Lowes Blows
I'll add my own Lowes story, nowhere near as bad, but annoying just the same.
I needed to buy a new leaf blower/vac. Went to Lowes, saw the model I was interested in getting. The shelf tag says it costs $x.xx. I go to the register, waiting in a very slow moving line. Finally my item gets rung up and the price is reported as $15 more than the shelf tag. I tell the cashier that the price is incorrect. She stares at the screen for a minute, looks at the box, looks back at the screen and tells me, no its not, it is the correct item and that is the price. When I tell her that is not what the shelf tag says, she calls someone in the department to check it out. Five minutes later we have heard nothing. She calls again. About another five minutes pass when someone comes to the register and tells the cashier that I read the wrong shelf tag and the price for what I was buying is correct. At this point I am not happy, and not convinced, but I figure the best way to take care of this is to do it myself. I purchase the leaf blower, bring it out to my car, drop it in the trunk and head back into the store.
I check the shelf tag myself, maybe I was wrong. Nope, the shelf tag lists brand and model number and the price is exactly what I thought it was supposed to be - $15 cheaper than I just paid. At this point I head over to the customer service desk and ask to speak to a manager. The person at the counter asks what the problem is, and I tell her it is a pricing error and to please call a manager. When a manager finally arrives, it takes me 10 minutes of explaining, walking back and forth with the manager from the shelf tag to the registers to show him the problem. The manager refunds the difference. I tell him that while I appreciate the fact that he is going to do so, I do not appreciate that it appears someone was either too lazy to check the shelf tag when I first noticed the problem, or they lied to me about the actual price. The manager just shrugs and tells me I have paid the correct price now.
When I got home I sent an e-mail to the corporate office. Three days later I come home and find I have a phone message from the store manager apologizing for the fact that I had a less than perfect shopping experience, that it is not how they do business, and that he hopes I will continue to shop at Lowes. Yeah, right.
Of course my Home Depot experiences have not been any better. Now I pretty much shop only at my local True Value, where the owner of the store lives in town, and the service is usually very good. I know I pay a little more than I would at Lowes or Home Depot, but I figure the money I am saving on medical bills by keeping my blood pressure down makes up the difference.
