Sears Eyewear Guarantee Not as Painless as I'd Hoped!

I know this is almost a year later, but nothing has changed.
Inexperienced people, usually teenagers or college students, are hired
part-time with training that consists of watching a set of
instructional DVD's. The manager is overworked with little to no time
off and has to cope with understaffing (usually the office is only
staffed by one person at a time), poor quality frames and questionable
lenses, very sloppy labwork (especially out of the Knoxville lab), and
mountains of repititious paperwork.

Orders are lost or misplaced, communications are misdirected or lost,
and Luxottica (Sears Optical's parent company) does not care as long
as they get the initial sale (which makes their year look better and
their stock prices rise). The employee turn-around is climbing to 70%
within the first 3 months, according to the last regional manager's
meeting. So, it's not unusual to visit a Sears Optical on a monthly
basis and see new managers and/or new personnnel each time you visit.


There is no incentive to stay; the high pressure sales techniques a
manager is required to do (similar to used car sales), along with the
stress of making "goal" each week by whatever means necessary, along
with the ridiculous paperwork that takes at least 1 to 2 hours a day
to complete, along with the required daily marketing since Luxottica
is too cheap to advertise Sears Optical (instead, relying on managers
to try to waylay Sears retail customers and mall customers by
announcing sales, handing out flier and coupons, getting customers to
come in the store by promising free eyeglass cleanings, etc.), along
with the stress of selling very inferior products at inflated prices,
along with "owning the business" philosophy that each manager is
supposed to believe, but can't since managers don't own the stores . .
. I could go on and on.

Take my advice, since it's coming from an insider: don't get your
glasses from Sears Optical.

sears is a joke. they are definitely going under as wall street has
recently indicated. i always have to laugh that a dying company ,
shortly before they die, buys into another similar company (KMART)
that is also dying, in order to gather strength in numbers and do the
smoke and mirrors routine with the stock market and their shareholders
in a last ditch attempt to salvage their name, their business,and
their job. but, it isn't going to work. sears will be in chapter 11
shortly and considerting this man's experience and the 2 previous
experiences i had with the company, it is no surprise. several years
ago, i took my sears lawnmower to their service shop asking that they
replace a cable. it's the cable that is connected to the handle that
must be held with the regular handle in order to keep the mower
running,(it's a safety feature). instead of them simply replacing this
cable, some dimwit employee decided to take the engine apart and then
declared that due to "scoring" of the cylinder wall, it
wasn't worth fixing the mower, so he put the head back on the motor,
estimated that it would cost $400.00 to fix it (replace the motor).
naturally, i bounced off the ceiling a couple of times after hearing
this, because the motor worked perfectly before i took it there. under
cross-examination, they claimed the mechanic , "always tears the
motors down on mowers , (i guess maybe this is a childhood fantasy he
has about taking things apart), to see if it 'is worth the effort and
money to fix the mower'". they refused to acknowledge that the
mower worked fine before i brought it to them for the cable repair.
the mechanic,(who they said was their ace mechanic), his supervisor,
and the supervisor's supervisor all stuck together. the wouldn't fix
it and claimed it didn't run. so, i sued them at the local magistrate
level. they ignored the suit until the week of the hearing. i get a
letter in the mail FROM CORPORATE stating that they will settle for
$400 plus the cost of the magistrate if i cease and desist. of course,
i accepted. after i got the check for the $460.00, i called the
service center and asked if the mower was still there and if i could
have it, they said sure, take it. i took it home, along with the 37
dollar cable , took it to my local shade tree mechanic. he installed
the cable for 40 bucks and never touched the engine. that was 4 years
ago, i am still using the mower today and i cut the lawn starting in
late march til late october once a week.
last friday i bought a washer for my aged parents and scheduled a
delivery and setup . they came on time on sunday morning at 7:30 a.m.,
removed the old washer and took it with them, cleaned the area ,
installed the new washer, and "claimed" that they leveled
the washer. i got there later in the day and my mother then ran a load
of wash. the washer was shaking bad during the spin cycle so,
obviously, it wasn't level. as many of you know, they build washers
today with self levelers, but that is only for the back feet. you pick
up the washer (back), drop it back down and IT self levels. but, the
front levelers are still manual. guess what, boys and girls, the
nimrods never adjusted the front levelers, they weren't touched
because the lock nuts were not tightened against the housing, so the
evidence was right there that they didn't level the front. so, i had
to get the level, put the washer on a 2x4, level the front OF the
washer and now it's fine. i called sears yesterday, explained to them
how incompetent their delivery guys were and they are sending me a
$50.00 gift card for my trouble and anguish. they also promised to
contact the supervisor of the crew that delivered the washer so that
he could give them a remedial course on washer installation. IT'S ALL
TRUE AND AS FORREST GUMP WOULD SAY, "THAT'S ALL I HAVE TO SAY
ABOUT THAT"..

