The Home Depot — Local services in Coon Rapids

I would not recommend Home Depot to a mortal enemy who plotted the demise of my loved ones, the destruction of my fortune, or the downfall of civilization, for to deal with Home Depot... it is a fate too terrible to bear.

I purchased a Samsung refrigerator on a Sunday with a delivery date of Friday. On Thursday the Home Depot was supposed to provide a delivery window. This was not provided. So began the first of many, many phone calls to the headquarters in Missouri, incidentally, where personnel were indeed largely sympathetic... if ineffectual.

The woman on Thursday was unable to see a delivery window, but was able to locate my appliance on the delivery truck, it would be the last appliance delivered (not a good sign). I called at daybreak the next morn, where I was assured that my appliance was indeed on the delivery truck and that my window was 3 to 7 (post meridian). Feeling buoyed by this information, I did my best to assuage the loss of the 8 hours of PTO that I had taken as, again, the day before delivery I was not informed of the delivery window.

3 pm drew nearer. Home Depot supplied me with an appliance delivery checklist. Ensure the fridge is empty. [check] Ensure that there is a clear path to the appliance and that the path is wide enough to accommodate the delivery (including molding!) . [check] Unplug the appliance. [check]

You will receive a phone call 30 minutes before delivery. Well, my phone is charged, ready, but no missed calls as of yet.

Sure, the contents of the fridge, save for the milk which slowly grew warmer covered with more condensation inside the now silent refrigerator, worried me, but I was supplied a tracking number for my order which could be consulted to see how close the bearers of new refrigeration were.

Finally my phone buzzed. My order was a mere 2 stops away! 7 pm drew nearer. 1 stop away! 7 pm drew nearer still. Finally the moment of hope arrived. My appliance was the next delivery. The hard working delivery people were diligently approaching my home, my castle... slightly pungent now given the food approaching spoilage.

I gazed out the windows, eagle eyes searching for the sign of a panel van or moving truck. 6:57 pm. They are on their way. 6:58 pm. Attempted Delivery. Sorry we missed you.

Odd. Considering my doorbell camera detected no activity, I saw no one. I received no phone call, nor did my wife, and I am certain that my home did not move from its stable foundations.

Phone call # 3 to Home Depot - Missouri charter.

Where's my fridge? We don't know. We can see the delivery order. There is no notes stating no one was there. No photos of the house, door etc. Surely, there must be some mistake. Let me call the delivery service. (Hub Group - Final Mile. -Google if you ever order from Home Depot before reading this review and find yourself similarly slighted.) Oh, they closed at 7. Hmm... We'll have it out to you tomorrow.

Dutifully I plugged the fridge back in. It alarms, as it was designed since it was far too warm inside. I reset the alarm, and gave it time. Alarms again and again. It is incapable of recovering the once chilly temperatures it was able to achieve. No matter how often it is reset, unplugged and plugged back... it has become like a parrot in a Monty Python sketch. It has ceased to be.

The next day. Phone call #4 Hello Missouri. Where's my fridge?

Today? Who told you that. No. You won't get it on Saturday, No deliveries on Sunday, so Monday will be the earliest, once we know what happened with the delivery.

I'm not sure when I received the first text stating that my delivery was rescheduled for the upcoming Thursday, but I am certain that at 7 pm (recurring theme) on Saturday I received the text informing me that my appliance shall be delivered on Friday. Not, this Friday. Next Friday.

2 full weeks after the initial delivery date.

Much drama has followed. Many phone calls. No one knows what happened. And I have no fridge.

Where Home Depot resides with promises of Free Delivery and quality, affordable products, heed my warning....

To whom it may concern,

I am writing this letter to specifically outline the multiple issues we’ve had with Home Depot and their certified contractors on what should have been a straight-forward kitchen remodel project. On June 18th, 2018, my husband and I went into Home Depot Coon Rapids and met with Debbie in the kitchen department. We placed an order and paid in full for kitchen cabinets, countertops, and their respective installations. We are a family of five and we didn’t want to subject our children to the chaos of a remodel in our kitchen and dining room, so we booked four tickets for me and our three children to stay with family in Texas during the remodel. The airline tickets were $450 per ticket – booked from July 6th – 17th, 2018. We shared this timeline with Debbie as our purchase was contingent on Home Depot’s ability to fully complete the project while we were out of town and we were guaranteed that this deadline would be met. We were also instructed to make sure our kitchen was fully demolished and gutted prior to that week to make the install seamless. My husband complied and fully gutted our kitchen, disconnecting water and removing, among other things, our sink and dishwasher. 2 crew company was terrible and did not communicate with us for months to set up a installation date .

