Last week, I summarized the events that led up to my predicament and how Jose had stolen my heart. Click the link to get the full context before falling into the abyss with me.

INTO THE Void

It was the beginning of March ‘23 when I received an odd notice in the mail. Upon opening the envelope and reviewing its contents, I realized it was an invoice from Sears Home Services, claiming that I had not paid them the $453.70 from January. The front of the page had large font with instructions on how to pay this amount to Sears, with some more details at the bottom of the page that passive-aggressively warned that if I did not pay them the amount they expected within three weeks of receiving the notice, they would release the hounds of debt collectors after me.

Needless to say, I was shocked by the notice, confused that such an error had been made, and mortified that Jose had betrayed me. Of course, this must have happened without him knowing, as he was far too noble to allow this. No, this was all Sears’ fault and I had the receipts to prove it. The receipt of $453.70 sat in a folder labeled “Receipts” in my email and had been there since January. I checked my transaction history on my credit card account and saw the same value of $453.70 had been paid. This was a simple mistake that should have been easy to remedy, right?

On the back of the invoice was additional information in much smaller font. One small section mentioned that if I found their invoice to be in error, I could contest it and that if they found that they had made a mistake, the charge would be settled. They said I had to file my claim in writing, which could be interpreted in multiple ways, but I did not wish to use the snail-mail method of contacting them. I wanted this resolved right away so their egregious error would not taint my memory of Jose. So, using technology THAT HAS BEEN AVAILABLE FOR DECADES, I typed up an email with my receipts attached and sent it to the email address the invoice provided as an alternate method of contacting them about the bill.

This is where I noticed another red flag. Upon sending my thorough email that had my name, the transaction number, dates, and receipts to contest the invoice, I did not receive an automatic reply confirming my message had been received. Most modern companies using email as a method of communication understand that it’s a good idea to have an auto-confirmation reply be sent to the customer to let them know that they’re messaging the right address and that their issue will be reviewed soon. I received no such message from Sears and my email account did not inform me that the message could not be delivered for whatever reason, so I could do nothing but hope that someone would see it and take care of the problem.

A week passed. I received no reply from Sears about my email. Instead, I got a second invoice in the mail with the same information on it. Clearly, my message had not been received at the aforementioned email address present on the invoices. This time, I decided to reach out to Sears Home Services directly through their website. I went to their Contact Us page. If you go there yourself, you’ll notice that there are plenty of different methods by which they advertise how you could reach them. At least, there are plenty of ways to reach them if you want their services or want to schedule an appointment. However, when it came to concerns about a bill, they merely had an FAQ page for you.

The FAQ page itself was not entirely about billing either. It still has many of its “questions” focused on making you a paying customer: “What number do I call if my appointment was missed?” “How do I reschedule an appointment?” “Where can I purchase parts for a repair?” “What’s the best way to get the soonest appointment—by calling, or scheduling online?” “How do I pay my bill?”.

It did, at least, have a section for my question, “What if I have found an error on my bill?” which had information that was similar to what was on the invoice. The key difference between what was on the FAQ page and the invoices was the email address itself. It was slight, and still part of the same domain, but there were differences in the email address that could mean that one was simply not being watched like the other. Surely this was the issue, right? All I had to do was send the same message with the same receipts to this other email address and the issue would be resolved, wouldn’t it?

No. I sent my email and, just like before, I got no confirmation that it had been received. Instead, I got a third invoice a week later.

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