STOP IT SEARS!
How would you like to do business with a retailer who absolutely HAMMERS on you with no way out? If you buy or get service from Sears, get ready to be a NAIL.
My wife and I haven’t purchased a major appliance (or much of anything, frankly) at Sears for many years. They do have a good selection of appliances and many more solid installers than does, say, a Best Buy, so when we were in the market for a new oven and cooktop we bought one from the local Sears store. The saleswoman was absolutely top-notch and she handled all the details…
…but that’s where the communications nightmare began with the “Sears marketing machine”.
We purchased the two pieces and scheduled installation for mid-January. Even before that installation had occurred, my wife (whose email address was on the order) began being inundated with emails from Sears and calls to her mobile phone (her mobile number was also on the order). She told me, “I have been deleting them so I can’t say an exact number. But I can say it has been too much! From 24 hour sales to requests for feedback, I have heard from Sears more than I have heard from my family since we bought these appliances!” Yep. She’s pissed.
We then upgraded the oven to a convection which delayed the installation to February 14th. Since my wife was taking a 12 day European trip on business in mid-January, we changed the phone number to mine since these robocalls could easily come in while she’s sleeping and also cost her $1.60/minute.
Putting my number on the order so Sears or the installers could communicate any issues to us seemed innocuous, but I had NO IDEA that a Sears installation survey robocaller (with the caller ID of 312-951-1276) would call not once, not twice, but SEVEN TIMES over the last two weeks or so! The calls came in each time to my mobile number, I was unable to answer, so the robocaller still hasn’t connected with me and will continue until I either answer its survey or it (hopefully) timesout.
Last evening I called the store to talk with our salesperson and department manager to see if they had suggestions on how to STOP THIS CALLING AND EMAILING. Unfortunately they had NO clue what to do. So I decided to connect with @MySears via Twitter hoping I could circumvent trying to call and connect with David Friedman, the new President of Marketing for Sears Holdings. Too bad that the people monitoring Twitter for @MySears didn’t followup all day today so I connected with them. They have now informed me that they’ve tossed me to “@SearsCares” but that I should know “…that the center has been affected by the snowstorm.” That’s shorthand for “Don’t hold your breath on having someone help you.”
Look. I do this web/internet business all day, every day. I understand the impact and necessity to engage in social media and what the best practices are for taking care of customers via these new channels. THAT is why I’m trying to connect with these people so that I can learn how to get in to a system like theirs and figure out how to bend it toward what I need which in this case is GETTING THEM TO STOP HARASSING MY WIFE AND I with all of their supposed “helpful” communications. Maybe they will learn something too.
If I’m unable to get these robocalls stopped and emails to cease by Monday or Tuesday of next week, I will do what my wife wants me to do right now: cancel the installation; get a credit for the oven and cooktop; and never, ever shop at Sears again.
UPDATE 2/21/11 THIS WOULD BE FUNNY IF NOT SO SAD: The Sears “Social Media” contact, Robert, has called me twice about the “$100 gift card we’re sending” and to check up to see if it has yet arrived. Someone else called AGAIN TODAY, more than TWO WEEKS LATER, to see if it has arrived and no, it hasn’t. This is getting sadly comical.
UPDATE 2/5/11 at 1:45pm CST: ‘Robert’, my ‘point of contact’, called (I assume my tweeting the last update, and including David Friedman, President of Marketing for Sears Holdings, got some attention). He ensured that “all your numbers are removed from our call lists” and is sending me a $100 gift card for my ‘trouble.’ Nice gesture for certain and I appreciate it, but if they’d NOT instituted such cheesey marketing practices and followed up promptly with their social media monitoring, the $100 would not have been necessary. These Sears folks have some work to do if they hope to be in-the-game 3-5 years from now.
UPDATE 2/5/11 at 11am CST: Yesterday afternoon a young man from “Sears Social Media” called me from Austin, TX. He said he’s my “main point of contact” and we talked about this issue and promised he’d “…send an email with my contact info immediately after we hang up.” That was 19 hours ago and you guessed it: nothing has arrived (and yes, I checked my spam inbox). I think these people need to go through a “Social Media 101” course followed by a “How to Give Great Customer Service” one.
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About Steve Borsch
Strategist. Learner. Idea Guy. Salesman. Connector of Dots. Friend. Husband & Dad. CEO. Janitor. More here.
