If the unit was out of warranty: to get a technician out to service the unit there would be a service charge. This is because it is a service and it is common practice it our society to pay for services rendered. The CS rep cannot “find” your account because it is likely that the water heater was not purchased at Sears. Purchased with an old telephone number that no longer exists & you don’t know it. So its not the CS person’s fault that you don’t have the appropriate information that they need to look up the account associated with this water heater. That is IF the account ever existed. One cannot look up an account that doesn’t exist.

Service calls are booked in the order we receive them. They are determined by the availability of the technicians, service levels & where you live. If a CS person tells you that the date they are offering is the soonest one odds are they are telling the truth. Why would we go through the grief to lie to you? We have no reason to do so and its not in Sears best interests. Everyone thinks that their repair is the end of the world and therefore should be the center of the universe. There are other people that had their AC out, refrig and other things (they may have medical needs) and now by getting your appointment pushed up you have most likely bumped someone else who is just as deserving as you are.

On the warranty again, I’m confused because you said that the previous owner bought the item. Did Sears put an MPA or any other form of protection (purchased by you from Sears) on it? If you didn’t purchase any kind of warranty on it then how could “the company which had warrantied” you? If you didn’t purchase an agreement you would have no standing warranty with Sears. Therefore it wouldn’t be Sears that would be responsible for fixing the unit?

“Sears wants to charge us over $300 in fees to replace the water heater which was still under warranty. These fees include a building code fee, as well as installation and haul away fees.”

1.) Do you have documentation proving that the unit was under warranty? Even if the heater itself was covered by a 10 year warranty then you would still have to pay for the labor (if the unit was over a year old and had no protection agreement on it) associated with the repair.

2.) Someone has to pay for the old unit to be hauled away. Why should Sears eat the cost of a unit that is legally your property? That’s right, if you want someone to perform a service (haul away a piece of YOUR property. once you pay for it Sears isn’t responsible for disposing of it. Its yours. That’s like asking your car dealer to be responsible for towing your used car after 10 years that you bought it at the dealer. They would laugh at you) then you have to pay them. Services rendered = payment.

3.) See the information above about how the calls are scheduled.

4.) If we hire more technicians we have to pay them to do the job (there is that business services rendered = payment thing again). That means that the customer would have to pay MORE on average. Then the customer would complain I bet. See the catch 22 here?

I work in a call center in the United States, but we have people of all nationalities. It is ignorant, prejudiced and rude to assume that just because someone speaks with an accent that they do “not speak english” or have to be based out of foreign country. It may be hard to understand the person you are speaking with but at the same time you need to calm down, and treat them like a human being.

I’m betting if you slow down, calm down and spoke to them like a person (instead of a second class citizen which is how your post came across in the last paragraph) then I bet it would have been easier for you.

Your heater is man-made and God knows how you maintained the unit. Its bound to fail. It can’t be “faulty” if it worked just fine for 7 years. If it were “faulty” meaning a manufacturer’s defect then it would have crapped out long ago. How much maintance did you do for it? Did you have preventatives done on it? If the answer is no then its no wonder your unit broke.

Get a protection agreement on the item or buy a new one and get an extended warranty. Sometimes its best to get a new item then spend the money to repair the old one.

Just thought I would make you aware that some of your assumptions are inaccurate. The customer has to meet Sears half way because once we sell the item to you it is YOURS. You have to maintain it and care for it. If it breaks then you have to provide documentation of warranty and wait for Sears to perform the service. If Sears is providing service to you let them provide it. We have to provide service to everyone and to do that sometimes the customer just has to be patient.

Thank you for your time. Please get preventative maintenance if you haven’t already. It is often only $75 dollars and in the long run that investment once a year really beats all this, don’t you agree?