Customer Service .... Or The Lack Of Such

 Well, there's a two hour interval of my life I will NEVER get back. I will never, ever shop at Lowes again. They could have a buy one, get one of the entire contents of the store free and I would not enter the doors.

The morning started out to be a pleasant one and I had plans to hike up the drive to fulfill my itch to organize my She Shed. HeWho tried to call Lowes to verify the pick up of the defective, bent framed GE range and the delivery of the new one. While on hold he checked our bank account and verified that Lowes has yet to process the refund on the first transaction.

That flipped my switch. I got online and had a "chat" with the complaint department at Lowes headquarters. I want to say I chose that route because I can be more succinct and make more sense in writing than I can in speaking. Really, it was because no one answered the phone.

I layed out my complaint in the order of events. The delivery men plopping the aplliances on the porch to let the old people heave them inside themselves, the defective stove having to be picked up BEFORE they would schedule another delivery, then going back to the store and cancelling the order of the first brand in favor of a known to me brand and having to shell out the money for the new one. Me asking why they could not apply the money of the refund towards the new purchase. You have read all the rest in my previous posts. And guess what, you totally understood my words.

As soon as I hit the button to relay my rather long message, I got a reply. "What is your problem today?" I am not kidding. Instead of asking the person who replied if they knew how to read, or if they were helplessly stupid, I suggested they reread what I had written, but to sum it up, I was frustrated because they have over $2000 of my money and I still don't have a stove that works. Next reply suggested that I return to the location where I purcased the appliance. I replied, "For what, do they have my money?"

Then I called and waited quite some time for an answer and calmly told my story again. The girl said, "Well, this is a problem." I said "Look I am very old and very pissed off and I suggest you move this call to a person who can help me, the top of the line."

Tina, the person in charge of all complaints at the corporate office answered my call after a lengthy hold. She pulled up the orders and deliveries associated with HeWho's cell number. Had she told me to calm down one more time I was going to go where she was and smack her. Instead I just told her that I was the customer and that I had no intention of calming down and that if she couldn't help me she needed to find someone who could. Then she started explaining how the process of a refund works, causing me to channel my inner Judge Judy and keep saying I did not care, that all I wanted to know was what they were doing with my money, that they had over $2000 and I still did not have a fully working appliance.

This went on and on as she told me about the delivery dates and that they picked up the defective appliances free (she should choose her words better, as this just made me madder). HeWho was actually back at Lowes, as he was instructed to go there by the person he got on the phone from the corporate office. Why? Who knows. He is still there and I have no one to commiserate with.

When I asked why the purchase of the GE range could not have been covered with my pending refund, she went into a very long explanation of how refunds work, talking to me as if I were simple. I hung up on her. 

I hung up after nearly 45 minutes of her explaning things and telling me about my purchase history and kept referring to free deliveries and free pick-ups. Then she informed me that we were supposed to pick up the replacement stove for the GE range ourselves. This is when I told her that having owned businesses before, I would have most certainly fired her, as she seemed to be incabable of doing a passable job.

I am thinking that Tina and I will never be friends. Who knew a simple purchase of a stove could be this frustrating? My new stove should be delivered to Lowes in Murphy today, then a team of delivery men that work for Lowes and are not contracted, should be here tomorrow to take out the broken (by the delivery men) and installing this new one. Since thay can't actually install it until the necessary steps to change it from natural gas to LP gas have been fulfilled, I plan to insist that they wait until that has been done, then make sure the stove is operating, as it should before I will allow them to leave.

HeWho seems to think I will be unable to make them wait. We will just see about that.