Screwed at Sears

For Father's Day my wife had kindly bought me a torque wrench as I had expressed an interested in doing all my own maintenance on my motorcycle. When working on the bike, at least according to the service manual, there are many things that require you properly torque them. The one she bought me was the basic cheap Craftsman model. A big, basic model that isn't precise enough to do the motorcycle work. I figured no worries I'll just take it to Sears and exchange it for credit for their $99 model that is accurate enough for what I need to do.

Of course I never do anything in a timely fashion so the torque wrench hung on my garage wall in its original package until today when I took it back to Sears. Naturally I didn't have my receipt but historically customer service at Sears has been excellent and it was new, in the original box, in pristine unused condition and all I was looking for was store credit so I could spend more money at Sears. So I mosey on into the hardware department at Sears and put the wrench on the counter. I tell the nice lady I had received it as a gift, true enough, and I didn't have the reciept however all I would like to do is exchange it for credit towards a much more expensive one. She says OK but you only get credit based on the lowest sale price, I say that's fine with me. I figure whats the most I can be out, maybe $5? Then she looks me up in her computer and looks up the wrench and tells me she can only give me $6.99 credit.

I'm confused, I say are you sure you mean six dollars and ninety nine cents? She says yes, they've changed their return policy, without a receipt you only get a portion of your money back. I said but I didn't want money I'd like to exchange it for a more expensive model and pay the difference, and she insists all she can credit me for is $6.99. Still confused I go find the $99 torque wrench I need. At the same time I see the same model I have is on sale for $26.99. When I go back up to the counter I ask again, are you sure it was $6.99 credit you can give and not $26.99? She insists she can only give $6.99. At this point I'm still confused and not bright enough to stop giving them my money so I purchase the $99 model and keep my other $26.99 (or is it $6.99) torque wrench.

All in all I found this really baffling. I've heard of restocking fees, I've heard of only allowing store credit but this is just weird. Offering only 26% of the current sale price for an exchange for store credit on an item that is still new in the box and perfectly saleable? Just bizarre. Now that I stop to write about it I think I should have pushed more and maybe spoke with a manager, the whole thing just seems weird but the lady specifically said they had changed their return policy to cut their losses due to a large number of bad returns. It really makes me wonder if I should go back, I wonder what other policies they have changed. I generally buy at Sears and buy Craftsman tools because I buy into their superior customer service mystique, now that belief is somewhat shaken.