Harbor Freight — Local services in Danvers

Sunday I made a journey to Harbor Freight. I needed to put together some emergency tool kits for a few folks. I picked up the required pieces, along with some other assorted junk, and headed home.

When I got home I found that everything on the receipt was accounted for except for one lone item. It said that I had purchased a LED dog collar. This is odd since I don't own a dog. It was also odd that there wasn't some odd surplus item in the bag that might have explained a misscanned item.

I called the store on Monday and advised them of my find. The woman that answered relayed my concerns to a higher up and told me that if I came in with the part and asked nicely I'd likely get my money back.

I cheerfully went to the store on Wednesday and asked for a manager. I explained to him what the predicament was. A quick look at the POS system showed that while I had a valid SKU number for a dog collar, none were in the store. He then became obsessed with what I must have gotten instead, punching in random SKU's close to the dog collar's and asking me if I purchased some auger bits (no), carabinas (no) and so on. He refused to refund the $10.49 (yes, ten dollars and forty-nine cents) unless and until I returned the errant item. No amount of persuasion could convince this Neanderthal (Mike) that I never received an item therefore I couldn't return it for a refund. He flatly refused to refund me unless I produced the dog collar that the store never had in stock.

I pointed out to him that, due to the kit projects that I've been assembling for people, I've spent $400 this month alone at his store and that I would hope that if I really wanted to defraud Harbor Freight that'd it be for more worthwhile amount than $10.49. No joy. I asked if he was really ready to blow off a good customer over $10.49. He said yes. I left.

I called corporate and got someone in some foreign land. Reading a script they took my complaint and have promised a call back from a district manager sometime in the next 24-72 business hours. I'm not...

I went into the Danvers store today to return an aluminum rack system I had bought for my Toyota Tundra on 7/10/2025 The rack had been used once to bring Canoes on a camping trip, 2 canoes weigh no where near the 800lb max but, I noticed the other day that the bottom of the left rear stanchion was cracked almost all the way from left to right The man at the register was very nice & helpful but he had to call the manager to complete the return. She was not helpful at all, and seemed confused about what she was supposed to do.I told her I wanted a refund or a replacement. She said in order to do that I needed to remove the installed Rack from my truck, I said fine, no problem the truck is in the parking lot A few minutes later while removing the rack from my truck I realized I did not have a socket & ratchet to make removing the rack much easier and was using a pair of pliers. I went in and approached the manager and very nicely asked if the store might have a socket & drive I could borrow ? She said "we dont lend tools" I can buy some if I want to. I removed the rack with my pliers and brought it into the store, left it on the ground inside the store and rolled the new one out to my truck. I have been in the service business my entire life, I'm 61, and this woman was the worst person to be dealing with the public I have ever experienced. Sorry, but if she had been helpful, I would have really enjoyed writing a positive review and have had positive experiences with your stores in the past.This woman has a bad attitude and was not at all concerned with customer retention, she was rude and I hope she can do better...

This location has employees prone to error and management that fails to fix admitted mistakes. This is either willful incompetence or outright fraud depending if it was intentional or not.

Purchased 5 items on April 25th as part of the weekend 30% off 5 items sale. The promo clearly indicated “no coupon required, discount applied at register”. The discount applied to only one of the items, missing the other 4 items. I understand mistakes happen, went back to the same store April 29th with my receipt and sale details screenshotted from the email and app to correct the store’s mistake. Manager admitted the error but refused to do anything, since the sale had ended they couldn’t correct their mistake.

I’m a regular repeat customer at that store, so much for accountability and customer loyalty. I walked out without purchasing what I went for and will not be returning to this location.

Update: showed the receipt to the manager at another HFT location that I frequent and he immediately responded “yeah, they should have fixed that, simple mistake and easy to fix. I’ll take care of...