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Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!akgua!sb1!mb2c!arl
From: arl@mb2c.UUCP (Arlan R. Levitan)
Newsgroups: net.consumers
Subject: Re: Sears, Radio Shack, Junk Calls
Message-ID: <231@mb2c.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 10-Mar-84 08:39:20 EST
Article-I.D.: mb2c.231
Posted: Sat Mar 10 08:39:20 1984
Date-Received: Sun, 11-Mar-84 06:51:15 EST
References: ut-ngp.347
Lines: 28

Sears is certainly not unique in its inability to staff its credit department
with personnel that have had brains installed, but I certainly wont deal with
them anymore.
    Three years ago my fiance' and I sojourned to the local Sears store to
purchase appliances for the new house we had just acquired. We both had Sears
credit cards under our own names. The total appliance tab came to about $2600
and each of us had a $1200 limit on our accounts. Since we were 200 bucks short
our salesman went over to the credit office to have the sale approved. Not only
did the credit office turn down the sale, they informed me that because I had
not used my card in two years (although I had an account for over ten years)
they were suspending my account until I furnished them with an updated credit
application. The idiots in the local credit office could have been cloned
from Richard Nixon...they just stonewalled on the subject as I pointed out that
my income had increased fivefold since the last job they had me at with the
US Snail. They blithly ignored my Amex Gold Card, Bell Management Co. ID, and
any other evidence of solid citizenship I proferred. I finally blew up at them
and demanded to speak to someone who was capable of logical thought. Thirty
minutes and five phone calls later I was talking to someone out of Chicago
headquarters who actually apologized for the local dunderheads and OK'd the 
sale. I got the bill a month later and returned payment in full along with
a finely diced and saute'ed Sears credit card. When I do make the rare purchase
there these days (after all, Craftsmen tools aren't bad) I pay cash and give
them "John Q. Public, Anytown USA" as a name and address if questioned. Keeps
the junk mail down.

Some folks have asked why Sears is so hot on credit customers. The simple fact
is that they make more yearly on interest charged than on actual profit realized
from merchandise sold.