ATLANTA — A metro Atlanta woman has been buying Sears appliances for over 50 years.
She also has had a “Sears Protect” home warranty for decades.
But for nearly a year now she’s been trying and failing to get Sears to honor that warranty and replace her broken dryer.
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“I don’t understand. Everything at Sears has changed,” Dell told Channel 2 Consumer Investigator Justin Gray.
Dell keeps meticulous records of all her interactions with Sears in a notebook.
She said she’s been in contact with Sears about her dryer more than 100 times since it broke in September 2023.
“They told me, you’ve had 65 interactions with us. And that was months ago,” Dell said.
While Sears no longer has stores in Georgia, loyal customers like Dell continue to purchase appliances and warranties.
Her home warranty cost over $700 this year.
In previous years she has used it to replace or repair a variety of appliances but has had no luck with her dryer.
“The first part that came to the house was for a washer. And I’m going, it’s my dryer. So, it just went downhill from there,” she said.
Sears eventually decided the dryer could not be repaired and agreed to replace it.
But it has been more than 3 months since the replacement dryer was ordered and Dell is still having to take her clothes to a laundromat to dry.
‘I’ve been on the phone two or three hours at a time with them being transferred from department to department, to department. And everybody has an excuse, or this wasn’t done or that wasn’t done,” Dell said.
Channel 2 Action News Investigates has done a series of stories on problems with home warranties from a variety of companies.
That’s why the Clark Howard Consumer Action Center recommends that consumers set aside cash instead of paying a monthly or yearly premium.
“We really encourage people, instead of spending the $500 or $600 a year for the warranty, to put that in a fund for your home,” Loris Silverman from the Consumer Action Center said.
Channel 2 Action News contacted Transformco, the company that now owns Sears.
A Transformco representative tells us the replacement dryer has been ordered and that they are having problems with “a new inventory and point-of-sale system that has been challenging.”
Transformco said if the new dryer is not delivered by the end of the week, they can offer Dell a check for the full amount that can be used at any retailer instead.
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