DW V.

I found a piece of equipment I needed on Lowes.com. It had mostly 5 star reviews but a significant number of 1 star reviews. It seemed like it would suffice so I went to Lowe's and bought it. The equipment self destructed after several uses. I called the manufacturer who sent a repair kit to arrive in 10 to 14 business days. I needed my equipment to work yesterday, not in a few weeks so I called up Lowe's and found it was still returnable. I did return it but stupidly bought another identical item rather than take the time to go shopping elsewhere. The new equipment fell apart during the first use of less than 30 minutes. A minor problem but tedious to repair.

From there I left a less than complimentary 1 star review about the quality of the equipment while commending Lowe's for their return policy. My review generated a response from the manufacturer's rep with instructions which I followed. The manufacturer did sent parts but they sent the wrong parts. I called again and was told they didn't actually stock the part that fell off my machine. Too bad, so sad. I had to either return it to Lowe's for refund or remove parts and mail back to them so they could justify reimbursement.

Here's where it gets funny. I posted a followup review that wasn't any nicer than the original. Lowe's not only failed to post my new review, they removed my original review.

Then by arranging the sort order of the site from oldest reviews to newest reviews I noticed the first 75 reviews carry the notation of [This review was collected as part of a promotion.] And guess what? That was the end of the long string of 5 star reviews and that is where the long string of one star reviews began. Deleting my original 1 star review did bring the ratio of 1 star to 5 star reviews to under 30%

I bought a half ounce sample of their "Pure Capsaicin Crystals 16,000,000 SHU" before committing to larger quantities. Thank goodness I started small to check them out. What they sent me was a joke. No crystal at all but recompressed powder that smelled strongly of vanilla and had very little heat. Compared to many samples of real crystal capsaicin I have on hand, I put this fraudulent product at 2 or 3 million SHU at best.

A polite inquiry inquiring about shipping of the correct product resulted in an extremely rude and condescending reply. They expected me to send this garbage back to Australia at my expense for a refund when it should have been flushed down the toilet.

I did return it but I had to file a dispute with PayPal to get my refund and return shipping paid.

For more than three years was a loyal customer. I bought all the commercial foods for feeding my crew from them. They were perfect and always had excellent prices and promotions. I always buy $100-200 per order.

They sent me email Wednesday morning with a 20% discount code. I've been waiting for a good code to re-stock. By the time I went to the site to place an order late that afternoon, they were gone. This morning I see they even killed their Facebook page.

Here's how I saw it coming. I even queried Gianni about it in a chat. In September they sold some $150 gift certificates for $100 to become valid during the holiday season. I was afraid this was a last ditch effort to raise operating capital. I bought one anyway to express my faith in them.

I wanted to give them the benefit of the doubt but it looks like they're gone. I just filed my dispute with AMEX.

Update 11/27: It appears doggiefood also sold our personal information that at least includes our names and email addresses.

Additional update: AMEX was able to retrieve my $100 from these people but it didn't happen until Dec 29.