Sears; buy your tools NOW before it is too late!
 

Local Sears is closing. It's a ghost town, has been for years. Is anybody really surprised?

Sears gets what they deserve. Extinction like Montgomery Wards, etc!
 

A decade before Internet business started eating into Sears profits, the local Sears car service dept got caught selling unneeded front end alignments and parts. When a customer brought their car in for tires or brakes they were showing the owner how the ball joints were loose, but placing a large channel lock pliers on the control arm and wiggling it up and down.

A good friend got a call from his wife telling him Sears wanted an extra couple hundred bucks to repair the "loose and worn parts".
He knew the car drove perfectly and did not need any front end parts based on his knowledge of the car, it was a low mileage Buick. He told his wife not to authorize the work and he was coming down right away to see what they were trying to sell her.
He showed up and when he saw the scam he told them he knew what they were they trying to pull and took the car home.

Flash forward about a year later there was a news release that the California Bureau of Auto Repair caught Sears in a sting operation for just those things, selling unneeded front end work.
Its sad that a big corporation allowed a scam to go on like that!
here's from an online account of the Sears scam:

When undercover cars in California and New Jersey caught Sears Auto Centers selling unnecessary repairs in 1992, many people were surprised to learn that the company had quotas, sales commissions, and contests that encouraged the sale of additional repairs. Consumer advocates said those practices were responsible for the problems at Sears, but the company initially denied that anything improper had occurred. Sears claimed that replacing good parts before they fail was "a common practice in the industry" and tried to pass it off as preventive maintenance. The company later admitted that "mistakes did occur" and agreed to pay $8 million to settle the California charges. Sears also agreed to make restitution to 900,000 customers nationwide and they discontinued the use of quotas, commissions, and contests.

At the time, the shocking truth of Sears' words went largely unnoticed. But the industry's "dirty little secret" was out: Quotas, commissions and contests (for example, Caribbean cruises and $10,000 cash prizes for managers, $500 per day quotas for mechanics), plus the replacement of good parts, really were common practices at many large, well-known auto repair chains. A number of undercover investigations and class-action lawsuits have resulted in charges of deceptive advertising, bait & switch tactics, and outright fraud at some of the biggest names in the business.

Hello, in some parts of the country you can buy "Craftsman" tools at True Value hardware stores. Maybe try a True Value around you.

-Tony

If I'm not mistaken, the Craftsman brand has been sold to Stanley, so you should start seeing them in other stores.

The local Ace sells craftsman now too.

Sears is only running on the delusions of its owner...literally.

KMART carries Sears and Craftsman tools as it's owned at least in part by Sears.

One nice thing beyond the Craftsman guaranteed tools is over the last decade Sears has also sourced an sold some high quality tools from Germany, It's where I buy KNIPEX wire cutting tools.

You can still hit up E B A Y and still save a few bucks even with shipping in virtually all instances. Saves a trip and gas money to the store ...

Sears in Canada was called Simpson Sears. Has gone totally bankrupt as of last Christmas. With all stores closed and stock sold off. They were in trouble for several years. You could easily see this coming.

Existing and upcoming pensioners will receive nothing from the date of bankruptcy. This has become far too commonplace with existing larger companies.

We need a law in Canada where company pension funds are held by a third party. I thought some American states had this in place. Too many employees need and based their retirement planning on those pensions.

Living costs are so high in larger Canadian cities now people can no longer survive on basic government pensions. Basically the equivalent of social security in America.

I seldom go grocery shopping myself. It is an eye opener when on those few occasions the wife asks me to pick up a few things.

Far too many people have to be living almost hand to mouth out there. When pension cheques are received the grocery stores are far too busy now.

There always was an uptick at pension cheque time. Nothing like now though. Of course the percentage of the older people is higher now as well. Yet not high enough to create this saturated grocery chain store effect or situation once each month. If you are trying to find a spot to park on those days it can be really hard. At the same time you notice that the vast majority of the cars are pretty new locally.

The equation runs through my mind that I am just out of touch. Older people really require gas guzzling newer expensive suv's? Yet are so strapped for money at the same time. They have to grocery shop on the only day the stores have very long cashier line ups? Plus very hard to find a place to park to do so. Even though the parking lots are very large.

On the same day there also are lineups at most the gas stations. Walmart is also very busy. As are the dollar stores. I also noticed on my last visit to a grocery store. That large chain has discontinued their house label line of products. This has the effect of about doubling the prices of the products some people normally purchase.

The pensions should not be controlled by the companies once the money is paid in. It's hard to believe this is still not law in the US and Canada.

Sears has been deliberately run into the ground by the owner, a corporate raider named lampert .

Pensions have been looted for decades thanx to the gop, that's a fact .

10 minutes later I get this in my inbox : https://www.searshomerepairjobs.com/hiring-events.html?utm_source=promo&utm_medium=em&utm_campaign=hsr-jobs

Line up SUCKERS ! .