"dpb" wrote in message
ups.com...
(snip)
The $30 front-end fee and the reluctance to provide
data to a customer is to prevent the otherwise inevitable "drive-offs"
that would otherwise be the result--they measure, the customer takes
the measurements and goes somewhere else. Sad to say, I can't blame HD
given the state of most customers these days.

All true but then the customer should be given what he paid for ..the
measurements. I doubt any other dealer would order a door based on those
measurements but would want to send out their own contractor. Used to do
kitchen remodeling sales for a large retailer that advertised "free
estimates". I could walk in and within $500 or so tell the customer what it
was going to cost to remodel. What the customer wanted was a complete set
of plans they could take to HD to order cabinets for self install. I told a
customer once that it was going to be around $7000. She went into a tirade
about how that was what they had paid for the house 40 years before and no
way would they put that into a kichen remodel. I started to pick up my
books and she stopped me and said "well, go ahead and draw up the plans
anyway". Yeah right.

Tom G.