Home Depot Conundrum

[gdocktor3]

I'll make this short. Kind of... Needing or wanting nothing else, my girlfriends parents ordered me a Dewalt dcd996 brushless hammer drill from Home Depot on Christmas Day for full price. No sales were to be found anywhere. Delivery date was set for the 30th. On the 28th I receive a package, but its a Milwaukee M4 1/4" screwdriver. How HD screwed this up, I'll never know... Not only is there a gigantic price difference, but its not even the same brand..

So, I thought maybe I'd get lucky and they'd still send the drill and I'd make out like a bandit, but of course not. Today I bring the tool down to my local HD and go straight for the tool section. I prefer to do my own exchanges rather than dealing with an incompetent employee at the returns desk. Lucky for me, I found one such employee in the cordless tool section as I walked up.. So I ask if they have the drill in stock. No. I explain my situation and he tells me to contact Dewalt...

Next stop is customer service/returns. A fairly nice lady does her thing in the computer and tells me this item is no longer available. Well, it's the latest and greatest Dewalt drill just released I tell her, but shes not hearing that. She seems to think it is old and never coming back. After a minute of back and forth, another lady steps in and decides to call HQ because shes see's this was an online "special order." After a lengthy wait, they tell me the drill will not be available until January 23rd and I would have to return the Milwaukee, then reorder the Dewalt.

Of course since my girls parents ordered it, I couldn't return it with out a receipt for full refund. They told me they would give me a gift card, minus the sales tax...

I decided to take it home with me since I couldn't get anything anyways and emailed both Home Depot and Dewalt, just for fun since HD told me too. I haven't heard from Dewalt yet, but I did hear from Home Depot and they said

I'm sorry to hear that you received the wrong item from your order number XXXXXXXXX. It will be necessary for you to return the incorrect item for a refund and then reorder. The 20-Volt MAX XR Lithium-Ion 1/2 in. Premium Cordless Brushless Hammer Drill (Tool Only) is currently out of stock online, but we are expecting to receive more around the week of January 23. I have submitted your email address for notification when it is available online. Unfortunately, the store is not able to break up their sets to try to fill an online order as this would directly affect the store inventory.
I tried convincing them to open up a combo set in store and give me my tool

Once the item is available to place an order, we can offer you a 10% discount for the inconvenience. You can go ahead and place the order and then provide us with the new order number and we will discount the order, or you can call into our online customer service department at 800-430-3376 and any of the customer service representatives will be happy to place the discounted order for you.

I apologize for any inconvenience that this may have caused. We are always striving for excellence here at the Home Depot and want to make sure your experience with the Home Depot is satisfactory. Have a nice day!

So in the end, they realized and accepted the fact they made a mistake and offered to justify the situation with a 10% discount. That's fair IMO and is why I chose to email them vs argue in store. I am interested in seeing what Dewalt says though.

 

[Provincial]

Do you still have the package the Milwaukee came in which should have a return address? That address should tell you if it came from Home Depot or was drop-shipped from the manufacturer. If it came from HD, DeWalt has nothing to do with the transaction, and you are unlikely to hear anything useful from them.

It sounds like HD hasn't trained their employees about online purchases very well. You did the right thing in contacting HD online. Too bad they are making you return the Milwaukee!

 

[gdocktor3]

The only reason I contacted Dewalt was to see if they could ship a drill to my local store sooner then the estimated date of January 23rd.

The main point of this post is to show that if you take the time to contact customer service/support, you will usually make out better than if you followed the in store employees directions. I personally can convey reasons/points/information better in writing vs shooting from the hip, off the top of my head, face to face in store.

 

[6PTsocket]

The only reason I contacted Dewalt was to see if they could ship a drill to my local store sooner then the estimated date of January 23rd.

The main point of this post is to show that if you take the time to contact customer service/support, you will usually make out better than if you followed the in store employees directions. I personally can convey reasons/points/information better in writing vs shooting from the hip, off the top of my head, face to face in store.

I recently returned a defective item to HD that was only available on line. I had picked it up the day before as a "free ship to store" . At the service desk, while discussing the refund, the lady had never heard of Paypal. Unbelievable. It was taken care of with no problem but I was truly amazed.

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[Finky198]

That ***** glad they did something for you... 10% isn't much for the headache, but it's better than nothing...


This is why I travel 10 extra min to get to lowes over HD which is 2 miles away. The difference in their service desks is comical... I've been told we don't sell those or that brand
With a product in a receipt in hand. But I've gone to Lowe's with no receipt out of warranty and they still took care of thing just to be nice. Lowes has even the extend sale offer after I missed the deadline by a day on roof coatings last season. They said it was to complicated for the system to do it. So they gave me 20% off my entire order including more than just roof material. Now that is Service...

 

[pcmeiners]

Moral of the story.....

Order from Zoro, they take back ANYTHING without hassle (so far).

 

[nh_yota]

**** happens, especially during the busy Christmas season when lots of temp employees are involved.

 

[anndel]

Sorry to hear what you've gone through but it makes no common sense to me that they would send a different brand and model to cover their butts. When you're girlfriend's parents placed the order, the website or email should have told them that the DeWalt was out of stock and will be arriving on 23 January, not take their money and give you something different. That sounds like bait and switch to me.

 

[gdocktor3]

Sorry to hear what you've gone through but it makes no common sense to me that they would send a different brand and model to cover their butts. When you're girlfriend's parents placed the order, the website or email should have told them that the DeWalt was out of stock and will be arriving on 23 January, not take their money and give you something different. That sounds like bait and switch to me.

And that may have worked if they sent me a m18 brushless hammer drill, but a M4 screwdriver??? Cmon now.

