On a product-by-product level, Harbor Freight does indeed have plenty of good deals on inexpensive tools that can be of surprisingly high quality. However, that doesn’t cover the chain as a whole, and if you look up Harbor Freight on virtually any business review aggregator, the chain’s scores are, in a word, dismal.
As of this writing, at the Better Business Bureau, Harbor Freight scores 1.22 stars out of a possible five, averaging out of 150 reviews. Trustpilot is only slightly better, with a 1.6 average from 322 reviews. SiteJabber is only slightly better, with an average of 1.63 stars from 260 reviews. The worst score, though, is at ResellerRatings, where Harbor Freight averaged one star from 194 reviews. With this kind of site, there will always be a confirmation bias, as people will generally make a point of rating stores where their experiences were unusually good or unusually bad. Still, it’s far from impossible to get a good or even great score.
Complaints about Harbor Freight on these websites run the gamut, from defective products breaking within days to selling obvious returns as new to staff using abusive language towards customers. In general, though, it seems like hardware and home improvement stores tend to draw lower ratings on these sites, though there are exceptions. Ace Hardware, for example, averages 4.08 stars from 86 reviews on ResellerRatings, though it ranked closer to Harbor Freight on the other three aforementioned sites.
