5/3 I Purchased a New Refrigerator 5/6 Delivery Truck Arrived, they removed my old refrigerator from the house, then they removed the box for the new fridge from the truck, and when they remove the box to bring it in, the Refrigerator was completely smashed in on the top right back corner and dented on the bottom right back corner as if the refrigerator had been dropped. The delivery men tried to convince me to accept the damaged fridge saying if I took it in, they could do an exchange and have a new one for me in one day. If I refused to accept the damaged one and they had to take it back then they did not know how long it would be until I could get a replacement. This made no sense to me, so I called customer service, and the wait time was one hour to one hour and fifteen minutes. The drivers did not want to wait, so they said they would call their manager and have him call me. I receive a call from a number that showed "Potential Spam," but the delivery men said that was the number to answer it. So I answered, and I asked, "with who am I speaking?" he replied his name was Edgar and that he worked for 3961XDT, clearly I was already feeling uneasy because of what the drivers had already said to me and their attempts to force me to accept the damaged refrigerator, so I asked Edgar first, what is 3916XDT, I purchased the refrigerator from Lowes, he tells me they are the DC for Lowes which come to find out means their Distribution Center/Cross Docking Center in Passaic NJ. He tells me the issue is the drivers already marked the order as delivered on their cell phone against the order and to tell them to change it so he can process the exchange. If not, the order must be refunded, and I would need to purchase it again. The driver sat on my front steps on his cell phone as if trying to change it from showing delivered to damaged. He said he did not know how to do it. I did not know whether he was pretending or did not know how. Edgar said he will take care of it (I do not recall the exact words, but they would have a new one sent to me, and he would call me back). In the meantime, I heard the one driver says to the other in Spanish, "I want to finish early today," which is likely the reason he did not want to take the damaged one back and likely why he did not want to sit around waiting and just marked it delivered. In the meantime, the drivers got up to leave, and I told them I wanted pictures as proof of what was transpiring before they left since I had nothing to show this refrigerator was damaged and refused or that I had spoken to anyone at Lowes. The only thing I had was an order showing delivered and a conversation from a Spam number telling me they worked for some place called 3916XDT, providing me contradicting information to what the drivers had told me. I proceeded to take pictures of the Refrigerator that was damaged, the truck, the two drivers, and a close-up of each of their Photo ID Badges on their arms. At this point, Edgar hung up with the promise of calling me back, the drivers left, but I still had my husband's phone on hold with Lowes customer service. After 57 minutes on hold, I got a person on the line (I forgot to ask her name), and she explained that what they said was incorrect and that an exchange was possible whether I accepted the damaged refrigerator or refused it. She put me on a brief hold after which she provided me with an "Exchange Case #" and she said I would be receiving a call within 24 hours from the DC with a new delivery date. After 24 hours and not receiving a call, 5/7 I called Lowes customer service back and waited over an hour on hold before I could get a person on the phone (Gail). I explained the situation to her, and she told me everything I was told was wrong, and exchange could not be done; it has to be refunded and re-purchased, and she will do that in the system now, send a note to the DC and they would be calling me to reschedule the delivery. I get a call later that day on 5/7 from the DC and they tell me it will be delivered 5/8. On 5/8 @7:22 am I get a call from someone named Shaneeka saying that it was never marked as returned and that Lowes never pushed the order through to the DC, so the delivery will not be coming as scheduled. When I pushed for further information, she tells me that the DC in Passaic is only four weeks old and Lowes was trying something new to alleviate issues with deliveries or something to that effect and she will reschedule it. At 4:39 pm that same day (5/8) I speak to Tanasha who tells me it is now scheduled for 5/10 but that it is only an estimated delivery date, not certain it will in fact come on 5/10. (At this point i checked with my bank and I had two charges on my card for the refrigerator so I call the bank and put them on alert that I may need to dispute one of these charges.) On 5/10 10:30 a.m. I received a call from someone by the name of Desirea who proceeds to tell me the refrigerator did not make it on the truck and that I was being rescheduled for 5/11 between 8am and 8pm. At this point you can imagine my frustration. She said she would escalate this to the DC and have them call me back (which I think she was with the DC so not sure this made sense but at the time, I heard the work escalate and I said ok) we hung up. Never did I get a call back from her. That same day 5/10 10:35 am (five minutes exactly after hanging up with Desirea where she was escalating this and scheduling me for 5/11) I receive a call from Shaneeka to tell me it is actually Not coming 5/11 but now it will be scheduled for some time NEXT WEEK but she could not give me a day! Because I was still on the phone with Desirea when she called it went to voicemail , the what she said was left on a voicemail. I did not call her back, Instead I called Lowes and after 38 minutes on hold I get Brian on the phone So 5/10 11:13am get Brian on the phone, he tells me there is no