Some Wisconsin residents will be sure to get the satisfaction they were guaranteed by Sears because of an agreement it has reached with the Wisconsin Department of Justice.

The Department of Justice announced Thursday that it had entered into an agreement with Sears, Roebuck and Co. to clarify its "Satisfaction Guaranteed or Your Money Back" policy for Wisconsin customers.

The central problem of the policy was that customers had to return their purchases within 90 days to receive a refund, but Sears employees did not tell them about that time frame, according to Wisconsin Attorney General Peg Lautenschlager.

"People who would purchase something and not realize it wasn't working or not use it for a while or give it as a gift later would try to return it," Lautenschlager said.

Instead, the Sears policy asked that items be returned in a reasonable amount of time and did not explicitly mention the 90-day time frame.

"Customers, like our associates, found that policy to be ambiguous," said Sears spokesman Chris Brathwaite.

The Department of Justice received 105 reports from Wisconsin customers about Sears between 2002 and 2004, according to Lautenschlager. The state investigation found that employees were made aware of the timeline for returns, but customers were not.

Brathwaite said that only five of those 105 complaints related to the money back policy. The company has been working on changing its policy anyway, Brathwaite said, and came out with a national update a week before the Wisconsin announcement.

"We have been working for a long time on updating this policy," Brathwaite said. "Our changing this policy had nothing to do with the state."

The new company policy has changed the language and made it clearer about the time frame for returns, Brathwaite said.

It was a coincidence that the Sears policy change and the Wisconsin agreement were announced so close together, Brathwaite said. The state agreement just sets a definite date of May 16 for when Sears will inform customers at point of purchase of all the conditions that must be met in order to get a refund, including the 90-day requirement.

"All the state wants us to do is make sure people are informed, not passively, but more proactively on what they have to do to get their money back," Brathwaite said.

Sears entered into a written agreement with Wisconsin to resolve the matter for Wisconsin residents, Lautenschlager said.

"Sears willingly determined to change its policy," Lautenschlager said.

Brathwaite said he believed the Wisconsin Department of Justice approached Sears about this issue either last year or the beginning of this year.

"There wasn't any admission of wrongdoing or anything like that," Brathwaite said.

The company will extend the return time frame beyond 90 days for items purchased before the "Satisfaction Guaranteed or Your Money Back" policy was clarified, Lautenschlager said. She was not sure if other states had complained to the company.

Other companies such as Wal-Mart and Target have a 90-day return policy as well.

Wal-Mart spokesman Sharon Weber said they have not had any such problems with customers knowing the time frame.

"There are some exceptions for certain purchases, but those exceptions and the 90-day rule are clearly posted in our stores," Weber said.

According to Brathwaite, more than 90 percent of customers who return items do so within 90 days, and 75 percent return purchases within a month.

"For the majority of customers this won't have any impact at all," Brathwaite said.

This article appeared in The Marquette Tribune on Mar. 1 2005.