 

[wasabiboys]

Does this surprise anyone that has went to any home depot over the past 6 months. no

 

[phred]

Home Depot *****. I refuse to enter any of their store again. Ordered about 10 grand worth of appliances and a counter top from them and it was the biggest cluster I've ever seen. The little money that I saved over having a gc just do my kitchen quickly evaporated in the time I spent trying to get stuff installed correctly, redone because it was wrong etc. glad you got something out of them.


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[WWheeler]

I've ordered several items from Home Depot that they do not stock in the stores near me, but I have always choose the 'ship-to-store' option instead of ship-to-home just to avoid these kinds of things. I like to be able to open it and inspect it right there in front of customer service before I even sign that I received it.

I do exactly the same with Sears ever since they sent me the empty plastic case a 10-way Slide Hammer set was supposed to come in. It didn't fall out in shipping. The box was sealed, but it was empty except for the small screw and the three small bolts - things I could have bought at any hardware store for ~$1. Everything else was missing from the box and they sealed it up and sent it to me like that.

I picked up the undamaged / unopened box off my porch and it was so light - felt like less than 1lb - I didn't even have to open it to know I'd been ripped off. Then, on top of that, after numerous conversations with their customer support it took me a month to have the empty box shipped back to them and get my money credited back to me so I could reorder the same item ship-to-store, which took another 2 weeks on top of that.

tldr: 'Why I prefer ship-to-store over ship to home' (unless it's a company that does ship-to-home right like Amazon) or 'Count yourself lucky you're dealing with Home Depot and not Sears'.

 

[6PTsocket]

This stuff goes on with every big chain. I got a Dremel kit in Lowes and found an old used Dremel in it. Somebody had obviously bought it made the swap and returned it. I bought a pressure washer in HD at a discount, that the salesman swore was an unused floor model. I got home, found leaking oil, loose screws,and a cracked pump piston. I brought that back pretty quick. I mail ordered a tool case from Walmart. I got the wrong make and model. The store would only refund the cost of the item but not shipping. I spent a long timr on the phone before I got a refund and apology. This was all over a long period.,They all ****. but you have to shop some place. I have also had issues with HD and Walmart that took hours to locate previously ordered items.

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[gdocktor3]

Funny story, when I was a wee little lad my father and I went shopping for a grill. I can't remember exactly what store it was, I think Sears, but we found a model we liked and decided to buy. When my dad inquired about it, the employee disappeared into the back, but came back empty handed as they were out of stock. The guy says they'll special order one and it will be in tomorrow. We leave, go to mcdonalds and go right back. My dad goes in with a knife or something and put a big X on the underside of the floor model. I was baffled and wondered why, but didn't ask. Next day he gets the call to come pick up his grill. "It's all assembled and ready to go" they say. We get there, same grill. Now, my father is hilariously sarcastic and I remember him playing dumb with the guy asking how in the world this new grill could have the same X on it. I still lol thinking about that day. We went elsewhere needless to say.

 

[Danglerb]

Home Depot still has a few people wandering around with knowledge of the trades, and so far with me has been plenty flexible on returns.

Lowes annoys me, starting with the layout where you must go in one end and out the other. Half the time I go in intending to buy its like HF, something changes my mind and I skip it, or buy someplace else.

 

[JJ13]

I also try to avoid HD if possible. I've had too many return issues. I once bought a 4' shop light from them that didn't work. I returned it and went shopping elsewhere only to decide that the one from HD was the best price for a -20F light. Can you guess what I ended up pulling off the shelf? Yep, that same light I had returned a day earlier. I recognized the box only after I got up to the registers and had to walk back for another.

A few summers ago I bought a wooden screen door for the back of my garage. I knew it would require cutting/fitting but when I got it home I found it was terribly out of square and warped. I learned that it was sale priced because it was a defective return but it had been placed back with the good doors!

I've also had a few workers ask me if I needed help and after explaining what I was looking for, told totally incorrect information. These were older, experienced guys that worked that specific area often, not young kids. Now I just tell them I'm fine barely acknowledging them but when you need somebody, nobody's around. I tend to research in great depth how and what I need whenever I tackle a new project outside of my knowledge base. It's just shocking that many workers don't walk and explore their assigned area to learn what they are selling. My brother asked for a torx screwdriver bit set and they had no idea what he was talking about.

 

[gdocktor3]

Lol a few weeks ago I went there looking for nail plates. They're metal plates you install on the studs when running plumbing/electrical in walls to prevent Sheetrock screws from piercing the line, for those who don't know. I asked two people in the lumber department, BOTH had never heard of them and blatantly said "I don't know what those are" and basically went back to what they were doing without a second thought. So I walk over to the plumbing section, take a look around, but didn't find them. Asked the plumber who told me they're in electrical section. Went to electrical section where I found a gentleman who told me they're in the plumbing section. He tried giving me directions, but I insisted he walk me over since the "plumbing specialist" could not find them. Sure enough they were in the plumbing section. I then took the time to show the plumber their location and "teach" the two in lumber what they were.

 

[byoungblood]

Sorry to hear what you've gone through but it makes no common sense to me that they would send a different brand and model to cover their butts. When you're girlfriend's parents placed the order, the website or email should have told them that the DeWalt was out of stock and will be arriving on 23 January, not take their money and give you something different. That sounds like bait and switch to me.

I suspect it was probably in stock then, got mis-handled while being packaged for shipping, then in the meantime the tool went out of stock.

Getting a product not even remotely close to what was ordered is NOT a bait and switch. That's a packing error.

 

[jo4gj]

Well really it's not the store that has the problem. It's always the people. I mean think about it if they hired intelligent people they have to pay them more because intelligent people would seek a job that pays more. I have asked for signatures and they print there name. I ask why they say I don't know how to wright in cursive? Like did they pass second grade?