So where we left this, I’d finally given up and decided I was going to play the game Lowe’s “Executive Customer Response Team” has with their Maginot Line-like defence system known as voicemail and left a message at 1153 hours on 19 Sep 2025.
I’ll admit that I was surprised that they responded via EMAIL at 1239, the case manager sends an EMAIL introducing herself and providing the magic ten digit code to bypass voicemail (which looks suspiciously like a Charlotte-area phone number that I was sorely tempted to direct dial!) that arrived at 1310 hours, and I was actually talking to Ms Christina at 1317 hours until it was time to go collect Alex from school.
My initial impression was that she seemed open to the idea of giving my side of the dispute that I strongly felt hadn’t really been taken seriously by anyone I’d spoken to prior (and that Joe of the “Appeasement Team” had made clear on a recorded phone call that none of my side of the story was ever presented to his management) other than Ms Kayla and she is utterly constrained by the $600 limit imposed by corporate policy.
She’s polite and professional and promises to have a response by 24 Sep 2025 which seemed reasonable enough given that we were near the weekend.
I end up converting the eight episodes of this saga (including screenshots!) up to that point to PDF and send that along with Miguel’s invoice thinking that should be more than sufficient to finally get someone in management to acknowledge my side of the story that I feel has been denied to most of them up to this point and come up with a more appropriate offer.
For the first time in a while, I actually felt that there was hope that we could finally make some meaningful progress if not just sort it out and be done with it.
Ms Christina actually responded a day earlier than she’d estimated which can either be viewed as a good sign that stated SLAs actually do matter or somewhat more cynically along the lines of a jury returning earlier than expected with its verdict.
I was genuinely hopeful of the former.
So you can imagine just how shocked I was when her “final settlement offer” was once again the exact same $600 I already had several weeks ago and that was expected to cover Miguel’s bill at twice the amount of my inconvenience and that she felt that it was “completely fair”.
I really don’t know whether to laugh or cry or just compromise and do both at the same time.
The rest of the 38 minute phone call that had started at 1146 23 Sep 2025 was an exercise in depressing and crushing frustration.
Again, I’ll give her full marks for being professional and occasionally apologetic but there were a few parts of that conversation that really stood out to me.
There Have Always Been Two Separate Claims In Play!
Ms Christina did agree that Miguel’s bill for his services on that ill-fated Saturday was fair and needed to be paid by Lowe’s.
I can’t imagine how she or Lowe’s would have come to any other conclusion when his presence was demanded by four of their employees effectively hired Miguel to inspect plumbing that was in perfect working order had their supposedly professional installer bothered to shut the valve.
But the corporation’s take is that there is only one claim because there was only one installation on the premises and that they’re intending to settle both at once.
I don’t know how they could possibly think that considering that Miguel’s corporation is a completely different legal entity that I have any power of attorney or other authority to sign on his behalf to release his legal claims against Lowe’s in this situation!
I can only legally agree to release my claim so there was always going to be two claims they would have to settle and they really have no legal or indeed moral reason for doing otherwise.
They demanded his services (or someone similarly expert in plumbing, Miguel just happened to be the most convenient option) and they need to pay for them. Ms Christina clearly agreed with that premise from the beginning of the conversation but trying to fold that into the settlement with me and then expect me to act illegally to release a claim I have no legal power to do so is disingenuous at best.
They’re clearly going to try that tack but it’s not a particularly smart move on their part that will more than likely come to bite them in an uncomfortable location.
I’d also respectfully suggest that refusing to pay a vendor that they de facto “hired” as the separate settlement it really is really makes one wonder if there are other vendors that were similarly situated and demanded by their employees that they’ve stiffed out of paying. I would think that’s a line of enquiry they really do not want people who are of a mind to do business with them as a vendor to think of because I can’t imagine that’d make their relationship with that vendor any easier or efficient.
Lowe’s Apparently Wants My Agreement To Their Settlement Amount Before I See The Terms!
Ms Christina mentioned a release form would need to be executed before whatever agreed funds would be released.
That’s not particularly surprising when their goal (and frankly mine as well) is to finally settle this dispute and move on with our lives. I’d have been shocked if there wasn’t some sort of settlement contract demand from them.
But apparently I have to agree to settle at their number before I see the terms they wish to unilaterally impose upon me which sets off all sorts of alarms wondering what sort of shady and underhanded provisions they’re going to try to parachute down upon me!
In fairness, they may well not have any such onerous or adverse terms binding upon me.
If I’m honest, I’m thinking a straightforward release of claim would make that agreement a veritable unicorn amongst agreements!
But Ms Christina absolutely refused to discuss any aspects of the agreement nor would she even send me a blank version of it so I could review the terms ahead of actually effectively agreeing to the terms of it sight unseen which really gives off a nasty odour that she knows exactly what that proposed agreement contains and that it can’t stand the light of day and honest dealing.
