I recently renovated my 71 year old house, and the contractor is still not quite done, but the house is 98% finished. In other words, we are down to just a few minor things that need to be done, one of them being interior doors. And here is where it gets interesting.
Three months ago my contractor told me that it’s time to order the interior doors for the house, and he suggested that I order them from Lowe’s because he has had great success with other clients ordering doors from Lowes, and since it will be such a large order, they will give me a better price. Uh ok…….so off to Lowe’s I go.
Ok, so first things first, Lowe’s will send someone out to measure the doorway etc so we get the right size doors. And they did send someone right away, and we spent 2 hours discussing and measuring the doorways in my house. Simple enough…..
I then went back to Lowe’s and met with the guy in the doors and windows department and we spent an hour picking out doors. I paid for those doors and one of the store managers had to approve the sale because it was a large amount of doors. I was told it would take about 3 weeks to get the doors. Ok great! The doors would be in before the contractor needed them. Supposedly.
Three weeks later my husband and I went to Lowe’s to purchase some other things that we needed and we decided to ask about the doors. We approached the guy who helped us, and he seemed very nervous, and at first I thought that maybe he didn’t recognize us because it’s been three weeks…….so we both very nicely said: Hey, remember us…..to which the door guy replied that he did. So we asked if we could check on the status of our door order. And he pulled us up and he looked nervous, so I commented about the fact that he seemed nervous, and that if there is a problem please just let us know. The door guy replied that for some reason there was a hold up on our order but it looks like the doors are coming in by the end of the following week. Ok great!
And this is where it gets interesting. The following week we did not get a call or email etc saying that our doors were in. We let it slide. But the week after that my husband went into the store to check on the door order, and he was told, oh the doors are coming in for sure NEXT week. For sure, for sure. Ok fine. Now we’re at 6 weeks and no doors.
The following week my husband goes into the store to ask about the doors and he points out that we’re in the 7th week since the order has been placed. The door guy still didn’t have an answer and blamed the place that he ordered the doors from, but he did say he would call them and let us know. The door guy never called and I could not get him on the phone to save my life. I did talk to the other guy in the door department and when he pulled up the door order he got really flustered and said that he would have to call me about it. At this point I’m like WTF is going on!!
So, guess what? The following week the doors were not in, and no one had an answer and no one wanted to talk to use so I cornered the assistant store manger because apparently the actual store manager was in a very important meeting. Yeah sure. So the assistant manager was actually very helpful and our doors did come in the following week. Great! The contractor sent someone to the store to pick up our doors, however, when Juan got back to our house he told me: “Guess what? I only have some of the doors because the store told me the rest will be in on Friday”. I burst out laughing and we both laughed.
Thursday night my husband stopped in at the store and was speaking to the merchandising manager because apparently the door guy was now hiding from us. And mind you, we have been perfectly nice this entire time so there was theoretically no reason for anyone to hide from us. So anyway, the merchandising manager tells my husband that the doors will be in the following day but then he changes his story and tells my husband that our guy picked up all the doors. My husband then calls me and after a brief conversation with the merchandise manager, I decide to head to the store because something weird is going on.
Long story short, the merchandising manager proceeded to tell us that our contractor stole the remaining doors and he had proof on camera. Yet, the camera clearing showed our guy taking 5 doors, no more. Then we were told: Oh yes, the remaining doors will be in tomorrow. Later that night at 9:30 pm, the merchandising manager called me and told me that he now knows that we never actually ordered the other doors, or that we have the doors and we’re lying because we want to get free doors. I burst out laughing and I told him: “Thank you for your attempt at gas lighting me, but it will not work. Why don’t you just admit that the door guy forgot to order all of the doors, and that he made a mistake so we can actually order the remaining doors and move on”. But this guy wanted to carry on with his story, so I told him to get help and I hung up on him.
To wrap things up, not only did Lowe’s never admit to their mistake, we had to return 2 of the doors because Lowe’s measured the doorways incorrectly and they did not fit, and we got to talk to the manager who approved the original sale. He was dumbfounded that all of this had taken place, and he refunded the money for the 2 doors we returned as well as for the doors we never received. We had to buy the interior doors from someone else, and guess what? We had those doors in about 4 days………I wish I had read all of the complaints about Lowe’s before trying to order anything from them. Lesson learned.
Life and What Not 