Kenmore Upright Freezers Review

June 26, 2009

My wife and I have had this freezer less than two weeks and now desire to return it.  The freezer functioned fine for several days.  I loaded the freezer on Father's Day (June 21) with a large shopping supply of fish, pork loin, nuts and frozen fruit from Costco. I checked the food late that night and all food was frozen and appeared normal.

I did not open the freezer again until noon today (June 26) when I returned from another shopping trip.

When I approached the freezer, I detected a strong foul odor and discovered that the freezer was warm inside.  The interior was filled with dripping debris from packages that had thawed and putrefied including jumbo shrimp, wild sock-eye salmon, mahi-mahi, corbina sea bass, pork loin, pecans, frozen berries and cans of orange juice concentrate which had exploded. 

I checked the electrical source and it was functioning. No electrical breakers were thrown and electricity was constant to the freezer unit via tests from a voltage indicator.

I called Sears, multiple times, and was told that the soonest a technician could come and examine the unit was in six days (July 2).  This is unsatisfactory.  We have a family reunion arriving tomorrow.

One customer service representative recommended that we take out the rotting fish from the trash container, open and wash out the bags to prove that we had purchased the now rotting food. This again, is a completely unsatisfactory suggestion. We have the receipts from Costco plus the testimonial from the city of Austin dead animal removal employee (the only service available before our family reunion tomorrow).

The only options offered from Sears in order to claim the costs of the spoiled food is to wait for five days until the technician can arrive (from 8 AM until 5 PM) with the horrible stench of the rotting freezer in our house. In addition, we were informed that service call from the technician would be charged against the extended warranty we bought with the original purchase.

Again, completely unsatisfactory.

Or, we can call the store we bought the unit from and get a refund for the freezer. So, I desire to have the unit picked up and get my money back. Because we are returning the freezer, we have been told that Sears will not reimburse us for the $350 worth of food that was destroyed in the unit.

Again, this option is completely unsatisfactory!

I understand that mechanical units can fail. I do not fault parts that can break. I do fault, however, the resolution attempts at customer service from Sears.

Although we have shopped Sears for over 35 years, with satisfaction, we are hugely disappointed in the customer service provided in resolving this situation. I will never shop at Sears again and plan to spread our disappointing tale to friends, neighbors, relatives and anyone who will listen through the internet to our dissatisfaction with Sears.

This is truly a sad story for an American company that used to deliver complete customer satisfaction "no questions asked".