She mentioned a couple of times that she couldn’t read it to me (which wasn’t what I was asking her to do) and that she wasn’t a lawyer. I totally understand that second point…I’m not a lawyer either in spite of reading the law to the point of being likely being able to pass the Florida Bar examination but not wanting to do eight years as a public defender to become a prosecutor!).
But I’ve been party to enough contracts and read many times that number to know that when one party refuses to even discuss the contents of a document even when they’re asked general questions about the content of it such as “is there a non-disclosure agreement?” or “is there a forced arbitration clause?” that there’s a nasty surprise coming that they want to use the promise of withholding payment as leverage.
That is *NOT* how a responsible and fair contract negotiation process is supposed to go between parties who are genuinely wanting to protect each other’s rights in the transaction and settle their differences honestly and reasonably!
A Nondisclosure Agreement Would Be Disastrously Stupid…For Them!
The reason I was genuinely interested in seeing the boilerplate ahead of time was to see if there was a non-disclosure agreement buried in the proposed contract.
I would not be surprised if there is one but they absolutely don’t want to try to impose one upon me because it’s very much against their best interests!
Common sense should indicate why when you’re reading EPISODE 9 of a story of at least 10 parts that still has yet to find a happy ending!
A story that has already been published on a public accessible website and shared with other interested parties.
All a non-disclosure agreement would do is force me to not actually provide the happy ending that Lowe’s really needs to be focusing upon!
Yes, the initial installation attempt was a complete disaster and almost everything that has happened since to escalate the dispute with very few exceptions is pretty much the fault of Lowe’s.
Yes, the many levels of bureaucracy that have ranged from annoyingly ineffective to actually hostile to the customer really blows and makes it very clear to anyone who has heard or read the story who is in the right and who isn’t.
Should Lowe’s eventually get to the correct decision which isn’t where it sits right now by a long shot, a lot of the stupidity on their part that has gotten us to this point will be chalked up to hidebound bureaucracies doing what bureaucracies do best…screw up most of what they touch and be completely hopeless when it comes to a reasonable resolution until they have no other reasonable alternative.
That’s provided we can sum it up that way with a nice little bow and card that reads “I didn’t get all of what I’d asked for and could have done without the massive headache it was to get here but Lowe’s did eventually make the situation as right as it’s going to be”.
A non-disclosure agreement would legally prevent me from saying that.
So do they really want to leave it at nine episodes where they’ve basically come off as mostly incompetent with one real villain amongst their employees and…cliffhanger with no positive spin?
I don’t think so.
Anyone with any lick of common sense wouldn’t think so either.
I guess we’ll find out eventually which end of the common sense divide they wish to inhabit but the signs aren’t looking so good right now.
I Was Apparently Unaware Of Who Is To Blame For The Impasse!
I left my favourite part of the conversation for last because I’ll confess that I never could have imagined this rather interesting interpretation of the situation from Ms Christina.
At one point, she took exception to me using the phrase “common sense” (or more accurately the lack of it I perceive from the majority of the various representatives of Lowe’s to this point).
I couldn’t resist challenging her on that point and asking her point-blank if she’d reviewed the many pages of the eight prior episodes I’d sent her as part of her request for documentation.
She said she had and then mentions her management also apparently agreeing that this $600 is a “fair offer”.
If that were the case, you’d imagine that at a minimum she’d want to review the tapes of the recorded conversations (something she mentioned right at the start of the call), particularly the one where Joe of the “Appeasement Department” decided to engage in a master class of just how bad his conduct unbecoming and manifest and multiple instances of disrespecting the customer that was featured in Episode 5.
And yet under questioning, she admitted she hadn’t bothered listening to those tapes (if they’re indeed still available for only they know what Lowe’s retention policy is for those recordings).
It should be awfully clear who is telling “porky pies” (“lies” in Cockney English) and the decision to make this right by the customer would be a trivial one.
Common sense would seem to suggest that anyone who has been reading along thus far would come to a very different conclusion than she’s trying to sell me so I’m forced once again to wonder (and in this case aloud at one point!) if the management she spoke of had reviewed the documentation I’d sent.
I didn’t really get an answer to that (so my take using common sense is “probably not”) so I asked her straight out as to the details of what her analysis entailed to come to the conclusion that the same offer I’d already had for weeks was “fair”.
Her first point was that she considered the three day delay between the failed installation and when they were able to successfully install the refrigerator.
She made no explicit indication about what she might have felt about three days of no refrigeration available inside the house during the hottest part of the summer and a constant reminder of that for those three days and how much that should factor into the compensation but apparently it’s only worth one third of the total offer at best for her to consider it “fair”.
But then she made a point of mentioning Ms Kayla’s initial offer of $600 and how it hasn’t changed over the ensuing weeks and then proceeded to flat-out blame *ME* for all of the delays afterwards in terms of coming to a settlement.
I genuinely could not believe what I’d just heard come out of her mouth!
