The Home Depot — Attraction in Kansas City

Made a return that the store told me could only go down as a store credit rather than refund. Wasn't happy about getting almost $4000 as a store credit, but as a Pro customer, I figured oh well, I'll eventually use it. My first time back into the store today around 1pm to make a simple $51 purchase for some plumbing supplies, and the machine wouldn't take the card for the Store Credit. The manager eventually comes and says he'll try to check into what's going on. Disappears into the office for 15 minutes with the store credit account card. While I'm standing there the girl working at self-checkout was very apologetic and said she's seen that happen a couple of times before when the customer service people mistyped someone's name that was tied to the store credit (they tie the credit to your I.D. so that you have no way of gifting it or selling it to someone else to use). After 15 minutes I said "please just have the manager bring my store card back out. I am standing here with a plumber that is on the clock and wasting far more time than the $50 purchase is worth, and I'll just pay for it outright and come back later today to sort out the store credit issue." Manager says okay and has the girl void out the transaction and start over so I can just pay with my CC.

I drive back to the store at 5pm and speak to the same manager and he tells me "I can't help you, the only person that MIGHT be able to help is our accounting guy and he left for the day right around the same time you left earlier." I said "you couldn't have told me that earlier when I said I would just come back later today to sort out the store credit stuff?" He said "well I had no way of knowing when you'd actually come back." They really need to train their managers to have more competence. A simple reply of "you'll have to come back tomorrow" when I had said it earlier and maybe an apology for not letting me use my store credit because of some clerical error would've gone a long way. On top of that though, he added "And I don't know for sure he'll (the accounting guy) be able to help do anything for you to fix this. If your name isn't right on the store credit they may not be able to do anything to get it back." This statement really didn't sit well with me.

So now you're telling me that Home Depot has no plans to let me use my $4000 worth of store credit either? I guess my money is just going to be held indefinitely because someone apparently didn't enter my ID correctly? I gave up on the store and decided to head home and call HD's corporate customer service in the hopes they might be able to give me better support to get things fixed. After waiting on hold for a few minutes, I finally get connected to someone, he asks my name and account info, tells me that he'll try to help figure things out and to hold just a moment. I hadn't even gotten a chance to actually tell him what the problem was yet, only that I needed help sorting out an issue with a store credit. Anyway, he tells me hang on, but instead of putting me on hold, he disconnected the call. Not hung-up mind you, but ended his connection on it. I only know that because I got kicked over to the customer survey after he disconnected me asking their auto-questions about how my overall experience was with Home Depot's customer support. Are you kidding me right now? Not a great time to ask that when one of your store managers just basically told me you might not be letting me use my $4000 of store credit and your customer service person at your corporate center somehow manages to mistakenly end a support call rather than placing it on hold.

Now I'm trying to decide if I bother trying to go back up there to let the accounting person hopefully figure out how to get access to my $4000, or if I need to just contact my lawyer and let him handle getting H.D. to allow me to use my OWN money that they're now holding hostage. When I DO manage to get my access to and use up this store credit, I don't know if I'll ever be using H.D. again after the way this experience has gone....