Connecting the Dots Podcast
Podcasting hit the mainstream in July of 2005 when Apple added podcast show support within iTunes. I'd seen this coming so started podcasting in May of 2005 and kept going until August of 2007. Unfortunately was never 'discovered' by national broadcasters, but made a delightfully large number of connections with people all over the world because of these shows. Click here to view the archive of my podcast posts.
[…] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Steve Borsch, Steve Borsch. Steve Borsch said: New post: STOP IT SEARS! http://bit.ly/e1tZTL @MySears, @SearsCares, @Dave_Friedman […]
Steve, I had a similarly annoying problem with a retailer who wouldn’t quit sending me advertisements. First, I threatened to contact the FCC. Then I actually did. The advertisements ceased immediately. Try this link to file a complaint: http://esupport.fcc.gov/complaints.htm. Good luck!
Every so often I get the beginnings of an automated survey about service that repeats the same question over & over on my answering machine. From Googling, I see this number is Sears – BUT – I HAVE NOT HAD ANY CONTACT with Sears Service in probably 2 years. I can’t even REMEMBER for sure when I bought my stove at The Great Indoors! Haven’t bought anything at ALL at Sears (even a shirt) in 8 months. Haven’t bought ANY appliance ANYWHERE in at least 8 months.
Thanks for this post. I had Sears out to repair my washer this week, so that explains why I’m getting calls. Next time I’ll answer it and see if I can get them to stop. Sorry you had such a frustrating experience.
We had an all-too-long and nightmarish experience with Sears trying to get our washer fixed. Here’s our story: http://www.kitschykitten.com/2011/10/29/sears-my-customer-experience/
Now that they have finally repaired it, 2 1/2 months after it initially broke down, I’m getting spam calls from their robo customer survey.
I found your site by Googling the phone number. Ugh. Ra-donk-u-lous.
Thanks for posting this. We just had service to our Sears bought fridge last week and today I have received two calls from the number you listed above. I generally do not answer numbers I do not recognize so I just sent it to voice mail which none was left of course. We did not have any problems with the purchase of the fridge, but months after we purchased the fridge we purchased a patio set to which we had nothing but problems. Needless to say if we did not have a service agreement with Sears already in place we would not have called them, but since it is already paid for we used them. I hope that we do not receive any more phone calls, but if we do I will be sure to answer one and maybe this will stop. If not I will take the proper channels as well because I do not want them to constantly call, I have better things to do with my time then talk to Sears.
I purchased a loveseat from another retailer that uses Sears installers. It was delivered with two of it’s shipping legs ripped off, a hole in the back and side, wood splinters all over it, and chips to the wood portions of the finish. The delivery persons nearly dropped it coming in the door, and almost took away the legs with the packaging, grabbing them out of the plastic wrap at the last minute; “Oh, there’s something in here, I think it might be the legs. here.” I contacted the retailer who contacted Sears Delivery. After some back and forth calls, I was told that the delivery drivers were their best ones, and had been doing this for 25 years. (I wouldn’t boast) I was told that they signed for the loveseat in this condition. “Why would they accept and deliver damaged merchandise?” I asked. “That doesn’t sound like a ‘top’ delivery person to me.” I’m told my replacement will be coming next week, but I’m sure Sears is trying to get out of paying for it, and hoping the other retailer will have to suck up the cost instead. Today, I got the robo call to my cell number. I’m sure they don’t want my honest opinion!
Prior to this, I had a store merchandise pick up. In the pick up area, they have a countdown sign that says if you are waiting longer than 5 minutes after you have checked in, you get a $5 gift card. At 4 minutes and 12 seconds, a man came out of the warehouse, and very casually unplugged the machine, and then plugged it back in, resetting the clock. This seemed pretty routine, as someone called out behind him, asking if that was what he was going to do, and if not, he needed to. I wonder how many people have been cheated out of their $5!
I emailed the store manager, and got my $5 credited back to my account. The sad part of that isn’t the $5, it’s that the stores compete against each other within the district, and this store was held within the top three for timely service. Because they were cheating. I’m sure some other store out there really does have honest to goodness awesome customer service that is going unrecognized, because they ARE being honest.
I was getting two calls a day from Sears. Then it occurred to me to call the number back. When I did, a recorded message told me that to add my number to their Do Not Call List, go to http://www.mysurveycontrol.com.
