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No food today, sorry. I'll try to be back next week with a foodie diary. Besides, y'all had one last night - that will keep you, right?
While I'm pleased to see that Sears has pulled their advertising from Mr. Putrid Porcine's radio show, they've really tried hard to lose me as a customer anyway.
Why?
Well, let me tell you!
Right after Christmas, my husband and I went down to Sears and put a stove on layaway. We learned last Monday that they'd canceled our layaway.
Here's the backstory:
We'd talked about getting a stove with a double oven for a long time because with all the cooking we (I) do, more than one oven is definitely needed. Now, my kitchen will not support two wall ovens without a massive structural redo, something we do not have the money or patience for.
So we did a lot of research as far as what I was looking for in a range, and ultimately came up with this model because it offered five stove top burners and the largest capacity in the two ovens. And the burner control knobs are SERIOUS. When you use your stove as much as I do, this is a BIG HONKING DEAL! (Okay, maybe it's just me....but ooooh, I love those burner control knobs!)
We found it in three locations around town - Sears, Best Buy, and Pacific Sales (which later merged with Best Buy - wtf?) Fast forward to Christmas. Though we prefer not to exchange gifts, some of the fam insists. From them, I requested Sears gift cards, and explained why. Imagine my delight when after the wrapping paper had settled, I possessed Sears gift cards totaling $500. Yay! 1/3 of the cost of the oven!
We chose Sears because while there is some pressure to open an in-store charge, they offer layaway, and we wanted that stove to be paid for as soon as possible - and before it came into the house. With tax, and the fact that the price for the oven went up after Christmas, we were looking at paying $1850 for the stove. We chose the 12 week option to pay it off.
Sears layaway is funny - we were allowed to put down only the deposit amount that first day - not a penny more. Even in trying to make two separate payments so we could zero out the gift cards. No big deal, it was only about a mile out of my way home from work, so I'd stop by at the start of the week and use up the rest of the gift cards.
Well, best intentions and all that. I never made it there, and ended up asking my husband to do it because he works from home, and therefore can brave the mall when traffic doesn't resemble the exodus from Mile High Stadium (I can't keep its names straight, so I stick to the original) after a Broncos game.
As it turns out, we missed the payment date. But no matter, the helpful folks at Sears layaway had their trusty robot call us and remind us that we had a payment due. Off we went to make it. This happened twice more, and yes, we know that the blame is actually ours for not making the payments on the due dates, and instead growing to rely on the robocalled reminders.
Last Monday, my husband called Sears, telling me that he thought that it had been an unusually long time since we'd received a call. He spoke with a woman at the local store who said something vague about thinking that those calls had been discontinued by the layaway people, and anyway our layaway had been canceled the day before. At this point, my husband got sort of apoplectic, and as someone who works in phone sales um, admissions for a for-profit university, I cannot abide rudeness, so I divested him of the telephone and took over.
The first thing I did was ask if I could speak to a manager, assuring the woman that she'd done nothing wrong; I was going to be asking for things that she most likely didn't have the power to do. I got a manager, who explained that the layaway department operated independently of the local stores, and her hands were literally tied - she could do nothing to reinstate our layaway. She also pointed out that the payment due date was always on the receipt received after a payment was made. I responded that I understood that and certainly took that share of the blame, but that we'd have paid much closer attention to those dates if we hadn't started relying on the calls we received from Sears. She said that a refund check had been cut that day and we should receive it within five business days. She encouraged me to deposit the check and come back in and re-start the layaway process.
I explained to her that the reason we'd chosen to layaway when we did was because we knew that there was going to be an 11% price hike after 1/1/12, and asked if she could keep the price we'd received the same. She said that she should be able to, but that we'd have to deal with a manager at that point, so to be sure to ask for her or the manager on duty when we came in.
I was really bummed, because this meant that we were looking at a longer delay in getting my stove, no matter what. Because Sears doesn't keep the oven in stock, once our layaway was paid, it would be ordered, and in the store a couple of weeks after that. So instead of delivery this month as we expected, we were looking at April EARLIEST. I should also mention here that we put our new dishwasher on layaway at Sears, and we received a call from the layaway folk telling us that our dishwasher was in a couple of days later. Only it wasn't. It came in a week later. So those two experiences had us second guessing whether or not we wanted to try again with the oven.
Well, things sometimes happen for a reason.
