the p.

Lowes has purchased Rona in Canada, since there isn't a specific Rona review, and since they are now owned by Lowes, I feel this is a legit place to leave my review.

Now I am not 100% innocent in this, but let me explain.

A number of months ago, I purchase a single scaffold jack at the Rona store on Sargent street in Winnipeg. I happened to be very close to this store when my cell rang and my staff advised me that a leg was missing for the scaffold. They were on the job site, clock is ticking and time is money, so I ripped into Rona. I purchased the leg for $72.19 plus taxes ($81.57 total) and headed out to the job site, to deliver the scaffold jack. When I got there, it was whoopsy, we found the fourth leg after all. Stuff happens. So I threw the new leg back in my truck, where it bounced around for a couple of days, since I was planning to return it. Well days turned into weeks, it went from the floor in the front to the back and out of sight out of mind. However it was brand new, perfect condition, certainly resalable. Then who knows what, changed wallets, cleaned out wallet, etc. Lost the bill.

This afternoon, I went over to the Rona to return the leg. I have to note that it was around 4:00 pm, the whole Polo Park area is hopping, It's a couple days before Christmas and people are everywhere. Everywhere except Rona. There were less than a dozen cars in the lot. When I got inside the place was empty. Cars in lot were probably all staff.

Spoke to the young lady at the customer service desk, told her the whole sordid tale. She said "no receipt, no return." I said fine, I understand, can you give me a store credit? Then I asked if someone else in the store would give me a different answer. Nope on that too. Rona does not have the system to search purchases by credit card. So I left.

Home Depot is about two minutes down the street, they sell the identical item, so I went there. There parking lot had 60+ cars in the lot, customers and carts rolling in and out.

I went to the customer service desk, waited a few moments and then told the young lady "I bought this a while ago and don't have a bill, may I return it?" She scanned the item and then said tap your credit card. I tapped my credit card and of course it didn't find the item purchased. So I said, I have another credit card, she said OK, scan that one. Of course it didn't work either, since I hadn't even bought the item there. She apologized (Rona never did) and said that at this point all she can do is give me a gift card. I said that would be fine and we went from there. Several minutes later, I left the store with a $79.27 gift card.

So to summarize. I bought something at Rona that I did not need. I lost the bill (completely my fault) and when I tried to return the item they blew me off. Went down the street to Home Depot (where I did not buy the item) and ended up with at $79 store credit/gift card. Home Depot is hopping busy, Rona is dead, wonder why? I don't and I will not be back to Rona either.

You can be certain that

We ordered some items from an out of country vendor. Normally we self clear the simple shipments and we use a local customs broker that we have used however this one ended up going to UPS for customs brokerage. They sent me an email regarding the fees, also advising that there was only a couple days left to pay. I paid them and the goods were cleared. That was at the end of September, early October.

We received the (see attached) invoice in late November. If you look closely, this is an invoice, not a receipt for payment received. There's an invoice date, a due date, an amount due, etc. My accountant brought it to my attention only because he wanted me to sign the cheque. I only looked into it a little deeper because we do very little business with UPS.

So I called them this morning around 10:00 am. After waiting on hold for a minute or two I opted for the call back, which was supposed to be 15 or 20 minutes. The call back never happened. So I called again this afternoon, waited on hold, finally spoke to an agent and found out that this invoice had already been paid. I was to disregard the invoice I had in hand.

Now UPS is a big company and I understand that mistakes do happen. But big companies have some pretty robust accounting systems as well. I also have to wonder how often this "mistake" happens or if many other businesses have paid twice for the same service.

Little disappointed to say the least.

If you ever call them, or they call you watch out. They called one day, got one of my staff and used her name as confirmation to enlist us in services we never asked for or wanted. Then they put an $1,100 CAD charge on my Bell phone bill. Then the battle started, I eventually got my money back, but not without a fight. SCAM, SCUM, SCABS AND SCABBIES!