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dictators_rule
Joined: 08 Jul 2003
Posts: 4996
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Posted: Thu Oct 16, 2008 6:15 pm Post subject: expendable parts
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normal wear and tear
I thought Sears consideral normal wear and tear items expendable parts like lawn mover blades and motor belts which are NOT covered.
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WTF-Ben Dover
Joined: 31 Jan 2008
Posts: 194
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Posted: Thu Oct 16, 2008 6:27 pm Post subject: Re: price price price
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| dictators_rule wrote: |
WTF-reasonably priced
That's exactly what Sears PAs are not.And that's why you have people screaming bloody murder when they're told they'll have to wait 2 wks to a month on a service call.
With a higher price comes higher expectation from the customers.If you sell a SEARS PA and the customer sees an A&E tech right off the bat you're loosing because you just showed the customer you contract out just like most others.All this crap about 14,000 tech and so many service calls a year is meaningless.Throw in screw ups and problems which = delays = time customer canNOT use thier purchase and leaving them feeling like they made an un-necessary purchase.
Then onething I've notice on the complaint boards over the last year or two is Sears refusal to replace compressors on fridges and ac's.Hey,your paying for a PA to keep your unit running,not to Sears make a 1/2 dozen service calls a year.
This entire decade I've seen many stories of long waits and service nit picking-abuse that never did before.I think Sears has been caught off guard over the years as to the number of customers actually using or needing their PA;uh-oh.Sorta like the rush on the banks.everyone seems to be cashing in including the PA customers.Except Sears was never prepared for heavy use of the PA.Some of the problems might be from product quality but Sears has to account for that-you know sorta like a Lehman exec accounting NEEDED cash. |
D_R, I am with you on everything you just said. 469.99 for a 5 year PC on a 1100.00 fridge is 42% of the total purchase price.
That is pure A$$-Rape, and no where close to being reasonable.I should have included that in my other responses on this thread.
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MastaShake1108
Joined: 11 Apr 2007
Posts: 349
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Posted: Thu Oct 16, 2008 8:20 pm Post subject:
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| Nofsdad wrote: |
| especially when SHC leads the pack in complaints about the service they provide. |
I think a correlation can be made though, between the sheer size of Sears' service, which is the largest in the industry, and the # of complaints recieved, and also how vocal people are about it.
This attitude is also similar to another company: Microsoft. When you have the top position in anything (market share, for example), your products, service, etc. are certainly going to come under more scrutiny, which isn't to say that they shouldn't. I simply mean that it could distort perception of how the company actually performs.
As I've also said before, people never really talk about the good experiences they have, because they expect it. So all those I think, tend to get swept under the rug, so to speak.
Last edited by MastaShake1108 on Thu Oct 16, 2008 8:29 pm; edited 1 time in total
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MastaShake1108
Joined: 11 Apr 2007
Posts: 349
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Posted: Thu Oct 16, 2008 8:24 pm Post subject:
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As well, there are things (clauses and such) that make the Sears warranty more expansive (which you already should have some idea of).
And also like I've said before, the stories you hear about them not being fulfilled doesn't mean they're worthless. Look, warranties from all companies can go wrong and not be fulfilled by any company, just read the consumerist. The warranty, if executed properly, can be useful, and Sears (on paper) shows it to be more useful than others, supposedly justifying its higher price.
However that depends on what side of the fence you're on, namely whether they are a benefit or not. So basically your argument can go one of two ways. Either warranties are a positive, or a negative. That's it. It all really ends up to how much value to attach to the extra security that you have.
