Last Thursday afternoon, June 1, our side-by-side fridge/freezer began emitting a very loud hum. The following morning I checked our file and determined that yes indeed, this had happened before, in March of this year. The tech came out and cleared various internal vents back then. It worked fine after that, and because we have a Master Protection Agreement (fancy language for a maintenance contract) it didn’t cost us anything to have him visit. So when it recurred last week I thought “okay, I’ll try moving stuff away from the vents and see if the noise stops.” Nope, it did not. So I called Sears (it’s a Kenmore) and made an appointment to get it looked at and repaired. The trouble with that was that the earliest appointment I could get was Wednesday, June 7. I had a freezer full of food. I went out and bought a 48-gallon cooler and a bunch of ice and tried to keep it all frozen, but by Sunday it was thawed and hopeless. So I threw it out, prudently making a list of what I tossed as I did so.

One of the terms of the Protection Agreement is that Sears will replace up to $300 worth of food loss if it occurred as a result of their equipment failing. It’s pretty hard to argue that I threw 42 food items (remember that number, it will be important later) out of perversity, so I thought I was on firm ground filing a claim for it.

I called Sears on Monday and asked what the procedure was for filing for reimbursement, and was sent to this website. The guy fixed it on Wednesday. The thermostat had died so it couldn’t determine what the interior temperature was, and the fan used to circulate the air internally had fallen off its post.

Today I clicked the Food Loss button at the top of that page and was taken to a page on which I had to fill in my personal info (name, address, email, phone) as well as info from the receipt I got from the repair ticket (Service Order #, Service Date and Unit #). Then I needed to fill out an itemized list of food I claimed as lost. First I had to specify how many items in the claim; the maximum number allowable turned out to be 35 on the drop-down menu, seven less than I’d planned on (and I left stuff off the list when I was throwing it out, too; half-packages of hot dog buns, hamburger rolls, etcetera). Okay, that was annoying, but I could let some stuff slide (burritos, bagels and the like).

Here’s the list:

Then I determined that, while it says on that page that you can upload a file, it means a picture file, not a spreadsheet. So I had to redo my data entry from my spreadsheet to the form on the site, eliminating my seven extra items. Once that was done I clicked the “calculate” button at the bottom of the form to let it add up the total from the items I’d just keyed in, and Whoa! It said the total was $442 and change!

Now, ladies and gents, please look at that list. The column in the middle has the total of all 42 items. The column on the far right has the total of the 35 items I keyed into the Sears claim form. Do either of those add up to $442? No, right?

Is there a “Contact Us” link anywhere on the website’s pages which I could use to write Sears an email telling them their stupid form doesn’t add properly and attach my spreadsheet to show them so? Don’t be silly. Of course not.

I’ll have to get on the phone Monday morning and demand an email address of someone who can deal with this and who can inform the IT department minion in charge that the form doesn’t do simple addition correctly. Good grief.