Westlake Ace Hardware — Local services in Kirkland

They have a good selection of things here. Store is clean and most of the employees were nice. However i did have a bit of an issue. As i was walking around, surveying their offerings, a employee stopped and stared at me. After a brief stair, she asked if i needed help finding anything. Not only is that good customer service, but i also immediately recognized it as an anti-theft tactic used by many businesses to prevent shop lifters from taking anything unobserved. Its a useful tactic. However, she executed it rather distastefully and made her intentions quite obvious by lingering for a good 15 seconds after i said i was fine, and just looking around. She then left my view, but not my earshot. I heard her call a less experienced employee over ant tell him that i was steeling and needed to be watched. The fact that she made almost no effort to hide any of this was, at the very least, extremely rude. And i dont enjoy being stereotyped based on my looks. Which, this is a clear case of what happened. The less experienced employee then came to observe my every move. He was not inconspicuous in any way. I attribute this to his lack of experience and age. He was just doing what he was told. At this point i walked up to him and introduced myself and explained how obvious it was that they thought i was stealing. And i explained that i am a store manager at a store in Bellevue, and am painfully aware of anti-theft observation tactics. I also explained that its very unlikely that i would be stealing from the store with my last name quite visibly printed on the back of my hat. The employee looked quite embarrassed to be caught. I asked to speak to the older lady that originated this spy game, but she appeared to have overheard my conversation with her subordinate and went to hide somewhere. I would have like to gotten her name. Thats alright though, im sure this review has already made it quite easy to determine who it was. After that, i went and checked out my 37 dollars worth of purchases and the cashier was extremely nice and a pleasure to deal with! There was also another employee who i had a short chat with because he said he recognized me. He was also a pleasure to meet. Take from this what you will. This is far from the first time i have experienced stereotyping or racism directed at me, but its annoying it still happens, so blatantly in 2019. Im going about my day just fine though!

EDIT: i should apologize for any typos. This was typed using the keyboard on my smartphone about 15 minutes after checking out...

Update: The Owner responded quickly and fixed the issue. Unlike stores like Home Depot, they are not able to keep credit card charge history to credit back without a receipt. But they did allow me to replace without the receipt. Will keep Ace receipts for several weeks for future purchases like this. Also signed up for their Ace Rewards program, as that allows for returns.

We have bought probably $100 of products each month from this local hardware store since there were new owners a few years ago. The help has always been friendly and cooperative. But an experience today will probably stop me from shopping there again due to poor customer service. A couple weeks ago I bout a 100' flexible garden hose there. A had purchased a similar hose from there last year. I took it out of the packaging and used it for the very first time this week-end. It had a leak in the new hose that kept spraying me and getting me we as it was near the end by the spray nozzle. I immediately put it back into the packaging to return to the store to replace with one that should not be defective. But I was told that without the receipt from a few weeks ago (that I did not keep) they would not replace it with a new hose. Even with the credit card I had used to purchase. Now, even Home Depot takes returns without the receipt as they can look up the purchase using the credit card. Stores like Costco and REI also take these returns without question. It seems that they are questioning my honesty. I guess I will just stop my local loyalty to this local owner and buy online the products I got there before or go to Home Depot. I tell my neighbors as well about this experience. Maybe the owner will wake up and do better...

Now, typically i wouldn't write a negative review, but after today's events I feel as if i have to share my experience. I went in earlier this morning to do a return for my husband, he shops there all the time, and accidentally purchased something that we already have at home. I explained this to the cashier, all seemed good, she just said a manager had to clear it because it was a bit more pricy than other items that they have. As I had already walked out the door, the cashier chased after me because apparently her manager needed a duplicate receipt. This was odd to me but I complied and thought nothing more of it until later when i had thought to just double check the balance of the card and to my surprise when I checked the balance was ZERO. I of course called the store, was told that I absolutely had to come in, couldn't call anyone, a bit frustrating, but I complied once again with their requests from me. WELL, of course when I got there I was told something completely different and was given a lady named Diana's number who worked in the LP department. Now I worked in retail for 10 years and not once have I sent a customer with the same issue to lp. When I called her she was extremely rude insinuating that my husband was a THIEF. We are honest, good, hardworking people who have worked so very hard all our life to work for what we have and to even think that someone could even consider insinuating something so wrong about my husband is infuriating. So now, Ace has not only insulted me and my husband, but has also STOLEN 132.00 dollars from me and my husband. To say I'm livid would be an understatement. They just lost two very long...