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lizardking
Joined: 21 Apr 2006
Posts: 1053
Location: the known and the unknown
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Posted: Fri Oct 17, 2008 4:20 am Post subject:
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| WTF-Ben Dover wrote: |
| lizardking wrote: |
| The problem with our warrenties and why people refuse to buy them is too many people still think Sears is Sears and will take anything back regaurdless if they bought the warrenty or not. Even after I explain the return process to people some still scoff at it and say something like "You just got to know who to talk to." Then these are the same people who scream when they don't get their way. Warrenties are only a waste of money if you spent the money for it and never had to use it. Tractor warrenties are usually around 300 dollars for 3 years. Sounds like a lot of money till you consider the average cost of a service call is well over a hundred dollars for something as simple as pulling dirt out of the gas cap because the dirt in the gas cap is preventing the tractor from running. I seen this happen when I spent a day traveling with a tech. Car dealers charge somewhere around 5000 dollars for an extended warrenty on cars. On a 20,000 dollar car, that's about the same percentage as what we sell a 300 dollar policy on a 1500 dollar tractor. And we'll go to the customers home. Car dealers don't do that. You have to take it to the dealer. It's all a crap shoot. The customer is banking nothing will go wrong and we're banking something will. I bought a dryer 4 or 5 years ago at Sears and I already had to buy a new motor for it. Did I whine and bitch it happened to early? No. I bought one because I didn't buy the MPA. Some people do come in and bitch because they bought something and it failed to operate for 20 years like their last one. Shit happens. It pisses me off when I try to tell people the 2 year warrenty on a tractor doesn't mean unlimited coverage for 2 years. It's a limited manufacter's warrenty and people don't want to hear that or even want to hear the explaination. |
Honda Accord EX-L w/Navi
28,060 was the sticker
25,416 is the invoice
24,800 is our purchase price.
Standard Warranty is 3 year/36K miles Bumper to bumper 5 year 60,000 on the powertrain and engine.
we purchased an extended warranty for 6 years/60K w/Gap protection for 1488.99
1488.99 is 6% of the purchase price which is a higly reasonable price to pay for piece of mind on a car I plan to keep.
And if you have the dealership perform all service maintenance, such as oil changes, tire rotation, etc. The dealership guarantees the Powertrain for 250K miles.
LG Stainless Steel Tri-door fridge. Purchase price 2k.
5 yr extended warranty 89.00
89.00 is 4.5% of the purchase price.
32 Inch Sharp Aquos HD 1080p Flat Panel.
Purchase price from Crutchfield. 1099.99
5 yr In home service warranty 169.99
169.99 is 15% of the purchase price
yes, to an extent, EWs are a waste of money and can be very "scam'ish" but if its priced very reasonable, then there is no reason why you shouldn't consider them. |
I'll be honest, I have never shopped for a new car. I can't afford it. My father in law sold cars for Ford for years, and according to him he was always the number one salesman when it came to selling the EW's. I'm just going by what he told me and he told me the average cost was 5,000 dollars for 5 years. And that was 13 years ago. I thought it was high but my FIL always exagerated everything. I knew someone was going to get specific with car warrenties. Personally, I am not a Sears cheerleader with our PA's. I can careless if the customer buys them or not. I just don't want them in my face after the the fact demanding a new product just because they feel it didn't last as long as they think it should've. Everyone has to remember one thing, our warrenties are higher because they are in-home coverage and we don't stop with one call and that's it. I know some companies will wash their hands of the warrenty after one call because "They fulfilled the contract." or when the amount of money to repair exceeds the warrenty price. Before anyone jumps in and says Sears does that, yes we will replace it but we will fulfill the remainder of what's left on the warrenty. I've had customers come in that bought the RPA on a gas blower for a replacement because service said it was more expensive to fix than to replace. We replaced it and the customer still had the remainder of the warrenty to play with on the new one. Most other places would say, that's it, we fulfilled our end. I'm not defending Sears and their prices. I understand why our prices are higher. Do I think it's a good value? It depends. If the service I recieved was greater than what I spent, sure. If I spent hundreds of dollars and never had to use it, then no. To be honest, the only thing I would buy that I would buy a warrenty on 100% of the time is a treadmill. Everything else, I think I would pass.
