The staff is rude, inept, thoughtless, and deceitful; and the prices are too high. My last two visits here have resulted in two hours of my time wasted.
Visit 1: Came in to exchange a "warrantied for life" tool shop wood clamp. Told to take the old one with me and get a new one - told like I was an asshole for not knowing, with the kind of tone you hear from teenagers in bad movies about how shitty teenagers are. But okay... go get the clamp, duck into the fasteners aisle, come back to card left in the next aisle - cart is gone.
But okay - overzealous staff just tidied up by accident. No worries. Back to front counter: "Yeah... it's not like i can exchange your item unless I have the old one." The old one... that one of the staff tidied up... that you saw me come in with... -- there were literally zero wheels turning in this gal's head, just a vacant "well, f**k off" stare on her face.
Result: hour of time wasted. Almost my fault because it took an hour for me to realize how dumb and uncaring the two staff I was talking to were and as soon as a manager got involved he said something akin to "just do it, it's a $10 clamp, who cares."
Visit 2: Bought three trees last year on a good sale. One died, but that's not a terrible result for discount box store trees - and the return policy sounded good. They said that if a tree dies to just snap off a branch and bring it in. I went above and beyond just in case: snapped off a branch AND took pictures of the dead tree.
Took my dead branch and pics in... NOPE. Nope - go home, dig up the tree, come back with it, and bring it in or no refund.
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I've got a handful of other little stories about this place. Most of them involve staff interactions. e.g. Treated like an asshole because the two guys in hardware were positive that there was no such thing as a flush cut saw (because in their combined zero years of working in a shop they'd never heard of it). Which was very odd for me because I literally look like a lumberjack carpenter complete with beard, suspenders, and 6'7'' frame and I'm not bashful, so when I politely ask "where do you keep the flush cut saws" the correct response is to google something you've never heard of, not assume the carpenter doesn't know wtf he's talking about and treat him like an idiot.
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Finally, the prices are just too high. "We price match!" is NOT an argument. A trip to the hardware store shouldn't involve an hour of homework and another twenty minutes of standing in the store to actually GET the price match (while they thoroughly double and triple-check everything, looking for any reason to disqualify it.)
Random check on the last thing I bought at a competitor without checking prices first (I won't say its name but its initials are HD and it's a type of cache, one might even say a Depot of goods one can use in their house, or Home.)
Flexzilla 50' 14-gauge. Yup, $28 at HD, $37 at Menards. But wait - actually $24 at HD because I'm a veteran. 54% more expensive at Menards.
(This is NOT knocking Menards for not offering a vet discount. It's cool when business do it, but it's not *bad* when they don't.)
Random check #2: wrought iron gate hardware (decorative latch and hinges): $26 ($23) at HD, $31 at Menards. 35% more expensive at Menards.
You're stuck taking my word that these were random. Let me find something I could have got cheaper at Menards to balance it out. Here we go (but NOT REALLY). Titebond III 2-pack. $58 at HD and $51 at Menards - but... it's not sold in stores and HD will ship to my house for free and Menards doesn't, so...
WHAT THE HELL IS A $2.80 PROCESSING FEE DOING IN 2016? I HAVE TO PAY FOR THE PRIVILEGE OF BUYING FROM YOUR WAREHOUSE INSTEAD OF RETAIL, WHICH COSTS YOU CONSIDERABLY LESS OVERHEAD? (First time seeing this - forgive the caps. I knew shipping would balance the prices out, but apparently I have to pay for the privilege of saving their company money.)
Oh... eff right off, Menards. Seriously.
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It's a 1-star to me. The prices got out of control a while ago an the staff are like I've already described. The only reason I've been back after the BS with the clamp is to get the refund from the tree, and I wrote how that turned out.
I don't know if someone can be "never going there again"x2, but if it's possible then I'm there. read more