My current glasses just fell aprt a few days after I got them, less
than a week. I guess the saleswoman didn't tighten the screws when she
adjusted them. The arm fell off while I was watching TV. The tiny
screw was nowhere to be found, and I am now trying to wear these a
little (to keep my eyes from straining too much) with a piece of
floral wire holding them together. This has not been a pleasant
experience. Most of the Sears responses have been super; only a couple
of people were unhelpful or just plain rude. I tried to explain in a
post that I am trying to write this without being able to see clearly
because my orig eyesglass perscription was incorrect. Please accept my
apologies for repeated sentences,typos, etc. Thanks for the helpful
posts.

You didn't call back after you got the message,why?It's your own fault
your questions weren't answered, because YOU didn't call back to ask
them.

That was the longest letter I have ever read in my life.

Shoooooooooot I payed 10 bucks for some nice sunglasses today...
weren't Rx.. but i'm cheap so i'd pick the cheapest ones. I'm not all
about "style" or anything.

As others have said, the optical department is not really Sears but
Cole Optical so their policies are more than likely different from
Sears.

It could very well be that the Sales Associate was not allowed to do
an exchange without a Manager's approval. I could defintely see that
since eyeglasses are a high priced item. As far as hiring an
associate with experience and knowledge, they just may not be able to
find someone with experience for what they are willing to pay.

I do agree that the manager should have either called you or waited
for your call before ordering the glasses, that was poor service on
his or her part but I do think the associate was acting according to
procedure. I don't think your medical condition had anything at all
to do with this. As someone with a disability, I find that I usually
get better service due to it so I just can't buy that.

I work at Sears. AT the bottom of our receipts it is printed:
www.searsfeedback.com, which is the customer service/complaint line.
There is also a 1-800 number but sadly I forget it. It does sound
like the girl is new, however, the Sears Optical may have different
return policies than Sears Retail does. I hope this helps.

Hello! I don't have much advice for you regarding Sears Optical since
they are a licensee and the actual company is Cole Vision. And I don't
work for Sears optical, just Sears.

However, I located their website but there is no e-mail for customer
service on searsoptical.com. There is a phone number you can call
877-486-6486 and there is a mailing address listed under customer
service at the very bottom of the page.

Though Sears Optical is a licensed business just using the name, the
same guarantee is applied to them and all the licensed businesses in
Sears (Hearing aid, portrait studio, watch/jewelery repair, etc.)

If you could of, you probably should have returned the next day so you
could speak to the manager in person. Or you could have asked him or
her all the questions on the phone and if the glasses weren't to your
liking, I am sure he/she could have canceled the order.

Best of luck.

I had a problem posting. Copy and pasting and some sentences are
repeated. Please do not point this out when/if you post a reply. I am
aware of it, and it was simply a problem with copy/paste. I used
copy/paste after my initial text was lost during the posting process.
Rather than go through the possibility of losing all my text again and
having to re-do, I chose to copy/paste.