Why they couldn’t find a way to have that an option over the phone, I do not know…
Boy do I wish that I saw this email before I called for service. I WILL NEVER USE SEARS SERVICE AGAIN BECAUSE I AM BEING HARASSED BY THEIR MARKETING SERVICE 5 TIMES A DAY!!!! I register for the do not call list 2+ weeks ago and they are relentless and will not remove my # and will not stop calling. I tried to call their Marketing line back multiple times without getting a representative. I have NEVER had such a bad customer experience with any company post purchase in my life. This is illegal and very non customer focused. Its sad that a marketing company is the one causing Sears to lose customers! I think I might try to post one comment like this on as many sites as I have received phone calls. I think that is only fair!
Boy I wish I had read all this before I contracted with Sears to install a new countertop! WHAT A NIGHTMARE just getting all the details correct! Took 7 weeks from when we first had the guy here to the day it was installed. The worst people to TRY to work with! The work is finished, looks great, but now the phone calls that won’t stop. And I think I WILL answer their survey as I have a LOT to SAY…and I am not done yet. There is a letter to be sent to the SEARS HOME PRO management and maybe the COO of Sears, with all the documentation of this debacle. NEVER AGAIN WILL I HAVE SEARS HOME PRO DO ANYTHING IN MY HOME!
Dear Elaine,
Please accept our sincere apologies for the issues surrounding the installation of your new countertop. We can only imagine how frustrating and disruptive this was for you and your family. This is not the type of experience we want our customer’s to have when they have purchased something from our store. We would be more than happy to look into this situation further and offer our assistance to make sure everything has been completed to your satisfaction. We would also like to address the continuous phone calls that you are receiving and help to make those stop. We value your business very much and want to make sure that everything that can be done to help you is being done.
At your convenience please contact our office via email at SMAdvisor@searshc.com and a dedicated case manager will contact you directly. In the email, please provide a contact phone number and the phone number the countertop was purchased under (if different than the contact phone number) and we will call you directly. Also, in your email, please provide your screen name (Elaine) you used to post on this site, for reference to your issue, and we do look forward to talking to you soon.
Thank you,
Susan R.
Social Media Moderator
Sears Social Media Support
I’ll think twice before I buy another appliance from Sears. I don’t want any calls on my cell from their long distance carrier.
Terri
How do I get Sears to stop calling me!!!!????? I needed a simple HVAC repair, so I gave my number on a website to get a comparison list of local HVAC repairers. The only one that called in reference to this was Sears and you have to have a Sears HVAC unit which I do not — total scam! Now they will not stop calling. I want nothing to do with Sears and will never in the future because of this. How do I make it stop???
There are ways to contact them I placed in the post…but another way is to call Sears Customer Service, have them pull up your record, then ask them to *remove* your number from any marketing calls (or have the number taken off altogether).
Hi Mike D. — Appreciate you commenting along with an email link. The kicker? There is a deafness on the part of Sears to this day which seems to be ignoring the very real (and ongoing) issue of automatically contacting people with bot calling and other intrusive (and not meaningful or appreciated by customers) methods.
This is becoming an increasingly frowned upon practice and, probably because Sears is so old-school in marketing approaches, your leadership hasn’t bothered to see the trend that most people are ditching their landlines in favor of mobile phones and do NOT want calls that are marketing related!
Until your leadership gets the hint and makes systemic policy changes to the way customers are marketed to digitally, you “Sears Social Media Support team” members can do all the one-off removal of customers you want and it won’t matter. For every one of them you remove I’ll wager there are 99 others who DON’T connect with you and instead will just never shop Sears again.
By the way, I wrote this post 1 year and 8 months ago and it still receives about 200 or so pageviews *per day*. Think there are a few people out there who are interested in how to get Sears to stop robo-spamming them? Yep…me too.
September, 2012. Just purchased appliances this week, and I can assure you they are still at it from this same 312-951-1276 number. 5 calls in two days. They don’t listen, and they certainly don’t learn. Stop it, Sears!!!
stop calling me. I don’t have time for your surveys. You are a rip off retailer and deserve to go broke. You just sell and get your money and then you want nothing to with the person who bought it or the item purchased.
Sears is still operating the same way. I have a nightmare of a billing issue with them that has literally had me in tears (they double billed for a large appliance purchase, so some big $$ here), and every day I open email/answer phone to more Sears solicitations. Based on the “service” I have received on the billing issue, I would not buy from Sears again if I were dying and they sold the only cure. Still, they badger me by phone and email every day. I never opted in for this, and there is apparently no way to ever opt out.
