After 1990 though I had repeated experiences that "the lights were on and nobody was home" at Sears. When I showed up for grad school they had people tabling in front of Willard Straight Hall to get sign-ups for the Sears credit card. I signed up and a few weeks later got a letter that said I'd be declined because I lived in student housing. Why canvas students if you won't give credit to students? This was the only time in my life that I've been denied credit.
Maybe 15 years later I bought 4 tires from Sears and walked 1.5 miles back in the dark and in the snow after work to pick up my car. The salesman insisted on charging me for only one tire after quite a bit of arguing. You might think less of me for this but, no, I wasn't about to call the store manager (who knows how long I'd wait?) to pay another $300 and I wasn't going to call the 1-800 number to make a complaint. I just drove home. Even though it was clear Sears was running a lottery where you might get a "buy 1 tire get 3 free" on a good day, it also made me think about whether I wanted to go back in case the actual mechanic shop was as disorganized as the front end (e.g. "buy 5 quarts of oil, get 0") They went out of business within two years of that though.
They also resort to weird sales tricks like these financial schemes because:
1. They’re so desperate for sales they’ll try anything
2. Their only remaining customer base is generally uninformed laggards. Nobody with half a brain would shop at Sears for tools anymore.