Stone systems never returned our calls for months and was eight weeks delayed in installing our countertops Finally, after many calls and voicemails we received a call back and countertop install was schedule for September 25th, 2018.

Conclusion:

During this entire time spanning over three months our family of five has been with no sink, no running water, no countertops, and most frustratingly no dishwasher in our kitchen. Our last remodel project was our bathroom and we have been having to use our freshly remodeled sink and bath tub in our only bathroom to wash our dishes! This process has been extremely unpleasant and has resulted in scrapes and damage to our sink and tub, and plumbing, drainage and sump pump issues due to solid waste that accidentally makes it down the drain.

To avoid this nightmare, we have been spending a large sum of money on going out to eat, take-out, and paper and plastic plates, dishes, cups and utensils. We’ve saved the receipts of the extra expenses and it totals $1,500 over the last three months.

On top of that, the trip that we needlessly booked to Texas to make the installation easy on our family and the install techs, which we spent $1,800 on, was rendered completely pointless!

Having a gutted kitchen for months in a small house with a family of five has taken a huge toll on the comfort and stress levels of our entire family. Add in the extreme frustration of having multiple contractors categorically avoid us for weeks at a time and the entire rhythm and routine that we hold dear as a family has been completely disrupted.

We are extremely disappointed by the promises that were made without follow through by Home Depot, the absolute lack of professionalism by Home Depot’s trusted contractors, and ultimately the failure by all parties to provide the service you’d expect from a trusted name in home improvement.

We firmly believe that we should be entitled to compensation from Home Depot for the undue stress this has put on our family and the extra expenses we have accumulated throughout. We have kept thorough track of the entire debacle, complete with receipts, dates, pictures and phone and email records, that we would be happy to share if necessary. We felt ignored and taken advantage of since we had to pay in full for the whole project. Shame on Home Depot for putting out family in stress and uncertainty for three months. With three small kids living in this...

Here is where the breakdown happens, the assistant manager comes over to square this guy up and get him on his way. Meanwhile the other staff members are all standing there the entire time with the manager who at this point is passed off this guy so they can get back to work. The guy is going none stop but as a manager like come on man, stand up own the situation, tell your staff to help the next customer and deal with this guy, fix his problem and move on.

Whatever I sucked it up, waited and waited for my express order that was already paid for online, already picked out, already got confirmation it's ready for pickup I was expecting in and out. Not a 20 min deal with some crabby pants on counter tops and another friendly customer who was doing a special order project. I'm just observant that way. So to wrap up, the manager handles this guy, gets down, the other associate goes to help another associate and the manager walks out from the customer service to go back to whatever he was doing. So I stopped him, I'm like hey boss I'm been standing here 20 min, no way says nothing, someone goes on break, takes 3 people to solve some knuckleheads customer problem. Can you just do me a solid, grab my small order that's sitting right there paid for, I sign, I leave, hello, goodbye that's it. Not exactly express. He said sure no problem and after that I was in and out but the fact that had to ask when he say me standing there the entire time even before he came up. It would have been faster to drive Menards, pick it out myself then I did waiting.

So home depot sends me a follow up survey to my e-mail about my recent online order experience. I said what the heck, I know home depot values customer service so I decide to fill it out. Did I have any intentions of coming on Yelp to leave 1 star review cause I had to wait some extra time, of course not but it did leave for a not so great experience for express pickup. My feedback was straight forward saying it doesn't make any sense to put express pickup at the customer service desk filling out special orders and credit card apps that stuff takes forever. That's like saying 400 max items at the express lane super market.

To wrap up, I expressed by opinion very honestly which part of the reason I'm on this platform and I'm just like that in general.

The reason for the 5 stars, someone from Home Depot called me today regarding exactly what I filled out to a T. Not some non-sense scripted customer service center. I'm sorry but I can't remember your name who called me but she say she has been in the business 20+ years and you can absolutely tell. Does her job like a rock star. The best part, she gets the big picture. She reshaped my mindset of Home Depot. It doesn't matter how much the item was or whatever. It was a cheap shower head, but she treated it no different than if a mistake would have happened on a $10,000 job or $20,000 or whatever. The person that called understood the value of maintaining customers. I like home depot before but she said they were sorry, they aren't prefect, are making changes to improve serious A+ customer service skills as a manager. Home depot should absolutely have you training other manager customer service. That call could be thousands of dollar if not 10's over the years with home improvements, remodels, projects what have you. Not saying I won't ever go to another Low's or Menards again but I have never been so impressed on how a massive corporation handled not not even a bad review but just a feedback survey which I don't even usually do. This person gets how the world works....