Harbor Freight Tools that don't suck

[Midniteoyl]

I often ask the cashier if I need to go through the line multiple times to use the 20% coupon or if they will ring it up one sale at a time (when I've bought more than one expensive item). As long as they aren't busy they usually don't care and just allow me to pay for each item one at a time. I don't think they are paid on commission so they have no incentive to try and get you to pay full price.

Ya, the lady here does the same. If there's a line, I usually just put the item in my car and come back in so as not to hold them up..

 

[California]

You guys have friendlier cashiers than here, NorCal. Absolute NO if I ask. Even in the year I paid for ITC. The cashiers seem to have firm instructions.

It might work to leave the store then come back to a different cashier.

 

[dragoneggs]

I often ask the cashier if I need to go through the line multiple times to use the 20% coupon or if they will ring it up one sale at a time (when I've bought more than one expensive item). As long as they aren't busy they usually don't care and just allow me to pay for each item one at a time. I don't think they are paid on commission so they have no incentive to try and get you to pay full price.

I tried to use both the 25% and 20% on the same purchase and that didn't fly. She said if she rang the 20% the 25% would be canceled. My wife... in the other line also tried and the gal told her that she could only use one or the other. But I imagine if we would have loaded the car and come back through... we would have both been successful as long as it was a different transaction. The HF folk at our local place are helpful so I do think it is a programming thing at the till.

 

[sixdogs]

I tried to use both the 25% and 20% on the same purchase and that didn't fly. She said if she rang the 20% the 25% would be canceled. My wife... in the other line also tried and the gal told her that she could only use one or the other. But I imagine if we would have loaded the car and come back through... we would have both been successful as long as it was a different transaction. The HF folk at our local place are helpful so I do think it is a programming thing at the till.

If you pay with a credit card, the repeat trip with a second coupon (with credit card) will be cancelled in at least one store around here. I presume all. I use cash for second coupon on same day.

 

[PJSprog]

The HF folk at our local place are helpful so I do think it is a programming thing at the till.

The people at the store I go to in Fairview Heights IL are the same way. If not super busy, they'll even thumb through a flier to find a coupon for things you may have missed.

 

[MoMower]

I tried to buy a 5 drawer box today but they didn't have any in stock. So I bought a 1 drawer, they had 3 the cashier said. They were nowhere to be found so they gave me a preassembled one. Their assembly crew sucks. They placed most of the washers on the bolt side rather than the nut side of a carriage bolt & nut. Oh well, it's good now.

View attachment 546732

I chose this one over the 4 drawer, I liked the idea of a second shelf better than more drawers for rolling to a project. Very happy and definitely doesn’t suck.

 

[PhysAssist]

If you pay with a credit card, the repeat trip with a second coupon (with credit card) will be cancelled in at least one store around here. I presume all. I use cash for second coupon on same day.

Hey SD,

If that means you leave with your prizes, and when you get home, you see that your CC wasn't charged, I think the onus is on them for not having a better system.

That said, it has never happened to me-

if I have more than one transaction at the store on the same day, they all go through-

I know from when we only had 1 store 30-45 miles from my house- we would batch trips, and sometimes I would buy things for the medical office where I worked [like a set of pliers to work on embedded fishhooks or battery-powered clocks for the exam rooms...] , and have to have several separate transactions with separate receipts in order to get reimbursed from work [or for my B-I-L- so he could have a separate receipt for his "warranty" on more expensive tools].

As far as helpfulness, it really seems to go by the individual store or maybe store manager, in addition to which side of the bed an individual got up on.

The older store I mentioned above had 1 or 2 reliably nice and helpful personnel, until they left or got promoted, and all the rest seemed to resent not only my being in their way, but having to be there themselves...

The newer store, just a couple of years old, in a suburban college town [Brockport], and pretty much everyone who works there is at least pleasant, and is helpful as much as they can be- some few are in the: 'if brains were dynamite they couldn't blow their own nose category' but even so they do try, and all the rest are just much more helpful and seem better motivated.

For instance yesterday, I stopped to buy the automatic compressor drain on my 25% off coupon, and at one point had 3 sales associates [clerks] and the asst manager looking with me.

Finally after 2 calls to the stockroom, and one to the older store, they found out that they were all out of them, and they weren't going to be on the next order, so they gave me a rain-check for one- with the 25% discount [and a 25% off coupon stapled to it].

The help was a good investment for them- I ended up using the 1st 25% off coupon on a 4# deadblow hammer, bought 2 of the large, very heavy duty [and just plain heavy] moving blankets, which for 5.99 each, we really like a lot:
and 1 free 5'6" X 7'6" blue tarp.

[https://www.harborfreight.com/72-inch-x-80-inch-movers-blanket-66537.html?ccdenc=eyJjb2RlIjoiODQyNTMyNzgiLCJza3UiOiI2NjUzNyIsImlzIjoiNS45OSIsInByb2R1Y3RfaWQi%0D%0AOiI0NzQ3In0%3D%0D%0A]

 

[sixdogs]

Hey SD,

If that means you leave with your prizes, and when you get home, you see that your CC wasn't charged, I think the onus is on them for not having a better system.

That said, it has never happened to me-

if I have more than one transaction at the store on the same day, they all go through-

I know from when we only had 1 store 30-45 miles from my house- we would batch trips, and sometimes I would buy things for the medical office where I worked [like a set of pliers to work on embedded fishhooks or battery-powered clocks for the exam rooms...] , and have to have several separate transactions with separate receipts in order to get reimbursed from work [or for my B-I-L- so he could have a separate receipt for his "warranty" on more expensive tools].

They definitely do things different at different stores. Until last year, they had a 1980's credit card system with narrow strips of paper you had to tear off to sign. A few years before that they didn't even take credit cards. A different store I know about is light years ahead and completely different. Beats me but sort of fits with the whole HF experience and luck of the draw.

 

[Ford850]

Most of the 20% coupons say they are limited to one use per day per customer. As the posts above prove, the enforcement varies a great deal from store to store. One thing I don't like is how they ask for my phone number and then automatically email a receipt. I'm not sure why, but that seems intrusive to me, so most times I say I don't have a phone when they ask. Some clerks nod and smile, while others are in disbelief and have to ask "no phone?".

 

[PhysAssist]

Most of the 20% coupons say they are limited to one use per day per customer. As the posts above prove, the enforcement varies a great deal from store to store. One thing I don't like is how they ask for my phone number and then automatically email a receipt. I'm not sure why, but that seems intrusive to me, so most times I say I don't have a phone when they ask. Some clerks nod and smile, while others are in disbelief and have to ask "no phone?".

The only reason I have started to give them my phone number, is that if I do, and need to return something, I don't need to bring the receipt with it- they can look it up on their system.

Once I found that out, I started giving them the #, although, I guess I could give them a fake number as long as I was consistent about it, now that I think about it.

...Prior to that, we had just given them the truth, which is that my phone number is unlisted.