Lowes Won't Be Getting Any Of Our Business

A couple of weeks back, Veronica and I were in the market for a smaller sized chest style freezer.
We did some research and shopping around and found a GE 7 cubic foot chest freezer at Home Depot that scored very well amongst purchasers reviews.
The freezer was selling for $198.00 and our local Home Depot had it in stock.
I decided to do some checking into the price for the exact same freezer at our newly built local Lowes.
Lowes price matches other retailers as long as you have proof of the other retailers price.
After checking on Lowes web site, I discovered that they also had the same freezer in stock and Lowes was somewhat closer to where we live than the local Home Depot.
I decided to call Lowes just to make sure about the price matching policy.
The young lady I spoke to said that they do indeed price match upon proof of another retailers lower price.
I explained that I would print and bring in the shown price for the freezer from Home Depots web site.
The young lady also informed me that not only does Lowes price match other retailers prices but that Lowes also gives the customer an additional 10% off of the price. This brought the price down to approximately $178 plus some change...a really attractive price to me.
Now I was becoming a Lowes fan. As a consumer, I am always looking to save a little money on any product that is identical to the one I am wanting.
The young lady plugged the product code/model number into her computer only to find out that they did not have the model I wanted in stock despite what it said on line.
Then came the deal breaker and something that really started me feeling real negative about Lowes.
I was told that the freezer would have to be ordered and it was considered a "special order" and as being a "special order" they could not offer the price match to me and of course the additional 10% off was null and void too.
Tried as she could, her computer would not allow her to make any type of manual adjustments to the price in order for Lowes to back up what they were verbally telling me...the customer.
She got one of he male supervisors involved and I could hear them talking back and forth as they tried to get the computer to do something that it sounded like it wasn't programmed to do.
The supervisor was telling the young lady what to tell me and then he came up with the idea of offering me another brand freezer for the same $198.00 price as the GE freezer I had wanted. Of course there was no additional 10% off on this one.I could hear him telling the young lady to tell me to check out a 7 cubic foot Holiday brand chest freezer that they would offer me for $198.00. I have never heard of the brand name Holiday and I quickly checked it out on Lowes web site. As it turns out, Holiday is part of the Haier brand name.
This freezer only scored a 3.7 out of 5 by reviewers compared to the 4.7 out of 5 rating that the reviewers gave the GE freezer.
I heard the supervisor tell the young sales lady to make me the offer and that this was the best that they could do...take it or leave it.
This was obviously a bait and switch tactic along with gross misrepresentations of Lowes policies as far as their so called price matching and adding on an additional 10% savings goes.
I told the young lady that I wasn't interested in their offer nor was I ever going to step foot into our local Lowes store nor any other Lowes store throughout this country.
I promptly called Home Depot and made sure they had the freezer I wanted, which they did and Veronica also contacted the store manager to let him know what kind of shady business practices their so called competition were doing.
We drove the extra few miles and picked up our new freezer, which was waiting for us on a cart in the freezer section...with our name on it. We knew up front what the price was going to be and no one tried to tempt us by offering anything at a lower price that could not be backed up nor was there any type of bait and switch practices at Home Depot...like there was at Lowes.
If this is the way Lowes does business, Home Depot has nothing to worry about. Lowes is absolutely no competition and eventually they will disappear from the retail world especially if they continue to treat customers this way.
Notice that I did not say "their" customers.
Keep up the good work Home Depot. As long as you do, you will have loyal customers in both myself and my wife.
As far as Lowes...never again...you blew a great opportunity to gain 2 customers!!
Shame on you!!!