Thanks Lowes. You'll Be Seeing Me Again. In Your Dreams.

Thanks Lowes. I have shopped at your store for years. You have been a long-time favorite. Once a week, I would take a stroll through your aisles, often picking up our necessities and then some. I bought my entire kitchen from you. Granite and maple are not cheap. Nor is the Italian Marble Flooring that I purchased for my bathroom, which we will be putting down when our nightmare is over. You have outfitted our kitchen with all the latest high end appliances. You have given us light and many cool breezes, thanks to our many purchases of light fixtures and ceiling fans. We bought truckloads of plants, trees, shrubs and flowers, all from you so that we could have a beautifully landscaped yard. We even bought our pavers, outdoor furniture, and siding from you. My problem is that I bought more trim boards than I needed. It's better to have too many than not enough, right? Thinking we could return 30 boards was my mistake. The siding we bought was not pristine. There were a few scuffs and a some of the pieces were dirty, but it would be painted anyway so we didn't mind. However, this decision has come back to haunt us. My husband loaded everything up and drove 30 miles to our local Lowes Home Improvement Store to exchange these boards and purchase what we needed. Everything we needed was going to cost more than our return. After taking the boards into the store, the refund was going to be given in the form of a gift card. Perfect! That was the service we expected from Lowes! When the boards were not in their system, a manger was called to look the item up in the system. The Assistant Store Manager arrived to take care of the problem, only he didn't take care of it. He decided that we could not return the few remaining boards because the pieces were not pristine. The Assistant Store Manager did not want to waste his time to look up an item. I guess we are not worth the trouble. The trim that we tried to return was in pretty much the same condition in which it was purchased. It seems they wanted the trim back in even better condition than when they sold it to us! As you can imagine, we are having a hard time putting our home back together. Everything is being paid for out of our own pocket. The first time Lowe's assistant store manager was arrogant, we ignored it. Not this time. I can take my business elsewhere.
Lowes, sure, I'll have withdrawals from shopping in your store. I thought we would have a long term relationship and as your slogan goes, we could build (in our case, rebuild) something (our house) together. Frustrated, my husband returned home and wasted a lot of time, money, and material when he was forced to cut those boards down to size.