Call Kurtis: Sears Subcontractor Crisis

Changing 27 lives, Nadia McCaffrey, a gold star mother, felt the need to help veterans, just like her son would have one day become.

McCaffrey was inspired when her son, Sgt. Patrick McCaffrey, was killed in action in 2004.

Since then, Nadia has opened her home to 27 veterans, many returning home from war.

"You know, that's 27 lives changed" says navy vet John Keith; he's her latest roommate.

He says Nadia saved his life through enabling him to get the medical care he desperately needed.

When Keith got his first VA check he wanted to celebrate.

"A joyous thing, so I figured I wanted to spend some of that money by paying it foward."

Keith bought her a new car, and a desperately-needed dishwasher from Sears. Sears even sent one of their approved contractors to install the new appliance.

"He turned on the dishwasher to show that it worked, and so what did we have? We had a geyser going straight to the ceiling… yeah, straight to the ceiling, and I'm not joking."

Nadia says the contractor, Gerard "Jerry" Gramz, didn't know what he was doing. She says it took him 21/2 days to finish the job while leaving some damage behind.

"He broke three tiles" she says, pointing to the her broken kitchen floor.

She also shows us where he damaged her cabinets next to her dishwasher, and didn't connect the air gap on her sink to her dishwasher.

And to top it all off, the dishwasher didn't work. Sears later sent out a repair tech who got the dishwasher working. The tech concluded that Gramz neglected to remove a drain plug.

There's now water leaking from her kitchen into the crawlspace under her home. Nadia says the leak began the day the installer left.

She was instructed by sears to file a claim with her homeowner's insurance company.

Nadias response to that was "No. You broke it, you fix it."

However she says that Sears continued to insist she file a claim with her insurance.

"I'm still upset to this day, so I'm so glad you guys are out here" says John.

We emailed Sears and left voicemail messages, but never got a response. We eventually got in touch with their claims administrator, Sedgwick CMS. They opened a case and assured us that they're looking into it.

Meantime, we checked with the state contractors board, which informed us that Gramz is not licensed as required by law. The CSLB warns you to always check the license of any contractor.

"And you will at least know that if the person is licensed, that you will be given the peace of mind that they meet a minimum level of qualifications" says CSLB public affairs officer Venus Stromberg.

Nadia never thought that a Sears subcontractor would ever be unlicensed. Like generations before hers, Nadia always bought Sears products in confidence.

"But I will not buy anymore sears appliances, I can tell you that" she says with determination.

Nadia has three estimates for repair from licensed contractors, all in the $16,000 range, and is working with yet another Sears claims administrator, Navigators.

The CSLB says Nadia's is a good lesson; find out who's coming to do the work and check their licensing, at least, before letting them set foot in your home.

And if you're having a problem with the subcontractor during the work the CSLB says to call the prime contractor, in this case it was Sears. We'll stay on top of this and let you know how it turns out.

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