The Home Depot — Local services in Columbia Township

A 1 1/2 Day kitchen refacing turned into 5 months. I thought it would be easier to have the Home Depot design team do the kitchen remodel than me dealing with different contractors because I wasn't sure what I actually needed. They sent Jay (out of St. Louis) from the sales team. Set me up with new cabinet doors, new drawers with easy glide close, granite countertop, they will put a laminate over the existing structure so no demolition takes place and took preliminary measurements, this was mid AUGUST 2020. I was told 6 weeks before the material would come in as it is manufactured in Canada and COVID 19. ok, no problem. Late SEPTEMBER Sean arrived to do the install. He is friendly and professional and gets all completed on the second day. He was waiting for the floors to be redone before putting the kick boards on the cabinetry. He said to contact him when that was completed. HERE'S WHERE THE PROBLEM STARTS ..... The cabinet drawers were not deep enough to put a 1.93 utensil divider in or a box of cling wrap or aluminum foil. One oven mitt would fit and close... THAT'S THE PROBLEM. SEPTEMBER 26, 2020 I contacted Steve who was project manager and he said that he would re-order the 3 drawers needed....It's a small kitchen. He said it would be 6 weeks or so for those. I had wood laminate flooring put in by another local company on OCTOBER 1, 2020 because I felt I could not trust what was going on with Home Depot. OCTOBER 5, 2020 Hallmark Stone (part of the remodel package) came with my granite countertop which they sent a person 4 weeks prior to take digital measurements. They guys were great and the countertop beautiful. So the only thing left was the re-ordered drawers and kick board. Well through numerous phone calls to Steve (project manager) and Emily (overseer all accounts) I was ignored, or no one knew a date when the drawers would come in.... and mind you, I had been making my monthly payments. I HAD BEEN CALLING THEM. They were not giving me any updates unless I initiated calls. Finally the reordered drawers came in late JANUARY, 2021. Sean came to install them....they were the exact same drawers that were already installed, NOT THE DEEPER ONES. I called Steve (project manger)and he asked me if I gave him the measurements? And I said why would I be paying you all all this money If I was gonna measure my own stuff??? Through more phone tags and reorder and no one really talking with other members on the team.(It seem like) The correct drawers were installed on FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 19, 2021. I had wanted this to work out because I was going to do the bathroom next but I will NEVER go through Home Depot to have an install done. I will find someone local/independent contractor for that job. Ask me if anyone from the Home Depot team has even called to see how the install went..... NO...

I was in there last week. I have no idea what’s in the water there, or how leadership is failing, but not a single floor employee was pleasant at all.

I’ve seen better eye contact from 3 year olds that just made a “painting” on mom’s car. Seriously these guys have mastered the art of walking about with trinkets in their hands looking “too busy” to be bothered. Every one of them would divert their eyes and quickly walk away when I was looking for help.

I had one employee ask another if he could help me and he went into a list of things he had to do first. When employee 1 then tried to help me, she only gave me a product from a cage, and when I asked for help to buy another she said it wasn’t her department as she walked away to never return.

I will say their app is nice and accurate for finding things on your own. It’s a good thing too because I did a lot of that.

I was excited and ready to redeem the experience when I heard an employee explaining a BOGO on power tools and asked if I could get in on the deal. The employee had me pick from the big sign on the cage and then retrieved all the items for me telling me I was all set.

I went to check out with approximately $400-$500 of tools only to be told I had selected the wrong tools from the cage…. 😑

My whole cart was then taken away and I was told to go back to the power tool cage and wait to be given back the proper tools. It was like playing an irritating video game and suffering 10 levels of hell to get to the end and have the console reset.

At this point I was pretty mad. I went back to where my cart was put in timeout and asked permission to purchase the one item I actually needed to get my work done for the day (a $6 tube of sealant). I was offered the tube for free, with some generic excuses regarding “short staff”. At this point, I felt like a $6 tube of goo for my poor experience and frustration was very insulting. I told the employee I would accept nothing from the Home Depot for free and was so upset with the experience I would waste more time to buy it somewhere better (this is not my first horrible experience).

I called the corporate complaint line and was told the issue was going to be escalated. I was told a member of the management team would contact me within 24 hours. That was last week and still no call.

So apparently the store doubled down on the insult.

I recommend if you’re in Columbia you hit up Westlake’s Ace Hardware. I found similar sales and way better personal sales...

This store is a reminder of why you should buy everything online. The one benefit of a brick and mortar store is the convenience of being able to pick up an item and have it right away. I saw that a leaf blower was on sale on Home Depot's website and almost bought it online, but I thought its a nice day and I'll just head down to the store and pick it up.

When going to the aisle, I noticed all of the leaf blowers were locked behind a cage. This is different than before, but I guess I can understand it in this day and age. The problem was it was hard to track someone down to help open the gate to get the item. Finally after waiting in line at customer service, someone begrudgingly decided to come help purchase the item.

When I saw it on the shelf, it was normal price and not the sale price I saw online. I showed it to the associate and he said I would have to buy it online to get that price. I asked, can't you guys just match it, you are the same company? He said they can do things online that they can't do in the store. If this is true, why would I ever step foot in that door again if the best deals are always online? I guess they really do want to drive away in-person business by keeping items locked up and then not even matching the online price you see when looking up the item.

Well the associate told me if I ordered it online, he would bring it up to customer service and then it shouldn't be long until I got a text saying it was ready. So I did this. I waited. And I waited. The item was literally sitting at customer service, it was paid for, yet I could not leave with it. After an hour of waiting for an item I had paid for and was already sitting up at customer service, I went home. When I got home, I got the text that it was ready for pickup.

I am debating cancelling the order and just having it delivered straight to my house for free like I should have done in the first place, but I don't know if I'm petty enough to let it sit on the shelf at customer service for as long as possible yet.

Again, this experience reminds me that online shopping is the way to go. This Home Depot actively drives you away from shopping in their store, so I would recommend to everyone to take the hint and...