Hobby Lobby — Local services in American Fork

TL;DR: I was overcharged for an item and had to wait 40 minutes for them to review camera footage to confirm I bought the item, so that I could return it. I was treated like a thief over a less than $13 return. Won’t be back.

I just bought a new house and have been buying hundreds of dollars (actually, probably closer to $1000) of decorations from Hobby Lobby. I’m the type that likes to buy everything I love, then try to find a place for it in my home. If it doesn’t work out, I return it with my saved receipts. The American Fork Hobby Lobby is closest to my home, so that is where I chose to do the returns. Whilst gathering my returns, I noticed that I was overcharged for one of the items I was returning. (Because Hobby Lobby is in the Stone Ages and doesn’t have individual UPCs for products and the prices are all manually entered by employees, it’s easy to see how I could have been charged incorrectly.) But instead of simply making a return, they made me wait for 35-40 minutes so they could call another Hobby Lobby where I bought the item and review the purchase footage to make sure I actually bought the item for that price. Twenty minutes would have been excessive, but I was made to wait FORTY. After the 40 minutes and me repeatedly asking the cashier to just get my receipt back, the manager came back out to apologize for the wait, said it was taking longer than expected to review the footage, and offered to take the item from me and I could come back later after they finished reviewing the footage. Seriously?! I was at the point where I said I’d just skip the return and leave with my item. I was told I couldn’t leave with the item because they weren’t sure I purchased it in the first place. I was basically being accused of being a thief over a less than $13 item. Ummm... are you kidding me?!? That’s crazy on multiple levels, but if I was a thief, would I return with the item I stole?... and then wait 40 minutes to be caught in the act?... No. It’s absurd. I painstakingly tracked down every item and price on my receipts to make sure that that I was returning on the correct receipt, at the “correct” price (read: incorrectly overcharged in the first place). At this point, I was mad and called them out on their terrible customer service. The manager then bent and decided to help me since other customers could see my outrage. She was going to give me a $1.07 credit, and when I said the item was worth more than a dollar, she said, “I didn’t do the math” very snarkily. She apparently thought I wanted a price adjustment and not a return, which makes the 40 minute wait even CRAZIER. They were going to check camera footage for a $1 credit?! Anyway, I made the return and there was no apology for treating me that way. They didn’t tell me I was right; they just did the bare minimum to appease me. Definitely won’t be back to this...

Why just 3 stars you may ask? After all doesn't Hobby Lobby have just about everything? Yes, they do have an unparalleled assortment of projects and supplies. But, I had to take one star away for the seemingly haphazard organization of it all. For example spray paint can be found on 3 different aisles. Why? I have no idea how they organize this store. It is almost completely random. You have to ask after nearly every item and of the 4 or 5 different employees I spoke to, only one or two actually sent me to the correct location.

Then, they lose at least half a star for their mysterious pricing strategy. For example, a $5 (at Walmart) can of spray paint is priced at $12.99 but because it is in the crafting section, it is 40% off. So you still have to over pay but you feel like you got a deal... Then, if you have their weekly coupon on your phone, fabric is always 50% off and the same coupon will also save you 50% off the most expensive item in your cart. As I shopped I did the math and expected to pay around $200 for the items in my cart then minus some confusing amount of discount because of the weekly coupon. I ended up paying about $130 for stuff that I could have purchased on Amazon for less than $100 if I could have waited two days for free shipping.... No matter how good you are at math, the final tally at checkout will always be a surprise. So annoying... Unless you like surprises....

And lastly, I have to take off another half star for long checkout lines. I realize these might be a result of the checkers trying to figure out the convoluted prices of all the items in your cart, but 10 mins in the checkout line is way too long for me... And I also don't need a social experience with the teenager checking me out. Don't ask me what I am doing with all the junk in my cart. I do have a plan, but it is none of your business...

I know this sounds like a negative review, but it is really not. After all, where else would I go to find a pink feather boa, leather strands, jingle bells, wooden dowels, giant wooden letters, spray paint, hot glue to assemble it all, and a model airplane? They had every single item I needed for my project and I got it all today... Oh and their tiny little carts fit through every tight spot in the store, and there were many, without a problem.

So, next time I will probably plan ahead, buy everything on Amazon...

Worst experience! Delay and runaround were the best part of my interaction with the American Fork Hobby Lobby. I went in on October 21st to purchase a set of three baskets, but since the store only had two of the requested baskets in stock I did a rain check to order a third. Check out was slow but finally I was told the third basket would arrive on the following Wednesday, October 25th, and I would be given a call to be informed of it's arrival. I chose to call Oct 26th due to lack of followup and was then told the basket hadn't arrive but for sure would arrive on the following Wednesday of which they would once again call when it arrived. To no surprise November 1st rolls around with no contact. I give the benefit of the doubt, maybe it was overlooked so I called again and was told the next Wednesday as if it was a script on the computer. Over the weekly calls I was given brush offs like, we'll call another store to see if it's available, and the warehouse shipments must have not been gone through, and this basket is very popular so perhaps they were all bought before they set yours aside. All of these reasons seems valid except for what's the point of a rain check in those cases. Now it has been six weeks later and I was finally given new options, just return the two baskets I have and pick out three different ones because they are not really sure why it's so hard to get a hold of the baskets, or "continue to wait forever". I am just very disappointed that the associates drug me along this long. If they would've been upfront and honest with me I could've made choices for other baskets much sooner and not been so dissatisfied with my experience and home decor through...