Strange Encounters with Sears Microwave Edition

About a year ago, my spouse received a letter from "Sears at Home".  For my readers not in the United States, Sears and Roebuck has been a retailer in our country for over 100 years, but, like many other retailers, is experiencing hard times.  In fact. the Sears store in our area closed over a year ago.

This letter told us that the warranty on our stove (installed on July 6, 2017) was getting ready to expire.  We were given an offer to continue the warranty, for either one, two or three years.

Only one problem.

We've never bought a stove from Sears.  The last stove we purchased was from a local appliance store, and is some 15 years old by now.

In fact, the last appliance we bought from Sears was a microwave, and that is its own story, which I'll get to in a minute.

So this letter was a mystery, except we do have a Sears charge card.  But we have only used it a couple of times in the past couple of years, both times to buy shoes online.  They have a line of walking shoes I love. I  buy a years worth at a time, around Black Friday.  Anyway....

I had a funny feeling the letter wasn't legitimate, especially as the customer service phone number for Sears at Home doesn't seem to be the same phone number as listed on the letter.  In fact, the 800 number on the letter doesn't even appear on their website.

Spouse ended up calling the number and was told oops, not us, someone made a keystroke error. But that really doesn't give me much comfort.  What if the next keystroke makes a record indicating I am seriously in debt with them?

I thought about this incident when our microwave turntable quit working a week or so ago.

We have been happy with our Sears microwave, a 2.2 cubic foot model, built in 2012 (according to a label on the unit).  It works fine except the turntable suddenly won't turn anymore.  This is a must if you want the food to heat evenly..

We looked online and everyone seems to agree it isn't worth the repair, although a local repairer is willing to give it a shot.  Of course, they will charge just to bench test it.

So the other day we went microwave hunting online.  Maybe Sears might have a similar model?

We saw something right off and the price (at "Sears At Home") was right.  Apparently the unit was being discontinued, which doesn't bother us.  But then we saw something strange after entering our zip code.

It was pickup only.

And the place we had to pick it up was in Porterville, California, which is about 2,800 miles (4400 km) from us. 

Road trip ahead?

I don't think so.

We'll keep looking locally.