Complaint Review: Lowe's Home Centers LLC

I live in Columbia, South Carolina and I’m a self employed contractor supporting a wife and kids.  I realize that this is going to sound unbelievable at first, I know, I didn’t even consider it at the time because up until then my impression of Lowe’s employees were that they were the most helpful and courteous people I’d ever encountered, until last summer on a Saturday afternoon when approximately $1200.00 dollars in cash was stolen out of my wallet.  With everything I know now, there is no doubt in my mind that a Lowe’s employee named John did it and got away with it.

On July 27^th 2013 around 3:45pm, my son and I were shopping at the West Columbia Lowe’s and purchased some supplies at the contractor register.  After checking out I carelessly set my wallet on the cart with my items and rolled out the door to find two employees working a forklift and a Chevy pickup truck with its backup lights on waiting for me to pass by.  As I pushed the cart to get out of their way (unknowingly to me at the time) my wallet fell off and onto the parking lot.  I proceeded to load my truck and prepare the newly bought concrete for the oncoming rain while my son was still inside.  He then came out of the store and says “Dad I got your wallet,” I was shocked and embarrassed that I didn’t know that I had lost it.  I guess I was more concerned about my concrete getting wet.  I then opened my wallet to make sure everything was in tact only to find that it was empty, I couldn’t believe it!

 I immediately went back in the store and asked the lady at the register about the missing cash and she said, “I didn’t see any cash in your wallet; I was only looking through it to find a way to contact you, wait a minute we have cameras, I’ll get Tom to replay and see what happened.”  So she told the loss prevention employee to see what he could do, so he goes into the office and shuts the door, after some time later he comes out and says to Roger (the manager on duty) “This guy dropped his wallet right outside the door and a truck pulled up and stopped, blocked the cameras view and then pulled off, so there’s nothing that we can do.”  That didn’t make since to me because the outside camera had a good view of the pickup truck while it was backing up.  I proceeded to ask Tom a series of questions that to my surprise he didn’t want to answer.  I finally got fed up and called the Lexington County Sheriff’s Department and reported a theft.  I kept insisting to see the video footage and then Tom says to me “one of the reasons why I can’t let you view it is because you may take retribution on the person that did it.”  Well, that sounded odd at the time because the person he made it out to be was long gone. 

A Lexington County Sheriff’s Deputy responded in short order, took my statement and requested to see the video surveillance footage.  After viewing the video the deputy wouldn’t tell me anything either, only that I could read the report in two days.  So I finally left the store without knowing what really had happened.  Monday, I read the sheriff’s report and couldn’t believe it; a completely different story unfolded.  The deputy states that “a black male employee with Lowe’s helping a nearby forklift operator walks over and picks up the wallet, looks around then walks around with it finally entering the store.  He opens the door to an office and peaks in.  He then walks into the office (alone) out of range of the camera for approximately ten second.  He exits the office with wallet in hand and finally hands it over to a cashier.”  The sheriff’s office concluded that this is a civil matter and not a criminal one because I wasn’t robbed and therefore Lowe’s does not have to release the employee’s name.

Well, that was not what I wanted to hear but at least I know what happened.  Everything now makes since, apparently Tom was not only protecting this employee but his own job as well.  He successfully kept my attention on the innocent Chevy pickup truck driver and off the employee who suddenly disappeared and was nowhere around when the police showed up.  Tom makes no mention of this employee picking up my wallet or taking it into a room by himself.  Now I know, why Tom kept saying “I don’t wanna get fired,” because he had to have known that an employee entered his unlocked office without him.  When this employee (who is later identified as John) picks up my wallet in the parking lot, the first thing he had to have seen was a photo on my drivers license, its not the best picture but its mine, and I’m right there in front of him 20 feet or so away off camera obliviously loading my truck.  Ok, I’ll admit I should have put my wallet in my pocket and should have known exactly how much money I had before entering the store that day, but nobody has the right (especially an employee of a store that I came across town to shop at and a store chain that I have patronized for decades) to steal money out of a wallet. 

After about a week later while at this Lowe’s I did identify employee John by his name tag but when I asked him his last name he went and told his manager that I was harassing him and so they had a No Trespassing Order issued against me.  If John is innocent then why want he talk to me?  Why want he give his last name?  Why didn’t he talk to the police that day?  Why didn’t he tell me he was the one that found my wallet?  Why did he take my wallet into a room by himself before turning it in?  John is at the very least guilty of violating Lowe's policy by entering Tom’s office by himself with a customer’s wallet.

In conclusion, I’m not holding responsible Lowe’s Home Centers, LLC or any of the other fine workers at Lowe’s even though this Loss Prevention employee Tom clearly mislead me, didn’t show any concern that money was missing and didn’t cooperate fully with the police.  There is only one person who is responsible.  There is no doubt in my mind that employee John ripped me off that day and got away with it.