Amidst the debacle that we have been through with the Sears Corporation, who still remain silent and unaffected against our plight, it has made me recall back to a specific moment on the night our keys were lost/stolen by Sears personnel. It makes me wonder, what would have happened if a man were with us that night, or if we had a man in the family to fight this for us.
I will emphasize that at this point that night, we were asked to open our purses several times, and we complied. Several times, much to our embarrassment and humiliation to the rest of the customers in the store, we dumped our contents out onto the floor to show the staff and Manager Bob Parr that we did not have the keys.
In the report given to Corporate about this nightmare, employees falsely reported that we refused to open our purses! It is clear that this was untrue. It was a huge lie orchestrated by Sears personnel to protect employees and Sears. We opened our bags for the police that night when we called the Orange County sheriff to report this and showed we did not have the keys.
As Sears staff were looking for the keys and I was sitting in the waiting room, looking through my purse yet again, there was a woman with her husband and kids. They were in and out of the center in a matter of minutes to pick up their car. The husband took care of everything, and the staff treated him with courtesy and respect, totally different from how we were treated, and have been treated since.He was treated better than I had ever seen other women being treated at Sears Auto when they are not accompanied by a man. Before that night, I had observed other female customers (including myself and my family) who brought their car in the same time we were there for our car to be serviced. They were met with condescending dialog and rude attitudes by staff. The reason was evident – they are females who would be easily influenced about what to do about their cars. They should be willing to pay more since they are females and clearly know nothing about cars.
We experienced this with our oil change in August 2012, when Sears personnel tried to sell us $400 of services, services we did not need we came to find out. Sears and Sears Auto business model is to operate on 1950s gender roles that women don’t know anything about cars. They make women the prime target for a rude experience and for paying more than when a male customer comes to have their cars serviced.@Searscares on Twitter only confirms that Sears only cares when a man is involved. I have been following Sears customer complaints, despite @searscares blocking me from following them directly. Most of the customers who express satisfaction with Sears customer service admit that they had their husbands, boyfriends, brothers, etc. call customer service to remedy the situation. No further discourse or conflict is mentioned.
Yet, there we were – A family of three women whose keys were stolen or lost at Sears Auto of the Florida Mall. Humiliated and embarrassed by the staff and especially by Melanie and Bob Parr in person, and by Joe Oakes, Chris and Cory over the telephone, who all did nothing to remedy our situation. By filing their lies in their “one-sided” investigations, their mechanic Moises liked, Bob Parr, Joe Oakes — they all painted us in an unflattering light that we live this nightmare with our vehicle every time my sister and I have to get in it to go anywhere!
Not only were the male staff rude but the mall security, also men, were rude to us and did nothing but further aggravate the situation. And it seems that we are not alone in our theory. Reports and reviews filed on numerous internet resources by other females who take their cars in to Sears Auto, are objected to rude staff and more problems with their
car than what they wanted fixed because they are by themselves.
Corporate continues to ignore us despite our numerous outreach via e-mails, Twitter feeds, phone calls and this online journal in attempts to get someone to resolve the only thing we asked — reimbursement of the estimate provided to get our keys and car remote replaced from the car dealer. We still have received nothing.
We have responded to complaints – Sears closes without remedy.
We have provided our email addresses, our telephone numbers – NOTHING.
My mother wrote a letter to Bob Parr – no response.
I wonder yet again, what would have happened if we had a man that night or the following day, when the tire was found completely flat in our driveway. Or when we had to go back to Sears Auto and when Manager Bob Parr decided to replace our new tire (now flat because Sears Auto doesn’t check tires or the tire pressure if they mount tires not purchased at Sears) with another customer’s used discarded tire, which is considered a safety violation against Sears policy as admitted by Bob Parr himself.
Ironically. maybe this whole nightmare would be over by now because of our patriarchal society. Because of society and companies like Sears, a female cannot get their car repaired without the company thinking that they can squeeze a few more dollars out of them because of their gender.
And if Sears is reading this, then prove me wrong. Reach out to us and remedy this situation once and for all.
This is Sears.
Sears Tire and Auto Center Florida Mall 