LOWE'S (OR) HOW LOW CAN YOU GO?

I promised an accounting of our unhappy experiences with LOWE'S carpet department so here it is. A disclaimer: The Parker family who handled the installation are beyond criticism - they are jewels!

We ordered and paid for our carpet back in April. We couldn't be here for the installation until July and looked forward to having nice new carpet and flooring throughout the house. Not so fast. The laminate in the kitchen? Perfect! The wood grained vinyl in the bathrooms - also perfect. BUT when they laid down the carpet we noticed it was two different patterns. The manager drove out to our home and agreed -two patterns. It was decided that they would loose-lay it and take it away when the replacement carpeting arrived in about 10 days. Two weeks later Carpet #2 arrived in the van - but the installers said "you might want to come out here and check out this carpet - it doesn't look anything like we think it should". Sure enough, it was a cheap facsimile of what we had picked out. The manager drove out to our house again...and back the rolls went. Carpet #3 came a few days before Pat returned. I thought it was what we had ordered but had an uneasy feeling as they installed it. It sounded squeaky when I walked on it. When Pat came home he said "This isn't the carpet we ordered! It sounds awful when you walk on it - not soft like the one we picked." So the next day we hacked off a hunk of a leftover remnant and beat feet to Lowe's. We found the original carpet sample we had selected. What followed was a series of sales people and managers feeling each and determining what we had installed was indeed squeaky...because it was made of OLEFIN which is recycled SODA BOTTLES! The sales manager said he would file a claim with the mill and let us know. We don't expect them to do much of anything. We were told that the samples in the stores can be up to 3 or 4 years old - and are only meant to REPRESENT the carpet selected. HUH???

The first carpet - the one with different patterns? The mill contacted Lowe's after receiving the two samples and said that it should have been "acceptable". HUH?

Who would have thought that buying carpet would be such a walk in a minefield??