Sears - Failure to Clean Ducts and Left House a Nasty Mess
My girlfriend moved in and was having issues with allergies. Knowing my ducts were very dirty, we called Sears to clean our ducts. They came out, I was present when they arrived and they explained how the system worked. They started to set up, and I had to return to work so my girlfriend stayed while they did the job.
Before I left, they covered the main walkway in the living room, the TV in the living room and tv in the main bedroom. They completed the work and my girlfriend paid them. After they left, my girlfriend called to say that they left, but the house was very dusty. When I came home, I found that the house was COVERED in nasty tobacco smelling filth (the former owner was a heavy smoker). EVERYTHING in the house was covered and the air was filled with this nasty dust that used to be in the ducts.
Worse then the mess that they left, I used a borrowed duct camera to view inside the ducts. I found that the ducts had INCHES of dust and filth in them still. Some of the return vents I could stick my hand in and grab baseball and softball sized clumps of nasty smelly brown dust clump. The stuff that was previously settled in the ducts was now all over my house and the ducts STILL were full of it.
Everything in the house except the two TV's had to be cleaned thoroughly. My girlfriends skin was terrible from all the dust now floating in the house because of her allergies. Worse, they took my $150 for cleaning the ducts and DID NOT CLEAN THE DUCTS! According to my girlfriend, the sears team was more about speed then doing a good job. She said they raced from one duct to the next. They could not have checked on their work because some ducts you could look inside of them without a camera and see inches of dirt/debris/dust with the naked eye.
Supposedly the person leading the crew was the manager for all of WI. He said he was training the team. He did a horrible job of training because the job was not completed properly and they made a mess of my house. In addition, they scratched my toilet seat when cleaning the duct above it, and broke my doorbell.
I called customer service who offered to send them out again. I told them I do not want someone to come out just to make a mess of my house again, I wanted a full refund! The supervisor told the customer service person that they covered everything in the house (which they did not) and that the dust was caused by a kitchen renovation. Our kitchen is NOT being renovated, we told the guy that we were going to renovate it in the future!
I offered to send the customer service person pictures of the dirty ducts, the filth that was covering the entire house, and a video of the duct camera showing the dirty ducts that were not cleaned. She said she'd like them, but then did not give me instructions on where to send them.
The customer service person said she was submitting our claim to their "upper management" to approve a refund. It has been weeks and we have not heard from them. I have followed up multiple times but I always get the run around and was told repeatedly that it was submitted for approval but couldn't tell me when we would know. They never gave me a refund, nor have they contacted me again.
Location: Milwaukee, Wisconsin
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Sears does not have good service. I will never call them again for any home issues such as the one you have just described.
Your experience sounds pretty typical of Sears to me.
Sorry you had to go through that. I believe they contract all of their services out to other companies.
does not surprise me when you said Sears we had them install a heater and air conditioner system that never worked properly the wiring was badly done and an electrician discovered that my house would have burned down if the wiring was not replaced sears uses sub-contractors that do not respond to your complaints and when you call sears, they refer you back to them completely lousy service stay away from Sears!
Since I posted this complaint, Sears has agreed to give me a refund on the duct cleaning and return to clean the ducts again. Due to the mess left last time, I declined the return trip to my house but I took the offer for a refund. It has been 4 weeks since they began "processing" the refund, and I have yet to actually see the money.
Dear Coldwake81:
My name is Susan with Sears Social Media Support Escalations team. We are a single point of contact for escalated issues which means that we handle situations start to finish with one dedicated case manager. I found your post here and want to offer our sincere apologies for the manner in which your ducts were cleaned by our team. This is certainly not the manner in which you deserve to be treated or the manner in which Sears has long been known to treat our customers. We can understand your frustration with having such a mess when they were there to clean out your ducts and leave your home free of dust and debris. We value your business very much and want to make sure that everything that can be done to help you is being done.
At your convenience please contact our office via email at SMAdvisor@searshc.com and a dedicated case manager will contact you directly. In the email, please provide a contact phone number and the phone number the duct cleaning was purchased under (if different than the contact phone number) and we will call you directly. Also, in your email, please provide your screen name (Coldwake81) you used to post on this site, for reference to your issue, and we do look forward to talking to you soon.
Thank you,
Susan R.
Social Media Moderator
Sears Social Media Support