Sears scam

I have a Sears credit card that I occasionally use for tools, parts and such. So I get a bill this week for some lawn tractor parts I ordered. I throw away all the ad inserts and tear off the ad that Sears always insists on attaching to the return envelope. But it catches my eye, because it looks like a check. So I read it: "As a valued Sears Customer, you've been issued a Holiday Thank You worth up to $96.00. Redeem your certificate now to select your favorites for just the low amount shown for each plus shipping and handling." Elsewhere it says in big letters: "REDEEM YOUR THANK YOU CERTIFICATE NOW." and "Redeem For [sic] Your Thank You Before It Expires."

There are several gadgets shown on the ad, most of which you're unlikely to buy for yourself, but might be a suitable present for someone you don't really like. (They all come gift-wrapped.) Now a gullible person would think they can use the $96.00 "thank you certificate" to buy these Items. Of course not. But where's the Fine Print? I finally found the fine print INSIDE THE RETURN ENVELOPE FLAP! Not only are you not likely to read it, it's nowhere on the order form and you're going to send it back when you mail your check.

The Fine Print: "Your Thank You is a savings off the retail value of comparable items available elsewhere. Maximum value is based on selecting 4 each of the 3 highest valued items for the low amount shown and is not a credit to your account."

I bought about $150 worth of wrenches and they said I could get $17 off it I applied for a Sears credit card, so I think what the heck. Well after seeing their scam, just like you, I am going to cancel the darned thing.

Gene

I think I put some horse manure in one once, but not sure anymore, that was in my younger days.

Gene

The catch was, they had 20 pumps and only one was set at that price, all the rest were at the going price. In other words, you had to check out every pump on the island to find the one that was set at that price.

Those guys got real unpopular in a hurry. The sad thing was, they tarnished the reputation of the entire state.

What's especially outrageous about a scam like that is that most of us have come to accept it as business as usual. We continue to do business with companies we more or less expect to try to cheat us if we aren't vigilant at every step. Refusing to do business with Sears or Wal-Mart or Citi-Corp may give you the moral high ground, but you pay the price of losing whatever good deals you can find with those companies if you're willing to make your way through the minefield of their tricks and generally despicable business practices. And how much does the loss of your business hurt a mega-corporation, anyway? In the collective sense it should mean everything, but American consumers have made it clear that they'd buy goods directly from Pol Pot if the prices were better than Costco's. So taking your business away from Sears does about as much good as voting in an election in the Congo.

This summer I ran into what I think is one of the cleverest dirty tricks I've seen in a long time. A Seattle window company advertised that if a whole houseful of their windows didn't cut your heating bill by 40% this year they'd pay the difference. That means you should be able to figure out the payback on the cost of the windows by dividing it by 40% (and rising) of your heating bill, right? I think what it means is that they've added enough to the price of their windows (you'll pay more to get that 40% yearly heating cost savings---nobody else is claiming their windows are that good) that they don't lose money when pay the difference the first year---and only the first year. After that you're on your own. When the actual savings only come to 10 or 15%, are you going to scream that you were tricked? Probably not. You understand that there are just too many variables. Besides, unless you heat solely with wood, or with oil, or a natural gas furnace is your only gas appliance, how do you know what proportion of your energy bill is the heating part? But I might be wrong. Some things that are too good to be true could be true anyway, and some lunches might really be free.

All the best, Stan

Yes, it's pretty sad what big corporations have come to these days. There have always been a few bad apples, but most corporations used to put a lot of importance on their reputations. I used to put Sears in the latter category. But more often today, a company's reputation seems to be just one variable in a bean counter's equation: How many customers can we screw over before we p**s off so many people we start to lose money?