We were doing a major kitchen renovation and ordered a fridge, stove, dishwasher, and outdoor BBQ. The salesman was very friendly and helpful, and didn’t try to upsell us on anything. We hadn’t considered how to vent the stove, but didn’t want a big hood hanging down in the middle of the room, so the salesman showed us this nifty vent that mounts behind the stove and rises/retracts as needed. We were thrilled.
It turned out that the vent he sold us only works with stovetops – there is a boxlike section where the blower motor is which juts out below the counter, right where the oven would be. There is a store policy against returning or refunding venting products, but since it was the salesman who recommended it to us in the first place, and it hadn’t been installed, I didn’t think there would be a problem.
I went back and spoke to the store manager, and he ran us around for about two weeks claiming that he was trying to find out what to do from “head office”. I finally told him that either they would take back the vent with a full refund, or we would cancel the appliances that were still on order ($5000 worth). They tried to stick us with a 20% restocking fee on the vent, but I refused to pay for their mistake, so we wound up cancelling the remaining appliances on order and keeping the vent. (I went into a competing store that same evening with the invoice and said “match these prices” – “SOLD!”, they said).
After a few weeks I wrote a letter to their service department explaining in minute detail how things played out, and how they let a solid deal fall through for the sake of a small restocking charge. The next afternoon I got a call from the store manager, who admitted that they had handled everything completely wrong, and offering to take the vent back for a full refund. So in the end the store made everything right, but I suspect it was only because somebody fell on them from a great height.
Honestly, from other things I’ve read about the store and their customer service, I think we just hit them the wrong way on the wrong day. But for something that seemed to me like a no-brainer, it sure turned into an ugly, needlessly dragged-out experience. Use your own judgment.