The Home Depot — Attraction in Seattle

Avoid this place like the plague! Seriously, if you are looking to buy major appliances, save yourself the trouble and go elsewhere. Give your money to a local store to support local businesses. They can't possibly have worse service than the Home Depot. If you do buy from THD, make sure you inspect the appliances very closely and do refuse delivery if there are issues. They will not care about you after the transaction.

I bought a fridge from the Home Depot. Around $3000 all said and done. Fri: Delivery day. Fridge is delivered with crooked doors. I point it out to the delivery crew, who say it's fine and I can adjust it later. If it can't be adjusted call the 800 number and they'll take care of me. I took their word. LESSON LEARNED. Sat/Sun: Called the 800 number. They said the fridge came from the store and to call them. Called the store. They said the person isn't there on weekends, and that they will call me back Monday. Mon: Monday comes and goes and nobody calls. Between 4pm and 5pm, I call the extension three times and leave two voicemails. No response. Tue: Still no response in the morning, so I go in to the store early afternoon. We make a service appointment for Fri. Thu: Was supposed to get a call to give me a "delivery window" for Fri. Nobody calls. Fri: Friday comes and goes and nobody shows up. Nobody calls. I go in to the store and speak to a manager. Make another service appointment for Tue. Mon: Was supposed to get a call to give me a "delivery window" for Tue. Nobody calls. (sound familiar?) Tue: Tuesday comes and goes and nobody shows up. Nobody calls. I go in to the store and speak to the same manager again. Make a replacement appointment. Was told I'd receive a call with details. Fri: Never received a call, so I go in to the store again. Speak with the manager, and at this point I just want a refund to move on. Agreed that he'd replace the fridge and give a discount for my troubles. Sun: Get a call from the manager that he's going to do a swap, so someone will come get the first fridge. Mon: Pick-up people show up at 7am to pick up a fridge full of food without having made an appointment. A few hours later, I get an automated call telling me I have a delivery for the next day (Tue). Assumed it was the replacement fridge. An hour later, I receive a call from the store trying to schedule the pick-up, which had already happened that same day. Am told new fridge coming tomorrow. Tue: Receive a call from a tech at 9am telling me they are coming to service the fridge. The same one they picked up yesterday. I explain the situation. 9:35am I receive another call from another crew trying to come by to pick up the fridge. You know... the one they picked up yesterday. I call the store to see what's going on. Manager blows me off, but I'm told that they no longer have the fridge so they can't help any longer. Nobody makes an effort to make things right or offer another product. I spend another 40 minutes in-store making them process the refund and give ma receipt. Then promptly drove to another place and bought the same fridge at $100 cheaper than THD.

In conclusion: don't buy major appliances from THD. They simply do not care after the initial delivery. Nobody's paycheck is tied to giving you good service. Take your business to local, family-owned stores like I did. You...

“I'll order this stuff online”, I thought. “I can pre-pay and skip walking around in the store, skip waiting in a checkout line and be in and out in five minutes”, I thought. I went to the Bitter Lake Home Depot and confidently walked up to the customer service counter, sure I would be leaving in ten minutes. There were an equal number of people in Orange aprons behind the counter as there were in line, so I figured this would be quick. Good on Home Depot I thought, hiring so many employees as to have a 1:1 ratio for a good customer experience! Then I noticed the employees seemed to all be in different states of confusion, pointing at computer screens and asking each other questions. When I got in line there was only one person in front of me. Twenty minutes later, there was still one person in front of me! Meanwhile, four employees were all clustered around one computer and discussing the problem on screen as though it were some object of alien manufacture. One tired and frazzled looking woman (her hair was all curled and volumized as if from the sheer stress) appeared to actually be doing her job as the co-workers surrounding her announced they were going on lunch or talked on the phone or typed on computers. Presumably they were also fulfilling their aim of customer service, though how these actions contributed to that lofty goal I am unsure. We still had to ask her if we were standing in the right place for customer service. She appeared surprised and asked for my order number. She asked her co-workers nearby and on the radio if somebody could go get my order from the shed, but a few minutes later gave up in exasperation and went back to get it herself. Fifteen more minutes and she came back with my order. Finally, I was going to get out of here! When I placed the order online I called customer service and explained I had a resale certificate and the representative said I had to show it to the staff at the store I was picking it up at. The exasperated woman at the customer service counter informed me that, no, I had to email my certificate to somebody. The classic game of hot potato we’ve all experienced in department stores: I was once more the hot potato! Fine, I said, I will email the customer service of Home Depot. Perhaps my email will be read by somebody standing in front of an exhausted line of people shifting from foot to foot, bored while browsing on their phones? So the cycle of terrible customer service at Home Depot can continue! I got home ninety minutes after arriving. Nothing about this was fast or convenient. In fact the savings I got on this online order are nowhere near all of my wasted time. I will probably never order something online at Home...

New Review: This is more of a review for Home Depot as a whole, but does pertain to this particular store. Tho I will note that most of the friction comes from the online shopping which both asserts that the store has no barring on pricing or service, but then if something goes wrong, its the stores fault and online cant help you, so you have to call the store, then the store says you have to talk to online because online wont let them do anything (TBH, I believe the store, online seems like it will just say whatever it wants).

Anyhow, I have been a Home Depot customer for 30+ years. Today, I stop being a Home Depot customer, and will go to Lowes or Ace, even tho they are not as good. Good job Home Depot, your customer service is sooo bad that I will now waste my time and money to simply not have to deal with you.

I could go into detail on how they screwed me out of money, messed up deliveries, lied to me over and over again, or refused to follow their own policies, but its pointless, its just another major corporation that forgot that customer service is a thing they need to provide at some level and just operate off the assumption that they are too big to have issues.

Update: They are now refusing to refund items that they have admitted were not and will not be delivered. Nice Home Depot, I understand that you dont see this as just theft, but I do. You cant take someones money for goods, not deliver those goods, and then refuse to give their money back. Thankfully, AMEX has zero qualms about just giving my money back. 1 hour and 45 minutes talking to home depot customer support to get zero actual results, and then less than 5 minutes of talking to AMEX to get the entire situation resolved, polar opposite examples of customer service.

Old Review: This location is fine if you need very standard Home Depot stuff, and do not need help (tho the staff can sometimes be very helpful, its just a lot more of a mixed bag in my experience vs other stores). Their stock seems to be far more limited with items I need often out of stock, requiring a drive up to the more northern store, which always has what I need and tends to have more helpful staff...