J.Hill,
Hi my name is Zenaida and I am part of the Sears Social Media Support team. I found your post and wanted to offer our assistance. Please know we are truly sorry for the mistake on our part that caused you to be double charged. We strive to provide exemplary service and are terribly sorry we caused you tears over this matter. I would like to get you in contact with a member of our team so that we may look into this and resolve this for you. I can assure you once we get this matter resolved we will make sure you stop receiving those hassling phone calls.
At your convenience, please contact our office via email at smadvisor@searshc.com so you don’t have to continue to be troubled by this. In the email, please provide a contact phone number and the phone number your appliance was originally purchased under (if different than the contact phone number) and we’ll call you directly. Also, in your email, please provide the screen name (J.Hill) listed on this site, for reference to your issue, and we do look forward to talking to you soon.
Thank you,
Zenaida M.
Social Media Moderator
Sears Social Media Support
As you can see by all the comments on your article, Sears continues to harass calling without leaving a message or identifying themselves, every hr of the day they are allowed to. However, just doing that is indeed against the law:
*What practices are off limits for debt collectors?*
Harassment. Debt collectors may not harass, oppress, or abuse you or any third parties they contact. For example, they may not:
use threats of violence or harm;
publish a list of names of people who refuse to pay their debts (but they can give this information to the credit reporting companies);
use obscene or profane language; or
repeatedly use the phone to annoy someone. <——–
ftc.gov/bcp/edu/pubs/consumer/credit/cre18.shtm
Bought a garage door opener from Sears and it was installed two weeks ago. Ironically today I received a robosurvey call from Sears — on my mobile phone while I’m assembling a desk at my sister-in-laws house (not a good time) — and I could have sworn Sears learned their lesson on pissing off customers?
Guess not.
Had a nightmare with a water heater trying to get repaired for almost 2 weeks. NOW they’re calling me NON STOP!!!!
I’m from the UK and don’t recall ever having made a purchase at Sears. Despite this my @gmail.com has been spammed pretty much daily for quite some time with emails from sears@value.sears.com. To me this practice does nothing other than establish Sears as a company with whom i will never spend money.
Judging by the comments above and various other Google search results, I am clearly not alone and the company appears to be stubbornly continuing with this aggressive marketing; alienating many current and potential customers.
After 10 years of having a cell phone with one provider I had to change as I am moving to an area that I needed to switch. As of 12/27/2012 I did. Whomever had this number before me must have delt with Sears. They will not stop calling. 12/30/12 at 1:15 pm 1-800-927-2291. 1/2/13 5:15 pm 1-800-927-2291. 1/3/13 8:30 am 1-800-927-2291. 1/4/13 12:21 pm 1-800-927-2291. 1/4/13 8:01 pm 1-800-827-6655. I have emailed them four times with every call logged as well as I am on the Do not Call List. I have had enough and am filing a complaint if I get one more call. I have never done business with Sears and do not intend to!
As of 1/9/2013 at 8:44 am Sears will not listen! They have the WRONG NUMBER!!! I have emailed them 9 times and they DO NOT CARE!!! I NEVER have had an account with them nor do I want to do business with them!
Call log of unwanted calls from Sears on my new cell phone as of 12/27/2012.
12/30/12 1:15 pm from 1-800-927-2291
1/2/13 5:52 pm from 1-800-927-2291
1/3/13 8:30 am from 1-800-927-2291
1/4/13 12:21 pm from 1-800-927-2291
1/4/13 8:01 pm from 1-800-827-6655
1/5/13 12:30 pm from 1-800-827-6655
1/6/13 5:30 pm from 1-800-927-2291
1/6/13 5:43 pm from 1-800-927-2291
1/8/13 5:41 pm from 1-800-827-8855
1/9/13 8:44 am from 1-800-927-2291
After 11 emails to Sears and that is emailing them everytime they called me with the call log that
I Kept each time they called.
Call log of unwanted calls from Sears on my new cell phone as of 12/27/2012.