It certainly wasn’t anywhere delivered with anywhere near the level of the vile slander and disrespect that seemed to be the hallmark of my interaction with “Appeasement Team” Joe but it certainly betrayed an absolutely tone-deaf reading of the room.
I will absolutely stipulate that it would have been dramatically easier and convenient for Lowe’s and less hassle and time-consuming for me to just roll over and accept Ms Kayla’s initial offer.
I guess that “my way or the highway” negotiating technique most often employed by toddlers is what Lowe’s is really hoping for in the process I’ve endured to this point where the bureaucracy just can’t get out of it’s own way to do the right thing and seems designed to be so awful and frustrating that the vast majority of people just give up and take what crumbs they’re offered (if any).
If that’s genuinely what they’re wanting, they’d have been better served just having Ms Kayla stick that number on the boilerplate contract they want to impose upon me and just say that “there are no appeals available to you whatsoever” and that it’s take-it-or-leave-it and don’t bother trying to stand up for yourself because absolutely no one at Lowe’s will give even a scintilla of a darn about your issue.
It would not have done them any credit or favour but it would have saved me many hours of anguish and frustration and I could have just gone away and let loose with the sixteen-inch broadside public relations salvo Lowe’s so richly deserves at this point.
I’d already come to the conclusion that the “Appeasement Department” is already irrelevant and could be made redundant with no significant loss of amenity to anyone. If Lowe’s in general is pretty much of the “take-it-or-leave-it” mentality from the off and nothing I’ve experienced since then has disabused me of that notion, then that would confirm just how easily they could lose the “Appeasement Department” and the only ones that would notice are the people who staff it and the bean counters who will be pleased at an extra saving against expenses.
But blaming the customer for availing themselves of the avenues of appeal that are allowed by policy as being the main reason a settlement hasn’t been reached would suggest that there are much more additional saving through redundancies that can be found in the organisation chart in this “Executive Customer Relations Team” as well.
And if we’re really being honest, most of the delays after I’d rejected Ms Kayla’s initial (and apparently to Lowe’s final!) offer regardless of what department is supposedly handling it are actually due to Lowe’s employees not properly following up on their action items when this mess landed in their lap.
Joe promised to put his offer in writing and in the post and I’d have three days to accept or reject it. I never received such an offer and everyone who has been asked about it swears one was never mentioned in the notes. He was given more than enough time to come good and he chose not to and it matters not whether it was due to intent or incompetence.
The phone call afterward where it was once again put to them that the response from Lowe’s needed to be in writing went unheeded even with ample amount of time to comply.
Indeed, the only ones who consistently met their SLA were Ms Julie of that “Appeasement Department” and Ms Christina!
But it’s apparently my fault that I gave Lowe’s employees what I felt was a reasonable amount of time if not more so to fulfil the promises they’d made.
Somehow I don’t think if I’d demanded a response within a day that it would have been received as well by them.
As it was, I’d suggested to one person that a week was more than enough time and that “time was of the essence” which is a key term of art and that wasn’t taken as the strong hint to get a move on and solve the problem that it was intended to be.
But because I refused to just blindly accept the first offer given and try to do what I can to improve on what I felt then and still believe now is inadequate compensation, apparently all this time engaging their bureaucracy to try to appeal a decision using the hidebound bureaucratic policies they have in place is entirely my fault as is the lack of results from such engagement.
Got it.
It’s Well Past Time Lowe’s Get Serious About Solving The Problem They Created!
The problem started with them and it will end with them removing their organisational heads from a rather more notorious orifice that is the usual subject of how the title is finished.
Toward the end of the call, I once again voiced my rather underwhelmed feeling toward their “final settlement offer” and asked to speak to her management personally.
Not surprisingly, that was initially blown off and then I finally threw an offer her way to get us to the point of me writing the happy ending…$400 for Miguel and $600 for me and I pointed out once again they can bill what they pay us to their vendor and their vendor won’t dare raise a fuss about it for fear of far larger damages being extracted from them for their incompetent installer and supervisor.
That is one hell of a cheap gift for Lowe’s to finally make this sad situation they have created and through ineptitude and indifference has kept it going.
I genuinely don’t know what the ultimate cost to Lowe’s for this debacle will be but I’d be surprised if we’re not already well past what I was initially asking for in terms of employee salaries and time to say nothing of many lost sales that would be many times that asking amount from people who have made it clear that if that’s the experience they can expect when things go wrong, they have no desire to experience it themselves.
I couldn’t tell if she’s going to even bother presenting my offer to her management but I’d respectfully suggest that it’d be an own goal of epic proportion if she didn’t. That would once again argue toward not dealing and negotiating fairly and honestly on their part which only serves to make them look even worse and uncaring than they do now which is already pretty impressive.
I guess I’ll know the answer when I see what she wants to try to pitch my way again.
Three guesses and the first two don’t count as to what I’m expecting to see from her in the next day or two.