[net.consumers] Sears Maintenance Contracts

universe@byucsa.UUCP (03/08/84)

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When my wife and I bought our refrigerator from Sears,
The salesman pushed us for a maintenance contract.
After figuring out that with the contract, I would pay
for the refrigerator several times over, I decided I'd
take my chances and told them no.
About two weeks later, I got a note from Sears again
asking me about a maintenance contract. I threw it away.
Then, a man called me from Sears, asking about a maintenance
contract. I told him no. Two months later, a woman called
my wife and asked her about maintenance contracts, noting
that since there were "a lot of fields by where we lived,"
we had to worry about "mice chewing through the wires and
tubes under the refrigerator," since they would be sure
to run in whenever she was holding the door open talking
to the neighbors.

Needless to say, we didn't get the contract. We also didn't
get one for the Kenmore sewing machine, which we bought a year
later, even though they called every bit as much.

At least they haven't called for the washer we bought a year
ago. Maybe they're leaing.

After talking to one of the salesmen, I found that they get
quite a commission on those contracts, which have a fairly
high markup by Sears. All in all, though, I've been happy
with Sears, maintenance contracts aside.

Daryl

seifert@ihuxl.UUCP (D.A. Seifert) (03/09/84)

Seems like buying a "maintenance contract" for a Sears
refrigerator is just giving money to Sears. The things run
*forever*.

-- 
		_____
	       /_____\	    Have you hugged your beagle today?
	      /_______\			Snoopy
		|___|	
	    ____|___|_____	    ihnp4!ihuxl!seifert

bhaskar@fluke.UUCP (K.S. Bhaskar) (03/14/84)

It took Sears one full year to stop pestering me to buy a maintenance contract
on a vacuum cleaner -- I received a call every 2 weeks typically.  It is
amusing how the product salesperson emphasizes how reliable the product is and
then the contract salesperson emphasizes how the product really needs to be
fixed because it breaks!!!

On a related subject -- with three-way phone service, if you get a telephone
solicitator who won't shut up and go away, just call your local dial-a-prayer
recording number...

ix21@sdccs6.UUCP (03/17/84)

ded repair instead of being
able to take it to the nearest Sears store for repair; she had to
take it to one which was some regional repair center which was 15
miles farther than the nearest Sears store.  If she didn't have a
contract, however, she would have been able to drop it off at the
nearby store, which was also the one in which she originally bought
the set & contract.  Naturally these facts were not presented to her
when she was told of the marvelous benefits of the contract.
-- 
David Whiteman sdcsvax!sdccs6!whiteman
UCSD Medical School, La Jolla CA
{insert boring .signature file here}