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allhandsabandonship
Joined: 28 Apr 2005
Posts: 1716
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Posted: Fri Oct 17, 2008 5:24 pm Post subject:
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IMO what turns it into a scam is the way Sears approaches the business. Extended warranties in themselves are not a scam. Even the outrageous prices aren't necessarily a scam. If there are customers out there who get a warm fuzzy feeling from owning an expensive Sears extended warranty, that's their own misfortune. Sears could even be criticized if they didn't take advantage of an opportunity to make a profit.
But there's a fine line between just offering a high profit product/service and a fraudulent way of selling it to the customers. I think Sears starting crossing the line early in the 80's. When they first pushing MA's, it was a fairly casual "soft sell" approach. Salespeople were just required to offer them to everybody and some percentage bought. No big deal. Then the company started getting obsessed with the easy money. They instituted sales goals and started raising the prices. They started making up phony bullshit stories to tell in the MA meetings. They quit sharing any real repair statistics with the employees or customers, because the truth about repair rates doesn't help sell an MA.
At the extreme it gets to the situation recently reported by one of the employees on this board: Management instructions are to tell the customers ANYTHING it takes to sell the PA. IMO this is clearly a fraudulent approach to the business. They lie about the products, and misrepresent the service. Then they wonder why sales decline year after year.
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WTF-Ben Dover
Joined: 31 Jan 2008
Posts: 194
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Posted: Fri Oct 17, 2008 6:59 pm Post subject:
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| MastaShake1108 wrote: |
| MastaShake1108 wrote: |
I think a correlation can be made though, between the sheer size of Sears' service, which is the largest in the industry, and the # of complaints recieved, and also how vocal people are about it.. |
That is slowly decreasing. There are 1 Mall Sears and 3 satellite SE stores and Per the tech that fixed my fridge, he stated that he has worked on several for Sears as well as other Sub-Contractors
This is also going on at 2 popular areas close to Birmingham.
| MastaShake1108 wrote: |
This attitude is also similar to another company: Microsoft. When you have the top position in anything (market share, for example), your products, service, etc. are certainly going to come under more scrutiny, which isn't to say that they shouldn't. I simply mean that it could distort perception of how the company actually performs. |
Unlike Sears, Microsoft isn't losing marketshare and they atleast put out a decent product.
| MastaShake1108 wrote: |
As I've also said before, people never really talk about the good experiences they have, because they expect it. So all those I think, tend to get swept under the rug, so to speak. |
Because good experiences is what you pay for. I don't recall anybody coming into any store and asks "Which aisle has the bad experiences?"
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WTF-Ben Dover
Joined: 31 Jan 2008
Posts: 194
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Posted: Fri Oct 17, 2008 7:07 pm Post subject:
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| lizardking wrote: |
| WTF-Ben Dover wrote: |
| lizardking wrote: |
| The problem with our warrenties and why people refuse to buy them is too many people still think Sears is Sears and will take anything back regaurdless if they bought the warrenty or not. Even after I explain the return process to people some still scoff at it and say something like "You just got to know who to talk to." Then these are the same people who scream when they don't get their way. Warrenties are only a waste of money if you spent the money for it and never had to use it. Tractor warrenties are usually around 300 dollars for 3 years. Sounds like a lot of money till you consider the average cost of a service call is well over a hundred dollars for something as simple as pulling dirt out of the gas cap because the dirt in the gas cap is preventing the tractor from running. I seen this happen when I spent a day traveling with a tech. Car dealers charge somewhere around 5000 dollars for an extended warrenty on cars. On a 20,000 dollar car, that's about the same percentage as what we sell a 300 dollar policy on a 1500 dollar tractor. And we'll go to the customers home. Car dealers don't do that. You have to take it to the dealer. It's all a crap shoot. The customer is banking nothing will go wrong and we're banking something will. I bought a dryer 4 or 5 years ago at Sears and I already had to buy a new motor for it. Did I whine and bitch it happened to early? No. I bought one because I didn't buy the MPA. Some people do come in and bitch because they bought something and it failed to operate for 20 years like their last one. Shit happens. It pisses me off when I try to tell people the 2 year warrenty on a tractor doesn't mean unlimited coverage for 2 years. It's a limited manufacter's warrenty and people don't want to hear that or even want to hear the explaination. |
Honda Accord EX-L w/Navi
28,060 was the sticker
25,416 is the invoice
24,800 is our purchase price.
