Gym Owner Struggles With Refund After New Washing Machine Floods Gym

The gym’s owner says getting a refund was heavy lifting, until he turned to NBC 5 Responds

Linden Mathurin owns a small gym in West Roscoe Village, where he prides himself in going the extra mile for his clients, including have clean towels.

“We do laundry every day,” Mathurin said. “The towels are stacked up so it’s always clean.”

But there was a wrinkle in that plan, after the business owner says his brand new $1,754.00 Sears stackable washer and dryer went on the fritz, the first time he used them.

"Water comes out from under it and basically just took the entire concrete floor," Mathurin said.

Mathurin says he called Sears right away to come back and fix it but he couldn’t believe what he heard next.

"They said they can get there on a Friday, a week, five days later, four days later. I was like unacceptable. Come and pick it up," Mathurin said.

Not only was the unit not connected properly, he says, but Sears installers also didn’t bother testing if before they left. With a steady load of sweaty towels and no definitive timeline for replacement. Mathurin asked for a refund.

"I was patient. I waited, I waited and I was like this is crazy," Mathurin said.

Three weeks later, he still had no answers and no money, and decided he’d had enough.

When NBC 5 Responds reached out to Sears, a spokesperson first told us it was Mathurin who hooked up the new washer, not Sears installers. We ran that by Mathurin who said it was a flat out lie. The next day, Sears changed that statement, blaming a technical problem on that delay, and insisted the refund happened “long before” NBC 5 Responds got involved. In fact, our producer’s first call to Sears happened the day before the $1,754.00 refund was issued.

Sears also tells NBC 5 Responds it is committed to providing excellent customer service but admits it sometimes comes short of that, adding that the company learns from these incidents and is working to prevent them from happening again.
 

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