I canceled my Sears layaway order. Where’s my refund?

When Aaron Lasenyik cancels his Sears appliance layaway order, the company stalls on a refund. How can he get his money back?

Q:  I’ve been trying to get a refund from Sears for months. I had put some appliances on layaway with the first payment due last summer. But I canceled the order after Sears changed its delivery dates two times with no notice.

Sears promised me a refund within 10 to 14 business days. It’s been more than two months.

I’ve tried every avenue to resolve this. I’ve escalated the issue, been assigned a “consumer advocate” who refuses to call us back after he promised us a refund. I even took my case to Twitter. Sears said it found the issue and we would get our refund, but then didn’t send it.

I tried to dispute the charge with my credit card, but my bank said it was too late. I have all the documentation. I just want my $808 back. Any help would be appreciated. I don’t know what else to do – besides take Sears to court. — Aaron Lasenyik, Woodstock, Georgia

A: Sears should have refunded you quickly when you canceled your order. How do I know that? Because it says so on its site www.sears.com/en_us/dap/layaway.html. But it says you must cancel a contract in the store, in person, and it has to be a full cancellation.

“Once you do, you’ll receive a full refund of any payments made to date, minus service and cancellation fees,” according to Sears.

But were those “service and cancellation fees” the equivalent of your payments? I don’t think so. Based on the information on Sears’ site, they were reasonable – between $5 and $20. Sears was definitely stonewalling you on your refund.

Under the Fair Credit Billing Act, which protects credit card customers from fraudulent purchases, you have 60 days to dispute a charge. Unfortunately, you were past your two months, so your bank couldn’t help. (Well, technically, it could have, but it wasn’t required to help.) Filing a credit card dispute can limit your options, so my advice would be to wait until you have no choice before filing a chargeback.

         I probably would have sent a brief, polite email to one of the Sears executive contacts I list on my consumer advocacy site https://www.elliott.org/company-contacts/sears/. I think they could have resolved this for you quickly.

So what went wrong? I contacted Sears and it turns out that some of its operations in Texas had been disrupted by a storm. A representative found your refund request and processed it. 

Christopher Elliott is the chief advocacy officer for Elliott Advocacy. Email him at chris@elliott.org or get help with any consumer problem by contacting him at http://www.elliott.org/help

© 2021 Christopher Elliott