The Home Depot — Local services in New Braunfels

i hate to be that guy. that person that says something negative about a well-known company that's been in business for decades but i have to say something about a recent visit to the New Braunfels location. we stopped by this past Labor Day at about 4pm to pick up a Milwaukee 18V Blower that was on sale to compliment our Milwaukee 18V trimmer. upon entering the store we were greeted by a friendly employee at the entrance. not twenty steps in we see the lawn and garden isle where the cordless garden tools are kept. headed down that isle and found the blower we wanted behind a locked cage. it's completely understandable why this is done to prevent theft but it is very inconvenient for the customers if there isn't an employee present in that sector or even a button to notify an employee that you need assistance. after waiting for ten minutes and looking up and down several of the nearby isles for an employee we returned to the gentleman at the entrance and asked if he could page someone to assist us in isle 50. he was very polite and said no problem he would get someone over there. we thanked him and returned to the end of isle 50 where we were the only customers waiting in that isle. finally after five minutes an employee entered the back of isle 50 approaching us. as we approached him and asked if he could get something we would like to purchase out if lock-up, another customer asked about a chainsaw part. the employee proceeded to help the other customer and told us he would be right with us. we returned to the end of isle 50 and waiting in front of the blower we wanted to purchase. after a few more minutes multiple customers began entering the isle and asked the sole employee for assistance. he began helping them while completely ignoring us. i finally had enough and ask "sir, can we please get something out of lock-up?" he gestured with his hand and told us to hold on he was assisting someone else. i stated that we had been there waiting longer than anyone else who was present and already knew what we wanted to purchase, we just needed access to it. the employee then said that he couldn't get it out for us because he would personally have to bring it to the front for purchase. my patience exhausted i informed the employee that that was fine and the sooner he gets the blower out and up front the sooner we would be out of his way. one of the other customers he was helping then told the employee we had been there before they were and he could assist us while they waited. finally the employee unlocked the cage and allowed us to remove the item we wanted then proceeded to escort us to checkout but stopped about half way and let us continue on our own. i dont understand why he made such a big deal out of having to escort us to the front if he didn't go all the way to the registers. maybe he didn't want to walk all the way there and then back. i also don't understand why he didn't call for additional assistance to that isle when he clearly needed help with multiple customers. in all the experience left a rather fowl taste as i have been a long time HD customer and am not the type to raise my voice in public like that but the blatant ignoring of us had me furious. we entered the store knowing exactly what we wanted and where it was located. the entire transaction should have taken less than ten minutes but took about...

To begin this I would like to go ahead and say that we will never use Home Depot for anything again. We order a Traeger grill which is not a cheap grill about a week ago. We went and picked it up at curbside service, the employees did not give us a receipt or even let us check our grill before taking it home. They loaded it up and left us. We drove home started to unload it and it was completely damaged. The hinges were bent and almost broken off, the barrel had multiple dents in it, and the wheels were stained. We called customer service and they were polite and assured us that they could expedite us a new one if we just took it back to the Home Depot location since we had waited for it for a week. We get to the store they made us stand in line in the rain outside for 30 minutes and then once we get in there and returned it they let us know the money would not be returned to our card for up to 5 business days. When returning it we made it very clear we just wanted to trade it in for the same exact thing, but not damaged. Once the grill was returned we then had to go to another counter to where we would order the same thing once again. When reordering this grill the lady could care less when or how we got the grill and continuously told us it would probably just be easier to do it online. We then asked her if there was anywhere else we could pick it up today and she looked and said no. We then asked how long it would take to get here and she said if we were to get it to our home 2 weeks and if to the store 3 weeks. We then decided to go ahead and order again because after looking online Home Depot was the only place to have it in stock. We decided to get it delivered to our house and asked if it could be expedited because of all we have been though and she said no of course. So now here we are $1100 hundred dollars into a grill because our refund has not been refunded to our card and we had to pay for a whole entire new grill. What normal person at any time keeps $1100 in their checking account?? We are now waiting for our grill to be delivered and once it is we will never be using Home Depot again. I do want to say the customer service people we talked to were nice but Home Depot needs to do some training on their in person staff if they want to continue having...

I went to the store to return a product ordered online that basically broke the same day I received it. I entered the store and immediately went to the 4 customer deep return line. After getting to that register handed the cashier my receipt and was told I had to go to the Customer Service desk, another line (this seemed to be a big waste of my time having to stand in a second line just because it was an online order return). I went to that line and the cashier said they could not replace the item in store because it was not carried there. I received my refund back through my purchase process (PayPal: have yet to even see an acknowledgement of the return in PayPal or the Credit card used thru PayPal). I went to the isle where the string trimmers were walked down the row and went back to the front asking for assistance with the trimmers. I then proceeded to wait- over 25 minutes later I had to go back to the front of the store this time to ask for a manager. The customer service person spoke with a manager telling them it was about my return at which time I told her it was about the fact I asked for assistance and no one came. The customer service person hung up with the manager called someone else who she said would be there in just a few minutes. I immediately went to the area and met a rep working in the area. I told him I had requested a manager due to no assistance was originally provided he immediately stated he was loading customers, my thought was why a store of that size only has 1 person to assist customers both inside and out. I asked questions about the products and received answers that seemed to conflict with info I was already aware of which gave me the impression a lack of knowledge on reps part. The experience was not not a good one and now I DO NOT trust info received from reps in the store. I was being super critical about the questions as I had already experienced a waste of time thru the online ordering. The reps were polite and I believe they were trying to help but in certain people it seemed lack of knowledge was present which I found to be frustrating. Also was told certain things that even I recognized as incorrect and after pulling down the product boxes from the second tier shelf it even showed that what I was told was...