Curly Sue wrote:
>
> Your original independent owners wouldn't either, which gets back to
> Sheldon's point about independent service being a crap shoot. In
> theory I'd like to patronize small independent stores, but it's not
> that simple. In practice, the service people that Sears uses are
> local contractors who obviously welcome the association.

I think with Sears service masy be different regionally. In this area,
and how it was on Lung Guyland, appliance service people are actual
full time Sears employees. Power tools, electronic entertainment
equipment, lawnmowers, snow blowers, and such would be serviced at a
Sears Service Center... those are actual Sears employees too. But if
you opt to have home renovations through Sears, ie. roofs, gutters,
windows, kitchen cabinets, central air, vinyl siding, etc. those are
outside vendors contracted by Sears to install Sears products. Perhaps
in other regions things are different. I tend to shy away from store
supplied contractors... anything goes wrong you become their yoyo. I
recommend that with any home renovations to deal directly through your
own contractor... keeping in mind Sears produces no building materials,
they only place their label on those products... so why pay inflated
prices for material, and why pay a huge premium to Sears simply because
they brokered the contractor. And keep in mind that if ever there's a
dispute that the marriage is between Sears and the contractor, they'll
both cover for each other leaving you to drown. You are always better
off finding your own contractor for home improvements.

Sheldon