exchange showing in the system, the system show the refrigerator was delivered on 5/6, this should have been refunded and repurchased, the exchange is what is creating the issue. He will email the marketing manager and as soon as he has an answer he will call me back but that he sees an opening for 5/11 to make a delivery so as soon as he had an answer from the marketing manager he would call me back to further confirm. I never heard back from Brian so I decided to call back. 5/10 4:23PM, I call the DC and get Desirea on the phone, I explained what Brian said and can she please give me an update because he never called me back and it had already been over five hours since I had spoke to him. I heard some clicking of the keyboard and she says "Let me put you on hold so I can go see what is going on" A few minutes later Shaneeka gets back on the phone and tells me the issue is the system is not generating a PO and that Edgar when he did the refund instead of refunding it to my credit card he refunded it onto a gift card and repurchased it using the gift card. She apologized and said they would give me $59 off as appeasement. At this point, I was so frustrated that I just wanted a complete refund, and I would just go buy a refrigerator somewhere else. She said ok and informed me they will send me a gift card in the mail and that it would take 7-10 business days! I tell her I do not want a gift card I want the charge refunded to my credit card the same way I purchased it. She tells me she cannot issue a credit to my card because Edgar did the refund and repurchase using a gift card behind the scenes. I tell her this is not my problem and what was being done behind the scenes which was against company policy and likely illegal and she said she would escalate this and get back to me. She calls me back and says unfortunately there was no other way, they could either issue me a gift card, I continued to push back stating I did not want a gift card I wanted the money back on my card so I could go to another store (not Lowes) to purchase a new refrigerator. At this point she tells me I could go to the Lowes store closest to me and speak to the "ASM" and ask for the refund in cash, she just needed about an hour to process the forms on her end. She said one second and I hear her on another line talking to some man by the name of Don saying she was processing a refund and someone would be coming in to collect the refund in cash, the person presumably said ok and she confirmed back to me this was an option. I said fine, I would drive to the store to get my refund in cash. She said she would call me back when she was done processing it. She calls me back a short while later to tell me she actually cannot do that so it was either the gift card OR wait and hope the system gets fixed they were having serious IT issues and I said well if there are such serious IT issues then I assume this is happening to everyone because I cannot imaging system not generating POs that would mean you would not be able to make any deliveries and she said "Yes, we have had entire trucks full come back" and she could reschedule me for Friday Delivery 5/12. I was suspicious because at this point I had already been given various different reasons why my order had not been delivered from it not making it on the truck, to it not being processed correctly, to it already showing delivered, to they did it wrong, to I don't know what is going on let me find out to now IT issues....So I said fine that I would take the 5/12 Friday delivery. 5/11 6:39 pm I receive an automated call to tell me the delivery was scheduled for 5/12 between 2pm and 6pm. 5/12 7:22 am I receive a call from Shaneeka saying it is not arriving 5/12. She will need to close the order and issue a new order and have it scheduled for 5/13 and they can give me $26 off the order. 5:12 8:12 am Shaneeka calls me back and says the system is not generating a PO and she is not able to make a new order and she will just need to refund me but to a gift card. I said no, I do not want a gift card. She tells me I can take that gift card when I receive it in the mail and go to the local Lowes and exchange it for cash. I told her I did not believe that because no one exchanges gift cards for cash, she said yes and would process it. Then she put me on hold and while I was on hold, I looked up online whether gift cards could be exchanged for cash to which on the Lowes website it said no they cannot. She gets back on the phone and I tell her, "I just looked online while I was on hold, and it says on the Lowes website that gift cards are not redeemable for cash" She said hold on, and she doesn't put me on hold but I hear dialing on another line and I hear her asking someone. She gets back on the line and says she just checked with her supervisor and he said it can be exchanged for cash. I asked who the supervisor she asked was and if it was Edgar because everyone he had informed me was wrong, and she said, "No Edgar is not a supervisor". Surprise, surprise, because the original delivery drivers said he was. So she gave me the supervisor's name Yamir or Jamir? I did not hear her very well and I was in the car at this point driving, so I could not write it down or ask, but she said she was certain I would be able to take the card they were going to mail me and exchange it for cash at the local Lowes. So here I sit on 5/12 @ 6:14 pm (a week later, a week without a refrigerator, a week spent hours on hold, a week of never-ending contradicting and frustrating phone calls, a week of 80-degree weather with two small children and no refrigerator) writing this, hoping I will be able to get the card in 7-10 days and walk into the local Lowes and exchange it at the customer service desk for cash. It remains to be seen if I will get my money back but I am ending this with frustration, dismay, and complete disgust for the Lowes organization.