Standard Warranty is 3 year/36K miles Bumper to bumper 5 year 60,000 on the powertrain and engine.
we purchased an extended warranty for 6 years/60K w/Gap protection for 1488.99
1488.99 is 6% of the purchase price which is a higly reasonable price to pay for piece of mind on a car I plan to keep.
And if you have the dealership perform all service maintenance, such as oil changes, tire rotation, etc. The dealership guarantees the Powertrain for 250K miles.
LG Stainless Steel Tri-door fridge. Purchase price 2k.
5 yr extended warranty 89.00
89.00 is 4.5% of the purchase price.
32 Inch Sharp Aquos HD 1080p Flat Panel.
Purchase price from Crutchfield. 1099.99
5 yr In home service warranty 169.99
169.99 is 15% of the purchase price
yes, to an extent, EWs are a waste of money and can be very "scam'ish" but if its priced very reasonable, then there is no reason why you shouldn't consider them. |
I'll be honest, I have never shopped for a new car. I can't afford it. My father in law sold cars for Ford for years, and according to him he was always the number one salesman when it came to selling the EW's. I'm just going by what he told me and he told me the average cost was 5,000 dollars for 5 years. And that was 13 years ago. I thought it was high but my FIL always exagerated everything. I knew someone was going to get specific with car warrenties. Personally, I am not a Sears cheerleader with our PA's. I can careless if the customer buys them or not. I just don't want them in my face after the the fact demanding a new product just because they feel it didn't last as long as they think it should've. Everyone has to remember one thing, our warrenties are higher because they are in-home coverage and we don't stop with one call and that's it. I know some companies will wash their hands of the warrenty after one call because "They fulfilled the contract." or when the amount of money to repair exceeds the warrenty price. Before anyone jumps in and says Sears does that, yes we will replace it but we will fulfill the remainder of what's left on the warrenty. I've had customers come in that bought the RPA on a gas blower for a replacement because service said it was more expensive to fix than to replace. We replaced it and the customer still had the remainder of the warrenty to play with on the new one. Most other places would say, that's it, we fulfilled our end. I'm not defending Sears and their prices. I understand why our prices are higher. Do I think it's a good value? It depends. If the service I recieved was greater than what I spent, sure. If I spent hundreds of dollars and never had to use it, then no. To be honest, the only thing I would buy that I would buy a warrenty on 100% of the time is a treadmill. Everything else, I think I would pass. |
Average cost being 5 Grand is pretty steep IMO, but its what you can do when you don't have the internet to do any research like you do now (or the internet not being as strong as it is today)
Its funny you mention Ford, they remind me of Sears in a way, Sears and Ford have ripped off people for years and years and now that they both have competitors that poses serious threats to their business, they don't know what to do.
Sears relied on PAs as easy money for straight profit.
Ford relied on SUVs and Trucks
now that no one is buying either PAs SUVs or Trucks, look whats happening to both Companies.
I don't hear about Honda and Toyota laying off people or posting quarterly losses nor Lowes on the other hand.
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MastaShake1108
Joined: 11 Apr 2007
Posts: 349
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Posted: Sat Oct 18, 2008 9:12 am Post subject:
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| WTF-Ben Dover wrote: |
| MastaShake1108 wrote: |
| MastaShake1108 wrote: |
This attitude is also similar to another company: Microsoft. When you have the top position in anything (market share, for example), your products, service, etc. are certainly going to come under more scrutiny, which isn't to say that they shouldn't. I simply mean that it could distort perception of how the company actually performs. |
Unlike Sears, Microsoft isn't losing marketshare and they atleast put out a decent product.
