I have had a similar experience with the sockets, ratchets and wrenches. I’ve got some of the T handle hex wrenches and I’ve broken the 6mm twice now. Thankfully they have honored the lifetime warranty for them.

I agree, there is some crap, but overall for most home use the tools are fine. If it’s something you use every day, I would buy a better brand, but for occasional use they are decent for the price in my opinion.

At the local store here they stand 10ft past the turnstiles… My tactic is to just make no eye contact and veer away ASAP. If that fails, I tell them I already had one and learned my lesson. They don’t follow up with anything after that in my experience.

This too causes me anxiety, and I have considered avoiding that location because of it. The other stores in the area don’t do this thankfully.