Holiday Shipping Shenanigans

Sears Fraud and Deception


I ordered a pair of boots from Sears for delivery to my brother. I tried to place the order with their online system but it wouldn't confirm, so I called their telephone order line to place the order. The salesperson who took my order over the phone double checked to make sure she had the billing and ship to addresses correct and in the correct entry fields. However, when I received an e-mail confirmation of the order later that day, the billing and ship to addresses had been reversed. I immediately called the order line back and asked them to fix the error. I was told by both the salesperson and the manager I spoke to that the addresses could not be changed once the order was placed and my only option was to refuse delivery of the order and reorder the item. It would then take 60 days to process the refund on the original order. Not satisfied with that I went back online to chat with a shopper's helper. I was told by two successive helpers that the order could in fact be changed to reflect the correct ship to address and that a note had been sent to the shipping department to that effect. By now, two days later, my account had been debited for the purchase of the boots.

When I received notice that the order had shipped, the address problem had not been fixed and the boots were shipped to me with my brother's information as the billing address. I don't know how they were even able to authorize the sale without the correct billing address to match the billing address for my debit card. I went back online for another chat session and was told there was nothing they could do now that the order had shipped and that I should refuse delivery and reorder the item. I started getting e-mails from the Customer Care Dept. saying the same thing. I responded that I wasn't about to reorder the item and let them hold my money for the original purchase for 60 days, and I was starting to think they do this kind of thing on purpose to artificially inflate holiday sales and make extra interest on the money they hold for 60 days before refunding the original purchase. I then received an e-mail saying I should refuse delivery and reorder the item, or I could contact the shipping company and see if they could do anything about it. I contacted the shipping company and was told that their contract with Sears allowed for a change of delivery address in transit via what is known as a "delivery intercept." All I needed to do was get a Sears rep on the phone in a conference call with a rep from the shipping company to authorize the intercept. When I was able to arrange this, I found out it costs Sears $10 and the Sears rep said she had done them before.

So it turns out Sears would rather lie to their customers and have them refuse delivery and reorder the item, capturing double the revenue for 60 days on the purchase, than intercept the delivery and pay $10 to fix their mistake. I wonder how many other customers they are doing this to right now. There could be a class-action lawsuit in it.