LOL. What? They are losing market share, their public image is crap, and are seriously saying Vista is a "decent product?" What a piece of garbage! Utter trash. XP was good after SP2, I'll give you that much.
| MastaShake1108 wrote: |
As I've also said before, people never really talk about the good experiences they have, because they expect it. So all those I think, tend to get swept under the rug, so to speak. |
Because good experiences is what you pay for. I don't recall anybody coming into any store and asks "Which aisle has the bad experiences?"
This is true. But saying problems never occur is expecting humans to be perfect. Do you expect humans to be perfect?
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MastaShake1108
Joined: 11 Apr 2007
Posts: 349
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Posted: Sat Oct 18, 2008 9:12 am Post subject:
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| WTF-Ben Dover wrote: |
| MastaShake1108 wrote: |
| MastaShake1108 wrote: |
This attitude is also similar to another company: Microsoft. When you have the top position in anything (market share, for example), your products, service, etc. are certainly going to come under more scrutiny, which isn't to say that they shouldn't. I simply mean that it could distort perception of how the company actually performs. |
Unlike Sears, Microsoft isn't losing marketshare and they atleast put out a decent product.
LOL. What? They are losing market share, their public image is crap, and are seriously saying Vista is a "decent product?" What a piece of garbage! Utter trash. XP was good after SP2, I'll give you that much.
| MastaShake1108 wrote: |
As I've also said before, people never really talk about the good experiences they have, because they expect it. So all those I think, tend to get swept under the rug, so to speak. |
Because good experiences is what you pay for. I don't recall anybody coming into any store and asks "Which aisle has the bad experiences?"
[b]This is true. But saying problems never occur is expecting humans to be perfect. Do you expect humans to be perfect?
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WTF-Ben Dover
Joined: 31 Jan 2008
Posts: 194
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Posted: Sat Oct 18, 2008 1:08 pm Post subject:
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Unlike Sears, Microsoft isn't losing marketshare and they atleast put out a decent product.
| MastaShake1108 wrote: |
[b]LOL. What? They are losing market share, their public image is crap, and are seriously saying Vista is a "decent product?" What a piece of garbage! Utter trash. XP was good after SP2, I'll give you that much. |
I will reduce this down to get rid of all the quote boxes.
Yes, I agree XP after SP2 is much better and Vista has some serious bugs, but once they work them out, Vista will be a very good OS.
So who are they losing market share too? Apple? You must not be a gamer by any sort or else you would know that MS is alot better for gaming, word processing as well as alot, but lets not get into that.
Sears is the one that is seriously losing market share.. look at their stocks for goodness sakes.
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MastaShake1108
Joined: 11 Apr 2007
Posts: 349
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Posted: Sat Oct 18, 2008 6:31 pm Post subject:
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What frustrates me about Microsoft is that they never put out a product that works the first time. What kinda crap is that? Everything they release seems to be half-baked until they release updates.
I am a gamer...and also an avid Apple fan. You ask what drove me to Apple? One OS - Windows ME. I have my own PC that I built though, that's got XP Pro on it, so that's fine.
But I mean, I think they're losing market share, to everyone in alot of categories, like Google, Firefox, and yes, Apple. I've heard that HP is planning on releasing their own OS.
As for the stocks quote, I don't think that that's a measuring stick on their market share in HA/HI...right? I'm not totally sure on that one though. I agree it's crap though...but the stock market in general is.
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Snurbble
Joined: 10 Aug 2008
Posts: 269
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Posted: Sun Oct 19, 2008 3:50 am Post subject:
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| MastaShake1108 wrote: |
| What frustrates me about Microsoft is that they never put out a product that works the first time. |
I think that you're showing your age. MS-DOS 3.1 worked well out of the box, as did MS-MASM.
