Quote:
Originally Posted by wit-nit
It is my understanding that Lowe's and HD's pick up and delivery fee is what their subcontractors charge those stores to pickup and deliver to the job for your project
We've used both Lowe's and HD for some contracting work and are completely satisfied. Both stores sent over an inspector at the finish of the job to see if it was done correctly and to our satisfaction. If not the sub contractor does not get paid until whatever it is is rectified.
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I'm glad your experiences were better than mine.
That being said, I have a fundamental issue with paying in full for a job before it's done. I don't care whether Lowe's pays the subcontractor after the job is done or up front - I still have to pay Lowe's in full before the job is completed. No bueno.
OP, here's what happened to us:
We picked out a floor for our master bedroom wing and scheduled the installation date. Yes, we paid in full, even though we didn't like that idea. The flooring was supposed to be in in five days, and then delivered the sixth day so it could sit in our house and acclimate (hardwood flooring) for 48 hours and then the installation was scheduled for the 8th day.
On the sixth day, we called to check on things. Our stuff wasn't in, we were told. So we had to reschedule the installation. They had a hard time with the date, but finally found one - about two weeks out, but surely it would be in by then, because it had already shipped. Sigh.
So - nearly two weeks went by, and finally we called again. The warehouse told us our stuff had been sitting in the warehouse for THREE WEEKS - it HAD come in prior to the originally scheduled date - actually just three days after we ordered it. Grr! So we scheduled the delivery and took off work.
The delivery never came. The installation was set for two days after the planned delivery, which just didn't happen. We were hopping mad at this point - and we had moved all our stuff out of our bedroom and closet in preparation. Now it wasn't going to happen, because the stuff had to sit in our house for at least 24 hours. So we raised cane and my husband finally said, "I'll just come get it myself and unload all of it so we can get it installed." So he did so.
The job was supposed to take 1 day but we were told it would be a long day. By 11 am the subcontractor still hadn't shown up. Finally he showed up around 2. Then come to find out, Lowes hadn't ordered some stuff we had to have. He said he would have to reschedule because we had to have that stuff (some sort of glue). OMG!
So...the glue took a week to come in. Meanwhile, all our stuff is in the living room and our mattress is on the floor. Once again, no call when the stuff came in and when we called, we were told it had been there for days. They insisted that they had called us - on both our cell phones. We had not received a call. Once again, we had to reschedule the installation. Now we had been living as if we were in a cave, completely unable to even use our living room, for nearly two weeks.
The guys showed up - and told us that this would be a three or four day job because instead of three guys they only had one guy who could be here all the time, and the other one could only be here for a couple of hours each day. This was a new subcontractor now.
He walked into the garage and said, "What is this glue stuff? This isn't what you need. This is for laminate flooring, not wood flooring." I need to back up and say that every time we had called Lowes, they'd said, "Oh, this is about your LAMINATE flooring" and every time they said that, we had said, "No - it's not laminate - it's wood." Every time.
At this point, my husband said, "Leave." They left. We called Lowes and told them to come get their stuff out of our house and give us a refund. They said they couldn't come get it for three more days. My husband said, "I want a refund this instant. Come get this stuff now." Nope. And to add insult to injury, they wanted to charge us a fee for coming to get the stuff!
At this point, we got the manager on the phone and he began to whine about not having any delivery guys free to come get the stuff. I said, "Do you drive a truck?" He said, "Yes." I said, "Well then, I suggest that you put your thirty something year old self into that truck and come over here yourself and load this stuff up and refund us this afternoon. If my fifty five year old husband can come to Lowes and get it all, you can surely come to our house and take it back. If it's not out of my house by 4 pm and our debit card credited for the full amount by 5 pm, you are going to be on the local news tomorrow at 6 pm." (I used to work at the local TV station and they do consumer reports about local businesses that provide poor service).
He came and got the stuff.
The next day we went to a locally owned flooring center. We got a prettier, better quality product and the total cost for material and installation was about one THOUSAND DOLLARS less than Lowes. And get this - it took two guys one day to install it all, two days after we placed the order.
Mission accomplished.
We still shop at Lowes. In fact, we own some Lowes stock. I will buy appliances there and smaller items. But I will never, never, never hire them to do a major project for me ever again.
This was the second project we tried to use them for, by the way. I won't bore you with the details of the first one but I'll just say that the subcontractor was very late, ran very behind schedule, and it was a frustrating experience.
As the old saying goes, "Fooled me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me."
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