Please see email sent to the "fake" email address that Garden Ridge gives out when you complain about something at their store, which is [email protected] on 5-24-11 and five additional times since I did not receive a response:

Hello,

I would like to share with you the experience that I had at your Garden Ridge store located at 4641 Lafayette Road, Indianapolis, IN, yesterday 5-23-11 at approximately 4:00 pm Eastern standard time. First let me say that I have been a loyal customer and have spent alot of money at this store since it opened here in Indianapolis, and I have also referred several friends and co-workers because of the great selection and low prices. Unfortunately I'm not even sure I will ever go back. Let me explain what happened.

Approximately 10 days ago I went to your store and bought throw pillows, two small ones, and one big one that matched. I really needed two big ones, but you get so many of these that I was sure you would get more of them. I thought it was reasonable to wait 1 1/2 weeks to go back and see if the store had received additional pillows to get the one pillow that I needed. Keep in mind when I picked out these pillows I was there for 1 hour studying the pillows, so I know what inventory you had. Please also keep in mind that I live 1 hour away and gas in this area costs $3.80 - $4.00 per gallon. I have no other business in this area except to drive to your store.

Now to the events of 5-23-11. I spent about 40 minutes looking through the pillows and in the area above that wraps around the store (where you store additional pillows) looking for this one pillow that I needed. I could not find one that matched even the small ones I had bought, I could only find a large one that was brown like mind instead of green. I could tell however that a new shipment of pillows had come in because there were several styles there that had not been there before. I have a keen eye for these things and again studied the pillows for an hour before I picked mine out the first time. I noticed at the back of your store (but on the floor visible to customers) were several new pieces of furniture, still wrapped in plastic, and 4-5 huge boxes that had not been opened. My thought was that the boxes could contain pillows, so if someone could at least peek in there and tell me then I wouldn't have wasted an hour drive for nothing. There was a tall black man with a black shirt on, one of your employees, straightening the pillows in one of the aisles. I approached him and explained what I was looking for, and told him nicely that I had spent a very long time looking through all of the pillow aisles and at the extras that wrap around the top shelf of the store, and could not find any of these. Then I pointed out the boxes and asked if there was a possibility that there were pillows in those boxes. He said he didn't know and he was "not authorized" to do anything with those boxes, and that I would have to speak to his "manager". Let me say that this was the first employee I encountered that acted like I was "bothering" him and he was totally uninterested in my dilemma. Please keep in mind he was "straightening pillows"! I'm sorry but that should be done right before closing, I'm sure alot more customers would come and mess them up before close. Unfortunately I did not get his name but the time of day and my description should be enough to figure out who it was.

The next part is the real kicker. I went to the front of the store to the cashier, and very politely explained that I drove a long way and was hoping that someone could check the boxes. I told her that the person in the back by the pillows said that I needed to talk to the manager. The cashier used her two-way radio and explained the situation and asked for the manager. The manager, Angela Zabinski, stomped up to the front of the store very irritated that she had to be bothered by me. I explained to her that I saw that there were large boxes that possibly contained pillows and was hoping someone could peek inside before I left to see if that was the case. She was very rude from the moment she walked up to me. She sighed very loudly and said "I have all my employees doing other projects"! I'm sorry but straightening pillows was the other man's "project" that was so important? I told her I understand, but I drove a long way and if someone could just peek into the boxes if they contained pillows I would search for the one I wanted myself. She then stormed to the back of the store. It couldn't have been more than 60 seconds later when she called the cashier on the two-way radio and said in a very nasty tone "IS THAT CUSTOMER STILL THERE?" Of course the cashier said yes. The manager then said that the only pillows in those boxes were the back rests that have arms on them. I'm not sure if she thinks I am stupid, but I don't think she even had enough time to walk to the back of the store, much less slit open 5 boxes and look inside of them.

At this point I am bewildered, the only person that even remotely has any focus on customer service in this store is your cashier. She was awesome and gave me this email address and the managers name when I asked for it. Other than that who in the world do the other employees thinks they work for??? Without customers they would have NO JOB! I myself am a Sales Manager for a large telecommunications company. I have 8 Account Managers that work for me, and they handle 3, 200 accounts that are all cities, governments, counties, and school systems. I have to say that if I EVER heard them talking to a customer like I was talked to yesterday they would be fired. I am not sure if I even want to step foot in your store to return the other three pillows! I also have to say that you have lost a customer, and I will no longer be referring friends and family to this store. The funny thing is I have never had to ask for assistance before, so now I know. Maybe it has been this way all along, I just got lucky and never needed any help while I was there.

My last point that I would like to make is that management comes from the top down. If Ms. Zabinski acts like this towards customers, then the staff that works for her will also act like this. I hope you get my point.

Thank you for listening.
********************

Keep in mind that no one responded after sending this multiple times! I would think that any company who wants to stay in business would be all over this! Bottom line is they are a horrible company to do business with, I agree with everyone else on this website, total scam. They are also right about the phone numbers they publish for their stores, they ring to nowhere, or for Indianapolis, it has a fax tone.