SEARS DOESN'T WANT PRISONER'S BUSINESS

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: MONDAY, February 3, 1992                   TAG: 9202030048
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: A-1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: SANDRA BROWN KELLY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium
SEARS DOESN'T WANT PRISONER'S BUSINESS
Sam Oyler's refund check is in the mail. Sears, Roebuck and Co. doesn't want the $270.89 he sent for a typewriter. The company does not ship orders to where Oyler lives.
Oyler's address is the Greensville Correctional Center, a maximum-security prison in Greensville County in Southside Virginia.
Sears no longer accepts catalog orders from prisoners. Some Sears employees know this. One who did not took Oyler's order in November. Oyler said the company even sent him its usual form letter: "Thank you for your recent order."
But the typewriter did not arrive and neither did a refund.
Before Christmas, the prison staff tried to find out why the typewriter had not been shipped, and was given a variety of answers:
The order was never received.
The typewriter would be arriving shortly.
Someone would call Oyler back about his complaint.
At least once, a worker said a refund would be issued because Sears "does not deal with inmates," Oyler wrote in a letter to the newspaper. The Roanoke Valley man is sentenced to remain at Greensville until 1998 on breaking-and-entering and statutory burglary convictions.
His letter was the cry of a typical, frustrated consumer. Oyler wrote about the cost of long-distance phone calls, the time spent writing Sears, the time the prison workers spent trying to help him and the cost of putting a tracer on the money order.
The worst thing, though: "Because I didn't have the typewriter, I had to hand-write 42 pages of exams for a legal course I'm taking," he wrote.
A reporter's efforts to trace Oyler's order also brought a variety of answers.
An official at Sears Telecatalog Center in Roanoke was uncertain about the policy. One customer-service worker said maybe it had to do with a special prison television Sears used to sell.
The search for an answer led to a woman named Luella at the Sears center in Wichita, Kan. Luella wouldn't give her last name, but said her job is to send refunds to prisoners telling them their orders will not be filled. The check for Oyler was written Jan. 17, she said.
Harlon Nicholas, systems intervention manager for Sears, said the ban is about 1 1/2 years old.
"It was not profitable for us," said Nicholas, who is based in Chicago, where Sears has its corporate headquarters. "We have an obligation to stockholders."
Nicholas said it cost Sears extra money to handle prison business. Each order required contacting the prison to make certain the requested merchandise was allowed.
"With the way the economy has been," the company decided to quit doing business with prisoners, Nicholas said.
He said Sears could not charge prisoners extra to cover the extra expense because Sears is a one-price-for-everyone company.
Besides, prisoner business "wasn't that great a volume," he said.
There were problems with the policy decision, Nicholas said. Some employees did not agree with it and continued to take orders from prisoners. As each order was refused, prison officials were supposed to be sent a letter explaining the new policy.
Wayne Brown, Greensville Correctional Center's media officer, said he is eager to get an explanation, so he can tell his "people" - 2,400 inmates - to shift their business elsewhere.

by Bhavesh Jinadra by CNB