I Will Thrive: Buying a New Fridge

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So although our refrigerator isn't dead I believe it is slowly dying. So we decided to take advantage of some of his bonus pay and buy a new one. I went to Lowes, Home Depot, hhgregg and Best Buy to scout them out. I decided to go with Lowes with their 10 % off appliances, the military 10% discount, and the fact that it was tax free weekend I was going to get a $2399 fridge for $1919. Pretty sweet deal if you ask me. So I went in on my lunch hour, had all the item numbers ready for the fridge and the warranty, and I set up delivery and haul away of the old fridge. Good to go! That was the beginning of October and the fridge was scheduled to arrive October 22nd at the store. On October 20th I get the call that it is in and they are ready to schedule delivery. It gets scheduled for the 29th. Then Hurricane Sandy hit and it got rescheduled for November 5th. No problem good to go. 

Then the fun begins...I get a call Sunday night giving me a delivery time. Monday morning I get a call...I'm thinking the delivery time has changed. Nope when they unpacked it to load it on the truck they discovered a ding and wanted to give me the option of taking it or leaving it and ordering a new one. I decided for the price and the fact that it was brand new I wanted a perfect one. They assured me it would be an easy transaction to get the new one ordered. Ha...not even close to easy. I get a call around noon asking for my credit card so they can recharge it. I ask about the refund. She informs me they already did the refund so now they just need my card to recharge it. I explain that it is a checking account so I can't recharge until the refund hits. And I ask how come they started the transaction without talking to me and without explaining the process. Her response includes some hmms and haas and an explanation that since I refused delivery they had to refund it. So I talk to a manager who explains they can't undo what's been done and although it could have been one transaction it can't now. He is very apologetic and says he'll call me daily to see what's going on so it doesn't fall through the cracks. No call Tuesday. No call Wednesday. So Wednesday the money hits my checking account and I call them to reorder my fridge. She pulls up my order and quotes a price that is $100 more than what I paid. I inquire about the price difference. She explains that it is tax. I explain that I want it tax free because I bought it without tax. She says she'll have to get a manager. They put me on hold on and off for 30 minutes. Finally she comes back and tells me the card was declined. I look online and it has the charge from Lowes on there for the reorder so I tell her this only to find out that is not in fact a charge but it is in fact a hold on the account for a phone authorization. So in essence I need to have twice the amount of the fridge available so they can put the hold and then charge the actual amount. At this point I'm beyond ticked and ask for a manager. She comes on and says that there is nothing she can do this is the way the process works. When I ask about how come it couldn't be done as one transaction to begin with she tells me if I'd come into the store it could have been. WTH?!? Why wasn't I told this from the beginning  Well we were trying to make it easier on you so it wouldn't be inconvenient for you. Epic fail on their part. So I'm in a holding pattern again. I have to wait for the hold to come off in order to reorder the dang thing.

The hold finally came off today...a week later. I decided to go to hhgregg and see what they can do. At first they can't quite match it because of the tax and the fact that their warranty is more expensive. Then they appliance manager decides to wave the tax so it is only $30 more than Lowes. And I won't have anymore run around. I wanted to talk to J before I pull the trigger and order from hhgregg. He has agreed so we will be getting our new fridge from hhgregg assuming nothing else changes. I think the truly frustrating part with Lowes is the attitude I received even from managers that I just had to live with it and that they didn't really care that I was unhappy. The sad part is I used to be a huge fan of Lowes because they offer a military discount. And for hardware stuff I'm sure we'll still go there but I'm not sure I'll get big ticket items there anymore.