I'm almost 4 months into a roughly 350 square foot laminate floor install with 12 stairs... and the project isn't complete. It took 2 weeks to get measurements and another week to get the quote. Then the quote was deleted and they couldn't tell me why, so they re-entered it to create the order. After ordering, it took 2 weeks to get materials, and 2 more weeks to get an install date. When the installer arrived we found there was a lot of incorrect information from the measurement sub contractor Home Depot uses. The installer worked around and corrected everything except a single right return stair that had been incorrectly ordered. The main reason I went to Home Depot was that the original company wouldn't install a right return stair. It was featured prominently in all of our communication at the start of the project, and it was incorrect after the order re-entry. So the installer left with 6 stairs unfinished while a new right return stair was ordered. Another few weeks go by. During this time I called the store several times, but the single person who could answer questions was always "not available" and will "call you back". They never called. I had to go to the store and corner someone to get any information, and even then most of the time I received excuses like "I can't see it on the order. You'll have to come back and talk with X" Eventually the stair arrived and I was notified by the sub contractor installing the floor. I had to go to the store to pick up the stair, and when I arrived I found a 94" wide stair had been ordered custom sized for my 34" wide stair. I was told at that time that it comes in 47", and they were not sure why it was ordered at 94". I spoke with a manager who then tried to tell me it was actually only available in 94" wide, so either lying to cover it up, or rampant incompetence in reading a simple inventory item in their computer. So the assistant manager promised he would "handle it and call me when it was fixed." He didn't call. A few days later I received a call from the installer to schedule the install again, and I explained the issues to them. They contacted the store, and another week went by, with more requests for information that went ignored. Then the installer called again to tell me they were going to cut down the larger stair and install, so they setup a time and the installer went to the store to pick the stair up to bring it out and install. However, when the installer got to the store, they opened the package and found the stair was the wrong color... and damaged. So they were then going to order a new stair. That was 3 weeks ago. I expected it to take a few weeks for the order, like last time, but then a week ago I got a call regarding the order. The person left a message asking "IF my stair had been ordered last time in the wrong color." I returned the call, and had to leave a message to explain that yes, it was the wrong color, and it was supposed to have been re-ordered in the correct color 2 weeks ago. I asked for a call back, ASAP, to let me know if it had not been ordered, or if it had been order yet again in the wrong color. It's been a week. No return call. I went to the store, and was told only one person can look into my stair order, and she only works week days. She's also the person who won't return my calls. At this point I don't know if I'll ever get my stairs complete. Do yourselves a favor. Go elsewhere for anything flooring related; or anything else for...

WARNING WARNING!

Long but important post. I rarely complain but I hope to save someone else this pain.

Never buy from The Home Depot, particularly an appliance. Our freezer was going out so we ordered a Frigidaire freezer for $850. It was delivered on January 4th. We placed our frozen food inside. Everything seemed fine until Hubby noticed a few things. We noticed a couple of small dents, which we were willing to let slide, but then things got worse. Five days later, he was getting something out, and half our meat was thawed and dripping, and the rest was on its way.

I immediately called to learn they had a 48-hour return policy. Sadly, we had just had a grass-fed cow butchered, a lot of clean chicken, fish, and meats. I tried everything, speaking to every manager begging to swap it out to no avail. I proceeded to call Frigidaire which is now Electrolux. I sat on hold for over an hour and learned they couldn't get a repairman out for five days.

I asked about my meat; the temperature would be over 45. They said it's not covered by the warranty. They sent a repairman who said the compressor was hot, it had no freon and needed a new evaporator and drier and recharged that he would order the parts. He was very nice. I said you're kidding; he said no unfortunately I'm not.

I spoke with Brandon a Specialty Service Manager from the Tiffany Springs store who was also very nice. I asked if could get anything they had on the floor even if it was from a different store. He said the only way to know is here having to call all the other stores and get permission. I said I could do the calling to all the Home Depots in a 100-mile radius to see if they had one that size in stock no matter the brand.

Brandon called and said he spoke to the manager and said I had to take it through Frigidaire. I even called corporate. NO ONE CARED!

This freezer was only 7 days old and failed. Now they are waiting on parts which could take another week or longer before repair. Additionally, my husband is very mechanical and said if a compressor is running hot on day one it likely won't last long even if repaired.

The sad part is that I wrote my first college paper years ago on Home Depot and was so impressed with the values, that I chose to purchase most of my appliances from them instead of the big chains like Nebraska Furniture Mart, Costco, or Sams.

Guess Home Depot's values have changed. I understand the polices but a complete failure in the first week. Never again, this is horrific customer service. Lesson learned, I will never buy from Home Depot again and take it from a friend, if I were you, I...