I was hiking with my sister this weekend and told her the saga. She commiserated, and then on the way home, called me to offer a solution of sorts. She apparently has an account with some sort of service that works with various businesses who do business over the internet to offer payment options. She'd bought several things this way utilizing their pretty much ever-present no interest for six months payment option. She told me to go onto their website and do a search for what we were looking for, and see what the pricing was. If we wanted to take advantage of her offer, just let us know. So I did, and I found my range/double oven. ON SALE. So because it's shipping from a store that doesn't have a presence in CA, we pay no sales tax, because it's over $999, we get free shipping, and overall save $300. And we have six months to pay the balance. We'll pay it earlier than that, our first payment being in the exact amount of the refund check we received Saturday from Sears.
SO WOW, what a great surprise. I have the greatest sister in the world who is GREAT at creative problem solving, and the story actually gets better!
I got the email this morning that the stove has shipped. It should be here by next week.
I'm sort of thinking of sending Sears a thank you note.
Anyway, I'm handing off to brillig for the heavy lifting and what y'all really come for: Top Comments, Top Mojo and Top Photos! Thanks, brillig!
(brillig here... I don't know about you, but I come for the diary and stay for the tops, especially when it's an asimbagirl diary)
Stealing just a moment before the Tops to ask you all to read Sara R's Community Quilt for BeninSC diary. Ben mentored me when I joined TC, has been a steady voice of warmth, love, calm, support and understanding. He recently was in a bad bike accident and faces a long recovery.
Brillig's ObDisclaimer: The decision to publish each nomination lies with the evening's Diarist. My evenings at the helm, I try reeeeallllyy hard to publish everything
without regard to content. I really do, even when I disagree personally with any given nomination. "TopCommentness" lies in the eyes of the nominator and of you, the reader - I leave the decision to you. I do
not publish self-nominations (ie your own comments) and if I ruled the world, we'd all build community, supporting and uplifting instead of tearing our fellow Kossacks down.
From Mnemosyne:
jm214 had an excellent summary description of what medical staff has to go through under the US "healthcare" system, in Kenneth Thomas' also excellent The Travials of People with Health Insurance Are Not Trivial! Read it and weep, peeps.
From Wee Mama:
Ann Romney's honest bafflement about their weath is well captured in the thread that begins with this comment by Luhks.
From brillig:
My favorite musician ever was not amused at having his song used by Rush. Wendy Slammo has a suggestion on how we can help musicians.
davehouck speaks eloquently about why Limbaugh does not belong on AFR.
Top Mojo for yesterday, March 4th, first comments and tip jars excluded. Thank you
mik for the mojo magic!
1) They get this shit from adults. (HIPAA) by FishOutofWater — 281
2) You just said what I was typing by texasmom — 225
3) Oh, they might have figured it out. by MadRuth — 163
4) Exactly: even if inadvertent, violation of HIPAA by Compost On The Weeds — 156
5) It wasn't much of a ramble at all. by Word Alchemy — 154
6) At 16... by Cinnamon — 154
7) Thin-skinned bajillionaires by Steveningen — 132
8) Note they use the term suspended. by Horace Boothroyd III — 132
9) What a strange universe they live in. by Wee Mama — 125
10) Which is all the more reason that it would be a by bkamr — 123
11) Rush Isn't Giving Up, Though by JekyllnHyde — 117
12) My FAVORITE Free Republic whine thus far . . . by noweasels — 116
13) Yes, hold the adults accountable, but these by bkamr — 116
14) Here, I have one: by commonmass — 116
15) Too late by Horace Boothroyd III — 115
16) Nice! by kcc — 115
17) If the history teacher thinks by Mr Bojangles — 113
18) The school isn't subject to HIPAA. by JDWolverton — 112
19) most excellent by Karl Rover — 108
20) It seems the free market also taught Komen... by Bob Johnson — 106
21) I re-read those comments by xxdr zombiexx — 106
22) I will put this at the top so hopefully you all by beantown mom — 104
23) When this meeting starts by Joieau — 104
24) Like so? by Scarce — 104
25) It is now a legal matter, not political. by lexalou — 97
26) Some Somees by Scarce — 96
27) Editorial Cartoonists Are Brutal by JekyllnHyde — 96
28) Ha I Love This by Hammerhand — 95
29) I wonder what they'd do if Rush has actually by xxdr zombiexx — 94
30) And another: by commonmass — 94
Top Pictures for yesterday, March 4th. Click any image to be taken to the full comment. Thank you
jotter for the image magic!