Lowe's

I am the Board Chairperson for a small country Church in the rural Northern Neck of Virginia, I worked with the chairman of our property & grounds committee to buy a replacement clothes washer for our parsonage. The purchase was complete 27 July 2015. Having each had positive experiences and satisfaction with customer service and found them to be trustworthy and honest, we started at Lowe's. With out very limited budget we were especially interested in scratch & dent or similar bargains. We were thrilled to find a GE washer that was effectively brand new at a major markdown. We chatted with the delightful and knowledgeable young lady and she answered all of our questions. The machine had been delivered to a buyer, but upon installation the first attempt to use it discovered that a shipping bolt had not been removed and the machine wouldn't work properly. The machine was swapped for another, and returned to Lowe's. We were told that Lowe's personnel then went over the machine completely and if there were any problems fixed them such that it was as good as new. We asked about the impact on the warranty, and the salesperson explained that since it had this history, we would be limited to a 1-year complete warranty that could not be extended. Under those terms and conditions we bought the machine and installed in our parsonage. At that time, we were between pastors since our previous one had just retired. So the parsonage was unoccupied. A few weeks later we actually decided to test the machine and it ran beautifully. Still no one used it. In October we hired a new pastor on a part-time basis. He and his family were to (and still do) spend on average 1 night per week in the parsonage. After a couple weeks they decided to use our shiny new washer only to discover that when there were clothes in it the water would not fully drain leaving the clothes soaking wet. We apologized and told then no worries, it's under warranty.

Our committee chair contact Lowe's in Tappahannock to request repair or replacement and was told that we bought the machine "as is" with no warranty. Well no we didn't, so he went to the store and spoke with the manager who made the same claim and said we had no options for getting a properly working machine. It's now been 7 months, we have a very patient pastor and family (+ they only stay in the parsonage 1 day a week), but everyone is fed up with Lowe's not honoring their commitment, not standing behind their products, not being honest with the sale, etc.

We are small but we have lots of friends, so word of this non-existent customer service, lying to us about what we were buying, and a manager who apparently cared not the least bit about his customers is fairly widespread.

There must be someone within the Lowe's management hierarchy that cares about honesty, and delivering what's being sold in good working condition. But we have no idea who this might be (but he or she is not in the Tappahannock store), or how to contact them. Phone conversations to date have been less than useless in that it's time & effort spent for no accomplishment.

The resolution we want is for Lowe's to honor their commitment to us. This could be done by repairing the existing machine, or replacing it with a new one of same or similar model. Since we got the machine at a bargain price, a refund of our purchase price would still leave us without a working machine -but that'd be vastly better than having what is little more than scrap metal taking up space in the parsonage utility room. We'd even consider accepting a dollar equivalent credit for what we paid toward a different machine of or choosing -though we would want it to be delivered, the old one taken away, and it not be from the Tappahannock store since they have been proven to not care or be honorable.