MENARD'S

Their prices are tiny bit better.

Not everything was in stock. We ordered several parts to fill out the order. The matching trim pieces were a red oak, and did not match at all to the flooring. The contractor asked for more material after the initial purchase, so Menards front desk service offered to add it on to the already expired deferred payment offer via a fax. Both of these little issues became big problems over time. 1) Long story short, no one, not even the Store Manager, seemed able to get the matching trim for my job. I never was able to get the pieces from them. 2) The bank that handles Menards Big Card deals is now in Shanghai China. Good luck dealing with there telephone people in Nevada. They regularly stonewalled me. The bank kept charging me interest on my 'deferred interest' purchase. Finally I involved the front desk at the local store and they had to try several months in a row to get it fixed. After four months of haggling, we still had problems with the invoices being incorrect. Finally the local Menards person was able to get them to fix everything on the bill and get it all right. 3) When we made the final payoff after nine months, they stuck us with a $641 finance charge based on a fine print detail that we had missed. When I complained they offered to reduce it to $320. When I asked for a supervisor, they then offered to reduce it to only $160. Essentially what happpened was they had a fine print paragraph that said the promotional date was on January 10th. But our due date was January 16th. So because we paid the total due after the 10th, but before the 16th, they charged us 20% interest for 9 months. The due date of the 16th was in clear letters at the top. The 10th due date was in small letters below in the body of the bill. Total experience with Menards: This job took about 18 phone calls with an average of 30 minutes per phone call to straighten out all the problems. And then I had to pay $160 in interest charges to close the account because of the fine print snafu. I could not recommend against these guys enough. If prices are anywhere close, go with one of their competitors.