12/30/12 1:15 pm from 1-800-927-2291
1/2/13 5:52 pm from 1-800-927-2291
1/3/13 8:30 am from 1-800-927-2291
1/4/13 12:21 pm from 1-800-927-2291
1/4/13 8:01 pm from 1-800-827-6655
1/5/13 12:30 pm from 1-800-827-6655
1/6/13 5:30 pm from 1-800-927-2291
1/6/13 5:43 pm from 1-800-927-2291
1/8/13 5:41 pm from 1-800-827-8855
1/9/13 8:44 am from 1-800-927-2291
1/9/13 8:57 pm from 1-800-827-6655
I told them that I was filing a complaint with the following…
http://www.fcc.gov/complaints
I also asked them if they have read the following…
https://iconnectdots.com/2011/02/stop-it-sears.html
http://topsy.com/iconnectdots.com/2011/02/stop-it-sears.html?utm_source=pingback&utm_campaign=L2
Their calls have finally stopped. I have not had one call sense
1/9/13 8:57 pm from 1-800-827-6655
Persistence paid off!
HELP!!!!! I had a sears tech replace a fuse in my dryer. $156.00 for a FUSE! The tech asked me to take a short survey. I swallowed and politely complied. Now the bastard wont stop calling me and sending me emails.I called Sears and spoke to 5 departments with no results. NEVER EVER USE SEARS for ANYTHING!
Did you use the ‘opt-out’ option?
If you call the number back, they direct you to a website to take your number off their list. It isn’t Sears per se, but a company hired to do surveys. In my case, the phone would ring and than disconnect without ever speaking to someone. I called the number back and they directed me to the website to remove my number. They said it will take 24 hours. We shall see. It does make me want to dump Sears, but it seems now-a-days, every company wants you in their clutches, and want to invade your personal space. For Sears, I believe the site is: http://www.mysurveycontrol.com
I never bought anything from sears.. But I did purchase a cell phone from a company that gave me a number that Sears must have had from the previous people that had the number. Boy did I get on Sears, the bbb and the cell phone company until IT STOPPED!
DO NOT LET UP!!!
The Sears follow up is obnoxious.. they call me every day and when I pick up it hangs up. I tried to opt out.. SEARS STOP… this is horrible – I had a horrible experience with my repair too… so this just makes it worse
Purchased a dishwasher at Sears on Oct 1, 2013, delivery and installation scheduled for Friday Oct 4th.
Late Thurs evening, installer calls to say he has to deliver it on Saturday because the model won’t be delivered to Sears until Friday, Oct 4th. Saturday Sears installers, in an unmarked white panel truck, show up and proceed to unpack the wrong color dishwasher (ordered in black, delivered in white). I advise them of the error and the installer informs me that this is a “loaner” until the correct color can be located.
I verify this with Sears customer service. A week later on another Saturday afternoon, another non-descript panel truck shows up at the house to deliver the correct colored dishwasher. However, they don’t do the installations-we are told “You need to call Sears to schedule that uninstallation of the white dishwasher and the installation of the black dishwasher.”
Needless to say, after numerous calls back and forth to Customer Service, Delivery Department, Installation Dept, I finally stopped trying to arrange anything as I now have a brand new white dishwasher and a slightly used black dishwasher and only paid for one! I decided to let Sears figure out what to do. Today at 11:35, Sears installer called to say he was on his way to install the right dishwasher and would be there in 1/2 hour.
Talk about advance notice but fortunately I was able to leave work to meet these professionals, who showed up 45 minutes later. They did a wonderful swap of the white for the black and asked me where I would like to store the black dishwasher, as they were “installers” and not “deliverers”-in other words, Sears still has to come back to pick up the white dishwasher on another day at another time. Does anyone need a slightly used Kenmore, in white, of course?
PS. Did I mention the $3800 GE Profile Stainless Steel side by side refrigerator I purchased from Sears that leaked water for two years and after EIGHT service calls and numerous attempts to fix it, I took it to the landfill? You think I would have learned a lesson!
Thanks for the comment Richard. What a travesty.
Wondering how long Sears will survive. The store in the mall near me is a ghost town, and the customer service problems like mine, yours, and others who have commented here are the top of the iceberg.
Steve, great site you have here.
Notice the finance headlines today:
Sears enters ‘death-spiral,’ retailer could be gone by 2017
“This is a company in absolute crisis,” says Sozzi pointing back to Kenmore and Craftsman, “Sears is not investing in their name brands so they can keep the customer coming back to the store for them. I view Sears in a slow death spiral.”
