Lowes. Garage Doors. Yup.

• March 13th, come home and I find that my garage had been broken into - one of the panels in the garage door had been kicked in. The door is in pretty bad shape anyway, so... time for a new door. Don't worry, nothing was stolen.
• March 14th, I go to Lowe's, pay for a new door with installation. "It'll be about a week before it comes in" says the sales guy. Super!
• March 15th, get a courtesy call from door manufactuer, Wayne Dalton out of Ohio. Also contacted by installation company, Access Garage. They come out and measure my door promptly. "It'll be about a week to a week and a half" I am told by the very friendly and efficient contractor.
• Three weeks later (Tuesday) I call Access Garage and talk to Jim about where the heck my door is. Jim doesn't know what's up, but he says that he'll find out. Later in the day I was on the phone when he called me back and I missed the call. I play phone tag with Jim, but he is responsive and calls me the first thing yesterday.
• Jim states that the door was never ordered by Lowe's. Wayne Dalton is evidently waiting on Lowe's to provide them with a purchase order number for the door before they will ship it. He goes on to say that Wayne Dalton has tried several times to get said p.o. number from Lowe's with no response. I thank Jim for his help.
• Then I call Lowes.

Can you see where this is going? Cool, I'm glad we're on the same page.

• Millwork is answered by a gent named Mike. Mike was a decent sort, for having to field a call from an angry customer. "It looks like the p.o. numbers are there, so I don't know what's wrong. The salesperson who helped you has unfortunately left for the day so we won't be able to ask him what's going on until tomorrow."

Uh... Hey Mike - do you think that you could call Wayne Dalton? I mean... you know... you represent Lowe's and all. The only thing I know is that I paid for a door that I don't have.

• Mike is very cool and transfers me to the head of Installed Sales, Michelle.
• Michelle promises to get in touch with Wayne Dalton to see what's going on. But she does mention that a post-it note made it to her desk, that the door needed to be a different size with additional hardware, which she is confused about, as no other information is given.
• Michelle calls me back after an hour or so (over all I'm impressed by everyone's ability to return my call in a reasonable manner). Wayne Dalton had contacted Lowes indicating there would need to be the change in size, and the addition of the hardware (i.e. more money). A new sale would need to be drawn up and the post-it note was given to one of her co-workers when she was out of the office... and there it sat.

And this is where Lowe's dropped the ball. No one called me. Even after, what I was told, repeated attempts from the manufacturer to the retail outlet about the status of the sale, no one called me. For ... what? A week? Two weeks? I don't know. But no one called me.

I pointed this out to Michelle, who also had the same realization.

So this is where I stand this fine and chilly morning. I'm currently waiting to see if how much more (or less) this will cost me - how much longer I will have to wait. I was hoping to have a message on my voice mail this morning, but no such luck.

I'm also rehearsing my "give me my money back, I'm going somewhere else" speech. Lowe's - you're on notice.

Update - Monday April 9th

• April 6th. Since I'd spoken to Michelle late in the day on Thursday, and she felt that it might be tough to get in touch with the manufacturer, I gave her until 1pm on Friday. I called and spoke to someone else.
• I told my story to Someone Else. They felt that Michelle should handle it and said "we'll call you back". When will that be, I inquired. "I'm leaving in 20 mintues" they say "but Michelle should be back in soon, so it will be within the hour."
• Two hours pass. I call back. I'm given to yet another Someone Else. This other person transfers me to Jarrod. I bluntly ask Jarrod who the hell he is, since I have no idea. Jarrod is the store manager on duty.
• Jarrod hears my story, seems concerned and says... guess what... I'll call you back.

Is anyone else sensing a pattern here? I've now told my story to about half-a-dozen Lowe's employees. Yet no one can tell me exactly what the status of my order is.

• Jerrod, I say, if I don't hear from anyone in an hour, I'm coming in with my receipt. "That's understandable." he says.
• Within the hour Jerrod returns my call, giving me to Chris, the Millwork department manager. I tell Chris the entire story. Chris, in turn, is going to give me over to Mike, confident that Mike, a Millwork sales associate, can handle the problem and get a solution.

Sigh. It's not rocket surgery people.

• Mike calls me on my drive home and I tell my tale of woe once again. Mike seems very attentive and is taking notes. I actually talk with Mike for longer than any other Lowe's employee. At the end of it all, however, it is now after 5pm on Good Friday. The possibilities of answering questions with the manufacturer are nil. Mike indicates that I will hear back from him on Monday or Tuesday.

I give Mike a deadline of Monday at noon. All I want to know is the status of my order. Has it been placed? Do I need to pay more money? Is there anything that I can do to expediate the process other than constantly call Lowe's every other hour? So yes, noon on Monday.

The silver lining here, so far is that Mike called me on Saturday, which was unexpected. He had cancelled my previous order, put me in for an upgraded door, with additional needed hardware and a Lowe's contracted installer for the same price that I had paid originally (a $150 upgrade more or less). So instead of waiting to hear about an order that no knows about, I'm now waiting for an installer to call me to set up a time to do the work (once the door comes in). It sounds like Mike is coming through for me.

Sure, I'm dubious, and won't believe it until someone is actually putting the door up, but it's better than where I was on Friday.

Update - Thursday April 12th

I have a garage door. Finally. The installer was able to actually come out earlier than expected, which is good, because I was given the incorrect size door for my garage.

Scroll up and read the part about the size of the door being changed and additional hardware being required. The way that Access Garage wanted to do the work, the door needed to be one foot smaller in width so that a 2x4 (if I recall correctly) could be added to the frame in order accomodate the extra hardware.

I do believe that is correct. It's been a month and a trying month at that.

The guys from Lowe's (a subcontracted company named Wright Garage Doors -- I think - I didn't take note of that), Brian and Ed, looked at it and said "You need the original size door. And you don't need the low head room kit like it was suggested."

Within an hour, they had the correct garage door up, a frame around the opening with ample weather stripping and a torsion spring unit instead of whatever it was before. The springs ran parallel to the rail tracks. I have no idea what that's called.

I'm just happy I finally have a door.