NEW YORK: Sears Holdings Corp, the largest US department-store chain, will let customers who lose their jobs suspend payments and keep appliances bought with store credit cards in an effort to bolster sales in the recession.

Customers who spend at least $399 on appliances and related merchandise between July 6 and Aug 1 will have one-12th of the purchase price credited to their account for every month they are out of work, said Larry Costello, a company spokesman. Those who are jobless for more than a year will have the full debt forgiven, he said. The offer period may be extended, he said.

"We thought this would be a way to get folks to jump in where they'd been a little reluctant," Doug Moore, president of Sears's home-appliance unit, said in a telephone interview.