The doorbell rang about 11 a.m. Saturday at the Monroeville home of Donna Wolfson and Jack Silverstein.

When they answered it, a UPS man handed them an envelope. Inside was a Sears rebate check for $819.

Their four-month effort to get a rebate for buying more than $4,000 in Sears appliances was over. I wrote about their problem last week.

"I really think they expected us to give up," said Mr. Silverstein, 61, a retired salesman.

"You've got to stick up for your rights," said his wife, 59, an employee benefits paralegal for a Downtown law firm. "If you know you've done everything right, you just don't quit."

The couple, longtime Sears customers, debated whether to shop there again.

David Polston, vice president and acting chief marketing officer for Sears Holdings in Chicago, hopes they do. He sent them a certified I'm-sorry letter that arrived yesterday.

"I want to extend the most sincere apologies for the most unsatisfactory level of service you received following the purchase of your appliances from your local Sears store," he wrote. "Truly, our intent is to service our customers in the manner they have grown to expect from Sears and in this instance that simply was not the case.

"As a token of our apology, enclosed is a $50 gift certificate we hope you will accept as a gesture of goodwill and in the hopes that you will give Sears another chance to earn your business."

Mrs. Wolfson said the certificate will be used to buy a water filter replacement for their Sears refrigerator.

"In all fairness, I think we should give them another chance," she said. "They came through with the rebate, they admitted their mistake and they publicly apologized."

As you might expect, last week's column prompted other longtime Sears customers to contact me via e-mail and telephone to relate their problems with its customer service -- or lack of same -- and the rebate program.

"There are times when I think Sears has a death wish," said Carole McIntyre, 64, who raises cattle and horses on her 164-acre farm one mile from Waynesburg.

She used her Sears card to buy a new refrigerator on a "no interest, no payment for six months" offer. A few weeks before the six-month period expired, she took a check to the Sears store in nearby Washington, Pa.

She asked an employee to call the accounting office to make sure the check would be applied only to the cost of the refrigerator and not to the balance of her account. The office refused. It said she had to pay the outstanding balance of about $1,000 before it would accept payment for the refrigerator.

"I was so bent out of shape that I took money out of my savings account, paid everything off and closed the account," she said. "They lost a longtime customer -- I used to buy everything at Sears -- over one of the stupidest policies I have ever heard of."

Christine Krznaric of McKeesport, who bought a Sears stove and refrigerator last fall, waited five months for her $120 rebate. After jumping through all the hoops required by the rebate program, her request was denied in January because the company said she had purchased only one appliance. She told them to look at the photocopies of her receipts.

She said she got a different reason for the denial every time she called. Finally, she got so angry that she demanded to speak to a supervisor. It worked.

Sally Cecil, a legal secretary for a Downtown law firm, bought a 27-inch color television at Sears. It soon went bad. Its primary colors were bands of purple and green that appeared on the sides of the set. It was repaired several times, and several times the repair person didn't show up.

She found the names of the company's top officers and sent them certified letters that began: "I was held hostage by Sears." She sent copies to the local store manager and the heads of the repair and delivery offices.

She got action immediately, including a call from the local store manager "who was very unhappy" that she had gone over his head. She received what she asked for -- a new TV with a 50 percent discount and "a big apology from all concerned."