Diane A.

Bought a snowblower at Menards in Hermantown (Duluth) MN on Oct. 30. Only had my car and the blower wouldnt fit in it. I live in Canada, a four hour drive away. I asked the young salesman if the store would hold it until I could return with a trailer to pick it up. He said store policy only allowed it to be held for 3 weeks and suggested I make special arrangements at their service desk, which I did. The woman at the service desk assured me that it would be no problem at all to hold it until I could get back down to Duluth on Nov. 26th. In fact she said they would take it off the floor and put it in the back. All I had to do was to present my receipt at door #11 on Nov. 26th and they would load it onto my trailer. So, with those assurances secured, I paid for the snowblower.
Fast forward to Nov. 26th. I rented a trailer in Canada and drove back to Duluth on Nov. 25. When the receipt was presented at door #11 on Nov. 26th, you guessed it. NO snowblower. They had sold it and everyone of that model all area stores. How the heck does this happen when inventory is so carefully monitored by computer? They sold my machine, fully knowing that it had already been sold to me. Even after I went to all that trouble to get extra assurances that it was okay to pick it up past their policy timeframe.
It gets worse. I then asked to speak to the dept. manager, He told me that their policy was to hold prepaid merchandise for only 2 (that's TWO) weeks and that it didnt matter what his employee had told me. I then asked to speak to the store manager. He was completely unsypathetic to my plight, stating that it was store policy to hold such merchandise for only 1(you read that right, ONE) week. You must be kidding me. And of course, he didn't care at all that his employee/store representative and I had made an exemptive agreement. The same girl who had given me the guarantee that I wouldnt have any trouble getting my blower on Nov. 26 was present during my conversations with both managers. She readily admitted that she had told me it would be okay to do the pick up on the 26th. She also stated that she clearly remembered our conversation. But the store manager refused to stand behind his employee. Poor woman looked so embarassed, especially when the manager said he would "deal" with her later. I sure as heck wouldnt have rented that trailer and driven all the way down there if I hadn; t been guaranteed that the blower that was rightfully mine would be there. He tried to sell me a bigger blower with no offer of a discount or anythng for my trouble. He clearly was not interested in satisfying this customer. In fact. Every offer he made would have cost me more money but his store wouldn't be out one cent. What the heck kind of compromise is that?
I am putting this out there to warn people about the unscrupulous and confusing "policies"at the Menards store in Hermantown MN. The worst thing about the whole encounter was the blatant lack of caring shown by the store manager. He wasn't the least bit concerned about my problem, he refused to take any responsibility for the mistake. He hid behind "store policy" and tried to tell me that there was "nothing he could do" Store policy has no flexibility, his hands were tied. What a crock of... Any manager worth his salt would have bent over backwards to keep the customer happy. Especially one who had spent thousands and thousand of dollars at his store over the past few years. Not this schmuck. My advise? Shop elsewhere. There are plenty of good retailers who really WANT your business.