As for the Twitter fight, according to Sozzi the feedback has been even worse than Sears’ quarter. He claims the often vitriolic negative reviews of the company being expressed to him via Twitter have outweighed the positives by at least 25 to 1. Even by Internet standards it’s hard to find that kind of hostility.
Look at the hostility Sears has created just on this site, they clearly don’t get it! I believe this stock analyst was generous in giving them until 2017!
Thanks for this site Steve, it’s provided me with avenues in which to stop these intrusive calls…some at 6 AM Hawaii time.
Respectfully,
Phil
Thank you for writing this article. Double thanks to the commenters who left a link to the website where people can opt out of these annoying surveys.
I bought a dishwasher from Sears online about two weeks ago. The purchasing went fine (doesn’t it always?) but scheduling an installation was rather annoying. I picked a date and waited patiently. I even got up extra early on the date of installation and, to my annoyance, someone called at 7 am to tell me my dishwasher wasn’t in yet. Long quibble short, they asked if they could re-scheduled for the following day. I said fine and that anytime in the afternoon would be fine. Little did I know that Sears’ idea of the afternoon is between the hours of 6 and 9pm! Whatever. I waited, the guys came and installed my dishwasher quickly. So far so good. Oddly, right before the installer arrived, I got a call on my cell phone from an unknown number. I was in the other room at the time and didn’t hear my phone so I missed the call. I thought it odd that an unknown number was calling because I rarely give out my cell number and in all the time I’ve had the number, I’ve never received an unknown caller. I was running errands today and my phone rang from “unknown” number again. I answered and was greeted by the dreaded robot survey. I completed the survey because I hoped that would end it. Reading other peoples’ experiences here, I doubt this is end especially since I ordered a refrigerator from Sears a few days ago (before I was aware of their constant surveys). That’s on back order for three weeks (Where exactly is this fridge coming from? Are they building it?) so I presume I’m going to get more annoying calls.
I went ahead and opted out at the site provided so we’ll see. I’m not hopeful though.
I wish companies would stop with this annoying practice of phone surveys. I understand that they, at least superficially, want happy customers but positively no one wants to be inundated with calls at all hours asking them to rate their experience. If I didn’t like my appliance or if the workers were rude or incompetent, I’ll call and lodge a complaint. Just assume that a satisfied customer is the one you haven’t heard from. Calling me one hundred times isn’t going to make me buy anything from you again. In fact, I highly doubt that works on anyone which is why I find the whole practice pointless. I think the only company more annoying than Sears is Direct TV. From the day that dish was installed, those people called DAILY asking all sorts of inane questions until I finally demanded that my phone number be taken off their list. All these companies need to go back to the drawing board and actually listen to consumers. Constant phone calls don’t show people that you care, it shows people that you don’t listen.
Thank you for this, I google searched the number that is calling me and not leaving a voicemail multiple times a day (!!). Guess who just purchased a new washer and dryer, yup, this fool. The previous commenter summed it up nicely “Constant phone calls don’t show people that you care, it shows people that you don’t listen.”
They’re still at it as of yesterday. Had a washer serviced by Sears two weeks ago; since then multiple calls from “312” (that’s all), seven in the past two days, finally answered one and learned it was Sears. Called their 800 number, got the usual heavily accented non-native-English speaker (whose name was “Steve”) and told them to stop calling. I’ll be amazed if they’re still around by 2015, nevermind 2017.
Agreed about their staying power, Larry. Even the people I know that have been life-long Sears shoppers increasingly make comments like, “Oh…I don’t shop at Sears anymore.” I’m expecting soon we’ll be reading about their demise.
I thought I was the only one, I’m getting spam emails from Sears every day.
I try to unsubscribe, they thank me and say it will take 7-10 days to get off their emailing list. It’s been over a month now, still getting them with no way to make it stop.
Isn’t there spam laws for this type of stuff, how is a big store like Sears able to get away with it?
I added my wedding registry here, DID NOT check “yes” to promotional emails, but that didn’t matter. I get at least 2-5 emails per day and Ive “unsubscribed” at least 5 times over the last 6 months. I keep getting told “10 business days.”
I spoke with some poor employee on chat this morning threatening to remove my registry if I received 1 more spam from sears. The person assured me they filled out the unsubscribe for me and that it would take effect in “10 business days.” I went off. No way to escalate this? You’re already breaking the law. So I’m watching my email. If I get one sears spam, I’m deleting the registry. Screw em.