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Jomama
Joined: 22 Jul 2008
Posts: 204
Location: HELL
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Posted: Sun Oct 19, 2008 3:58 am Post subject:
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 One of my favorite responses to my LORDS is; if I was PERFECT, I would not be working there????? 
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MastaShake1108
Joined: 11 Apr 2007
Posts: 349
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Posted: Sun Oct 19, 2008 6:58 am Post subject:
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| Snurbble wrote: |
| MastaShake1108 wrote: |
| What frustrates me about Microsoft is that they never put out a product that works the first time. |
I think that you're showing your age. MS-DOS 3.1 worked well out of the box, as did MS-MASM. |
Probably. Well, regardless of whether they used to, since Windows 95, which is over ten years ago, they haven't releases an OS that ran well immediately out of the box.
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WTF-Ben Dover
Joined: 31 Jan 2008
Posts: 194
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Posted: Tue Oct 21, 2008 12:45 pm Post subject:
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| MastaShake1108 wrote: |
What frustrates me about Microsoft is that they never put out a product that works the first time. What kinda crap is that? Everything they release seems to be half-baked until they release updates.
I am a gamer...and also an avid Apple fan. You ask what drove me to Apple? One OS - Windows ME. I have my own PC that I built though, that's got XP Pro on it, so that's fine.
But I mean, I think they're losing market share, to everyone in alot of categories, like Google, Firefox, and yes, Apple. I've heard that HP is planning on releasing their own OS.
As for the stocks quote, I don't think that that's a measuring stick on their market share in HA/HI...right? I'm not totally sure on that one though. I agree it's crap though...but the stock market in general is. |
But how do you get to Google? Internet Explorer and yes, firefox as well. As far as apple, I love apple but when WoW came out, apple got theirs later which seems everytime a game is release, apple gets their version months later.
The stock market in general maybe crap, but 02-03-04-05 which was before the credit crunch and the mortgage meltdown, Sears was still miserabily losing market share as well as a continued sales decline.
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MastaShake1108
Joined: 11 Apr 2007
Posts: 349
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Posted: Tue Oct 21, 2008 2:40 pm Post subject:
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You mean how do I consider Google a competitor?
In several ways, I mean, they have Google Docs, which is free (a direct competitor to Microsoft Word). Then we have Gmail (competing with Hotmail), Google Chrome (competing against IE), Android (competing with Windows Mobile, and yes, the iPhone), and Google in general fighting MSN for browser market share.
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WTF-Ben Dover
Joined: 31 Jan 2008
Posts: 194
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Posted: Tue Oct 21, 2008 3:26 pm Post subject:
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| MastaShake1108 wrote: |
You mean how do I consider Google a competitor?
In several ways, I mean, they have Google Docs, which is free (a direct competitor to Microsoft Word). Then we have Gmail (competing with Hotmail), Google Chrome (competing against IE), Android (competing with Windows Mobile, and yes, the iPhone), and Google in general fighting MSN for browser market share. |
Google is great, but will they take over? I have gmail and as of yet have tried either Docs or Chrome, as of now, the majority of the people stick with whats famaliar and MS is it.
Now, would it hurt my feelings if the take more marketshare? absolutely not, but its going to be a hard fight.
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MastaShake1108
Joined: 11 Apr 2007
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Posted: Tue Oct 21, 2008 7:44 pm Post subject:
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I don't think they'll take over...and I hope they don't. It's always healthy to have a highly competitive market, because it lowers prices, fosters innovation, and hopefully in the end, better, cheaper products.
I think that Google is the fly that will hopefully sting Microsoft into acting. Maybe they'll come out with a great product. I hope so, because I haven't been impressed in a long time. The Surface looks really cool though.
And try out Chrome. It's amazing. Faster than IE and Firefox, and it has alot of benefits (read up on it at cnet.com to check it out).
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