Last week I stopped in the Lacey store to check on the price and availability of a Merecury 40 horsepower jet outboard. I told the salesman that I wanted a tiller handle to steer with. He looked in his book and told me a price and said they had the motor in stock. He then walked me around and showed me how they installed them with a "jack plate" which cost an extra $300. I told him that I didn't want the extra plate and he kept on me telling me how necessary it was. I left thinking that the guy was jerking me around and decided that I wasn't going to buy the motor there because I couldn't trust the salesman. I called some other stores and they almost laughed at me when I told them the Cabela's price. Thay told me that the tiller handle was an accessory and cost a thousand dollars more. I was right in not trusting the salesman. Either he was trying to hook me in with a low price and then going to add on more when I sat down to sign or he didn't know what he waas talking about. I found the motor in Portland, Oregon (three hours away) but they couldn't get the tiller to me until April 11th. So I called back to Cabela's and talked to Robert, another salesman. He checked and called me back to tell me they had the tiller in stock. I went to Portland and bought the outboard. On the way home I stopped in Lacey to buy the tiller. The only salesman there told me he didn't know if they had one. It was kept in the service department and the dept. Was closed. I told him about the conversation I had with who I thought was named Robert. He acted as if he didn't know who that was. I asked him if he could look and he said the department was locked up. I said there must be a store manager that had the key so he could get in and look. Finally he said he would look but that every time he did that he got his butt chewed for going back there. It must not have been locked after all. He came back a couple minutes later and said he couldn't find one but that he didn't really know what he was looking for or where. I didn't believe that he was sincere in his effort to look so I went to customer service to see if there was something they could do. The man there was very nice and said that he didn't have any reservations about going into the service dept. And looking. He looked on his computer but couldn't find a part number but we headed back to look. We ran into the salesman again who was furious with me for getting someone else involved. I asked him for the part number and he told me that he didn't know it and it wouldn't be on his computer. I told him that Cabela's made their living from Computers and that a store in the midwest could probably check the status of the tiller at this store. At one point he just walked away from me. He did come back and he told me that the tillers are bought as a unit with the motors. I told him that wasn't true, that they are an accessory and sold separately. He continued to argue the point. Then I told him that if that was the case then each time someone wanted a remote setup (steering wheel) that there would be an extra tiller laying around. He then dropped that point. Again when I said that Robert (the salesman I talked to the day before on the phone) had told me that the tiller was available, in his fury he said that was him I had talked to and what he meant was that if I bought the outboard from Cabela's that the tiller was available. I had already been talking to him for 20 minutes before he admitted that he had been the one on the phone. I couldn't believe that I was going to have to drive 1 1/2 hours home empty handed. He said he would have Hugh the service manager call me the next day. Hugh called and told me that they didn't have any for sale. I said the salesman had told me two days ago that they had them and Hugh said that they had one but that it had already been spoken for. I asked him when that had happened and he said earlier in the week. That meant that the salesman had lied to me two days earlier when he said they had them available or that Hugh was lieing to me now. On friday the dealer I bought my outboard from checked and said that they could order in one for me and have it on the 11th of April. Hugh told me that he checked the Mercury website and there were none in any of the warehouses and that the field for the date they would be available was left blank meaning the company had no idea when one would be available. It seems pretty strange to me that the Portland dealer had no problem getting one but that the Cabela's store where I was having this argument couldn't. Are there none in any of the other Cabela's stores?
From the minute I started talking to the Cabela's salesmen they were double talking and lieing to me. I don't know if Hugh the service manager was part of the deception or not but his comments seemed questionable to me. I have bought a lot of items at Cabela's over the years and have always been treated very well, the service was great, but dealing with the boat department has been a regrettable experience.
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