It seems they never learn. They must think they are making enough sales on their spam to offset the number of customers they’ve lost forever because of it. Hard to believe, but it shows the kind of mentality that’s run this previously great company right into the ground.
willi828: I notice you’re a Gmail user so I’ve got an idea for you. It is what I do when any organization ignores unsubscribes: I create a filter in Gmail.
A filter allows you to, for example, have any email from “sears.com” to be automatically deleted. I do this all the time and it dramatically cuts down on unwanted emails!
How to Create a Filter:
+ Google’s Gmail help page on creating filters is here
+ A slightly better version (has visuals) at Wikihow is here
+ A bunch of good links from a Google search is here.
Hope this helps.
Where’s the class action legal action? I want on-board!
I won’t waste everyone’s time with our story. Same stuff, different flavor.
Thanks to Christine (February 15, 2012) for providing the link to stop robo calls from Sears. A few days after using the link call from Sears stopped.
http://www.mysurveycontrol.com/
This is beyond shady and one of the many reasons I haven’t purchased a major appliance at Sears in 5 years! I did stop in 2 years ago, the last time I ever stopped in this place just for motor oil for a lawnmower and the transaction was a game of 20 questions – “would you like to use your Sears card, what is your email for rewards points, phone number, etc etc.” Go away, I’m buying $2 worth of oil and I have cash!
The calls from TWO numbers have been hitting my landline since early Jan. 2016
(484) 357-1749
(484) 929-2738
They call 2 times a day every day including weekends, as early as 8:40am and as late as 9:55pm ET. Never a voice mail/message left…I did purchase a Cabrio washer machine/dryer. The ID shows up as “Sears,” it would make sense about the extended warranty on this item since I did purchase this pile of junk back in Jan 2011, but I thought I had a 3yr warranty(?). Whatever, this was a HUGE regret also, I’ve already fixed this washer myself 4 times in the past year…I NEVER has such issues with a washer machine like this, the previous one was a beast that never had issues in 21 years.
Sears is a dying company, been trading water for years – especially after the merger with failing KMart, coming off another pathetic holiday season. What they are – and have been -pulling is simply harassment.
Not sure if my issue is entirely sears or a combo of sears and Google. I found out today that I share an email (gmail) exact address with someone else while clicking the sears link I received via txt. I was directed to change my password and I was on sears website, with my email, but not my account. I did not think Google allowed an address to be used by more than one person?! I did find it was my error in that my sears account years ago I opened it with yahoo account which i never really use anymore….but still, I think it was too easy to accessing the other persons sears account. (I have already taken care of the issue with Sears btw).
Sorry if necro commenting
Largely I think it’s a SEARS thing still going on today (despite the age of this article), and their marketing being hyper aggressive despite said hyper aggressiveness turning more and more people off. They were among the first stores I started getting into the habit of saying “no thank you” when they asked for phone number or email since neither is required to purchase but they train their cashiers to make it “sound” like it is, now I work in retail and understand up selling but their approach at the register and what comes after should you give them your info is just ridiculous at this point.
This is February 2021-allllll Sears are gone now. Sad to see buildings still saying Sears all around the country with no cars in parking lots as well as no merchandise even peeking in the windows-empty very very empty. some are even in same parking lot next to now defunct K Marts as well. Think last one we saw was this past year where K Mart&Sears were side by side of course (both closed&defunct) somewhere driving through Wyoming.
We bought from Sears Surplus our new washer and dryer after our move out of state. That was 2+ yrs ago. The washing machine started bouncing all over the tile floor in service porch and would knock into the dryer that stood side to side touching. If I had things on the washer or dryer they’d fall off then the machine would stop full of water (now what am I supposed to do)? I hated this dumb waaaaaay too expensive dumber than dumb front loader washing machine that even bounces around with nothing more than 3 t-shirts in it, certainly not over loaded. So I called, yes we’d bought the service agreement so we were covered, repair guy came, but the # to call goes to Istanbul or China or the Philippines or Paraguay, Costa Rica or Ecuador. Either way hard to hear/difficult to understand/or bad connections:that said
1-800-927-2291
This ^^^ is the # that calls us twice a day ever since that day weeks ago when the repair man came to fix washer. No we don’t answer because it clearly says Sears Protection, but when will it stop, this call comes only to house phone so maybe I should call our phone service and ask if we can block it? I’m afraid if that’s even possible they may just change to the other # listed above….