My wife purchased a recumbent excerciser from Sears in Salem New Hampshire on Jan 31, 2010 for $229.00 plus $50 for a 2 year service agreement. I picked up the equipment the next week and assembled the bike. Immediately it was apparent that there was a missing peice. There were 2 right rear stabilzer covers and no left stabilizer cover. There was a notice in the box to Not return for missing parts, but dial an 800 number at Proform to get missing parts. (think they have had this problem before?).

I called the 800 number and the person explained that there had been a change in process and missing parts are now provided by Sears at 1 800 4 MY HOME. So I called Sears and after being transferred around 3 or 4 times, Sears acknowledged that I had a 2 year extended warranty and agreed to ship me the missing part.

After 4 weeks I did not receive the part, so I decided to go to the Sears store and see if I could arrange a return or see if I could get the part from the floor model. I spoke with a nice young associate named Nate who called 1 800 4 MY HOME for me and was told the part was on backorder and would be delivered no later than April 1st. As the part is cosmetic, I figured that I could wait.

On April 24 I called 1 800 4 MY HOME looking for the part. I was told there was no record of a part being ordered (even after I gave them the confirmation number) and that there was no record of the warranty on the Proform xp 400 R in my records. After being transferred to warranties dept and waiting on hold for 30 minutes, I was told they were having major computer issues and that I should try back later.

I decided to go back to the store on the afternoon of April 24. I Asked to speak with the manager and was told that Rob was the floor supervisor and that I would need to speak with him 1st. I started to explain the issue to Rob, he directed me to work with an associate named Steve. After explaining my story to Stee, he was all about helping. He called their internal escalation dept and explained the situation. Steve hung up the phone and told me to pick out any other excerciser bike and they would exchange it even. I thought this was great. I picked out a Nordick Trac that was on sale for $329. Steve called the escalation number back and got someone different named Zoella. She insisted that this was not going to be the solution! She insisted on speaking directly to me. I did and she would not budge - no exchange! If the store manager wanted to exchange it was up to them, but she would not authorize. OK - I don't care about the internal politics. Steve tries one more time with Zoella, then hangs up and calls Rob over. Rob agrees to the exchange.

So far so good. I drive 15 miles home, load up the Profork, and drive back to Sears. I find Steve and he gets some folks to unload the proform. He processes the return and then gets Rob to override the price difference. Now things start to go wrong. The Nordick Track warrenty is $129 more than the Proform - they have no way to override thewarranty pricing. No problem for me. I'll take it with no warranty (the proform warranty was no good!) I just want $50 back for the lack of warranty.

Rob starts with some BS about the $50 warranty is the reason he is doing the exchange and he is not going to give me a refund on the warranty. OK now I kind of loose it and dropped the F bomb as in "What the Fxxk?" Well Rob gets all mad (like he never heard that word before) and tells me that he is done. I ask to speak with his supervisor. Nope! Ok I got nothing and no further things to talk about. I have the warehouse guys load up the Proform and drive it back home.

Now I still have the Proform with missing peice. A warranty that is no good. I will never buy from Sears again. They are the most disconnected dysfunctional retail organization I have ever dealt with. After 30 years of buying Sears - I am all done.