Lowe’s Blows.

I spent this weekend helping my girlfriend move in to her new townhouse in Wheeling, West Virginia and encountered the most annoying “big box” retailing blunder that I can remember having.

Upon entering Lowe’s of Wheeling Store #2625 we headed straight to the appliances section to browse washers and dryers. Down one of the side aisles there was an unboxed dryer on display out in the middle of the floor with a bright orange sticker reading “S.O.S.” stuck to the top of the machine. There didn’t appear to be anything cosmetically wrong with the machine priced at $200 so we asked an associate what the sticker meant. The gentleman told us that it signified a Special Order item and that particular dryer had been returned to the store because the people didn’t want it after ordering it. Awesome, a pretty good price for a brand new item!

We wondered over to the regular section of laundry appliances and tried finding a washing machine for a decent price. It only took a few minutes to pick out one she wanted (based on price) and an associate came to assist us. I’ll call her Barb. Barb started going through the motions of gathering information from my girlfriend in order to have the appliances delivered. Barb also notified us that we’d have to purchase a plug-in for the dryer and that we’d also have to install the plug ourselves. [I didn't realize plugs didn't already come installed on dryers since I've never purchased one before]. We said okay and we walked up front to check out.

The fun begins…

Barb walked us to the Customer Service station at the front of the store. Barb asked my girlfriend for any pertinent delivery information. Once Barb entered the information into the computer we realized that the just-scheduled delivery time for the following day wouldn’t work and that it would need to be changed from “afternoon” delivery to “morning”. She had to cancel out the previous order and input all the information all over again. We thanked her for changing it. She then tells us we need hosing for the washer hook-up and that Lowe’s doesn’t install said hosing once they deliver. Well fine, Barb, add that to the order. My girlfriend was fairly annoyed at this point. We were already at about 30 minutes being in the store going through this ordering and delivery-scheduling process.

The confusion begins…

So once we get all the necessary hookups gathered up we went to another associate to go through the checkout process. I’ll call her Jackie. She scanned the hosing, plumber’s tape, and dryer exhaust tubing and brought up the washer and dryer purchase/delivery on her computer. The total cost came to $1200 or so. Girlfriend and I looked at each other in bewilderment and explained that she rang us up for twice the amount the total had originally been. She then saw where the first order had been canceled by Barb. Jackie then fixed that problem and gave us our correct total. I asked Jackie if I could pay some of the total with a personal check and some with a credit card. She said yes. Great. I write my check and she puts the check in the check printer to finalize that part of the payment process. She then hands me a long receipt and says “thank you” like we were all done. Hold on a sec, Jackie… what about the credit card part I just asked you about? Jackie looks at us in horror as she realizes the whole amount was taken as a check instead of split up. I’m now concerned because I don’t want my banking stuff screwed up. She has to call over a manager to try to fix the problem but now our happy orange SOS sticker is causing problems. I’ll call the manager Jackass. Jackass acted like he had a large Lowe’s of Wheeling broom-sized stick up his ass. We’ve now been in the store for about 45 minutes, standing in one spot. They can’t figure the whole thing out and say that they need some more time to work out the problem and make some phone calls. We decide to leave and go look at furniture in another store.

Finally…

We arrived back at the store and were told by Barb that the hosing is included and that hookup was included in delivery. Turns out, Barb typically works in plumbing, not appliances. Go figure. So anyway, they figured out what to do and Jackie got the process right this time. Total time in the store: 1 hour 15 minutes roughly. That’s just ridiculous in my opinion.

If you ever find yourself in a Lowe’s and find something with an SOS sticker on it, AVOID IT. This apparently throws a wrench in the entire checkout process, especially if they screw something up on their end. Anyway, I realize most of you aren’t going to read this whole story, but I just wanted to have it on here to let people know that Lowe’s Store #2625 blows when it comes to appliance salesmanship. The lack of knowledge of the product and the unwillingness to find out information at the time of questioning from the customer just shows that Barb either wasn’t trained properly or was too lazy to find the correct associate from that department.

Phew! Time for a beer!