We apologize that you were not able to resolve your quality assurance issues with the supervisors in which you have spoken to. Unfortunately, on the most part our associates were following Sears policies and procedures regarding, escalating calls, forwarding you to different departments, and regarding the privacy of your information.

We would like to apologize for the chain of events that as a consumer made you weary to give out your personal information regarding the original call, including the unknown number, the unclear information regarding your credit card number, and the mixed responses from the different departments in customer service. We have formally noted your comments and concerns regarding these issues. We cannot guarantee immediate changes as a number of complaints must be made regarding the same issue from separate customers before we are able to address an issue an implement changes to better our customers experiences.

The protection agreement has not been charged to you, and an invoice has been sent to provide you with further information regarding the protection agreement offer. If you wish to confirm that this charge has not gone through you may call JP and Chase at 1-800-265-3675.

Due to the inconveniences that you have experienced during this process we would like to offer you a 1 year protection agreement free of charge. If you wish to accept this issue you may do so by replying directly to this email with your response. We do appreciate your business and regret that you have had such a time consuming and troublesome experience. If you have any further questions or concerns regarding this issue please do not hesitate to contact us.

Regards,
Courtney
Sears Corporate Office

http://motivated-motion.blogspot.com/2010/08/sears-saga-continues-here-is-latest.html