Can I get some Holiday Spirit?

Lowes Home Improvement store must hire customer service grinches for the holidays!

For as long as I can remember, my family has always had a real tree on Christmas. Since getting married and starting a family of my own, we have continued on with that tradition. Although putting up a real Christmas tree means added daily tasks of watering the tree and vacuuming up pine needles, we simply cannot resist the scent of a freshly cut pine tree. In addition to setting out Christmas decorations and enjoying the aroma of baked apple pie and mulled cider candles, the scent of a real Christmas tree really puts us in the Christmas spirit.

This year, we waited a little longer than usual to get our tree. Normally, we have our Christmas tree up by the weekend following Thanksgiving. This time around, however, we got our tree on the 2nd of December. My husband and I decided to check out the trees at Lowe’s Home Improvement. We found a great Douglas Fir that we thought would fit perfectly in our home. After paying a very reasonable price of $25, we headed straight home to get our tree in some water. We then proceeded to trim the tree, which is one of my favorite things to do. Everything was great, for the first couple of days. But, by day three, I noticed the tree had already began to dry out. I also realized that the water level had remained full since the first time I filled it. It appeared that the tree was not absorbing any water. I definitely found this to be unusual, but I continued to watch the tree’s condition for several more days. By day seven, the tree had dried out so much, that the branches drooped so low, causing all of my ornaments to be completely out of place. At this point, I knew there was no way that this tree was going to make it through to Christmas. After rationalizing it in my head, I decided to call Lowe’s and ask if there were any way that I could get a new tree. Much to my surprise, the man on the other end of the line was very understanding and informed me that it would be no problem at all to bring the tree back, either for a refund or exchange. Great! Or so I thought..

After removing all of the ornaments and lights from our half-dead tree, we hauled it back to Lowe’s in hopes of going home with a fresh and new Christmas tree. Instead, we ended up going home empty-handed. After browsing the selection of trees remaining on the lot, we decide against an exchange because 90% of the trees were already starting to turn brown. The other 10% were not what we were looking for. We head to customer service to get our money back so that we could purchase a fresh tree from somewhere else. Unfortunately, we were “helped” by a “grinch” of a woman who held the role of store Supervisor. She agreed that our tree was in very poor condition, but refused to offer us anything other than a store credit because we failed to retain our receipt. I reluctantly agreed, thinking how crazy it is to expect anyone to hold on to their Christmas tree receipt. Anyway, I was then told that my credit balance would be $12.04, the current price of their 6-7′ Douglas Fir trees. When my shock wore off, I argued that I should be entitled to the full amount I had paid only nine days ago. The Grinch told me that there was absolutely nothing she could do to credit me the full amount because the prices had changed since I had made my purchase. I found this to be ludicrous and here’s why. During my prior telephone call with the man from the tree department, I had been informed that the previous shipment of Douglas Fir’s (the same batch that my tree was in) had actually been shipped to this Lowe’s location (AL) from another store (FL) because they were not selling. In addition, after we arrived at Lowe’s and were greeted by the same man, he told us about how there were several other returns of Douglas Fir trees. I asked him why the trees were dying so quickly and he informed me that their trees were cut down back in October! That’s right folks, the trees were two months old and had been bounced around between stores, who knows how many times. Unbelievable, right?! Ms. Grinch denied this story and continued to remind me that she couldn’t do anything else for me. I then asked her to consider crediting me for the current price of an 8-9′ Douglas Fir tree, which was $20. Again, she refused. So, after almost two hours of trying to negotiate with this scrooge, I could not get her to budge. My husband, 21 month old son and I were forced to leave Lowe’s without a Christmas tree and only a $12 store credit.

Am I alone in saying that this was an absolutely ridiculous experience that no one should ever be subjected to? For goodness sakes, it is the holidays and I am just trying to have a Christmas tree that will be alive on Christmas Day. Not only that, I would like to have a tree that is not a fire hazard in my home! This woman, or so-called “store supervisor” assumed zero responsibility for selling us an obviously old tree and had absolutely no interest at all in helping to make the situation right for her customer. I feel she could have easily rectified the problem by honoring me a store credit for the full $25 that I had paid. I purchased a tree from them believing that it was fresh, based on their advertisement. I am dissapointed and downright angry at how terrible we were treated, especially during the holidays. I realize that customer service is not what it used to be, but you would think that people would try to be more empathetic and inclined to perform their job of providing customer satisfaction. I guess my expectations are just too high - even for a well-established retailer such as Lowe’s Home Improvement.