Complaint Review: Home Depot - Austell Georgia

So after all your back biting you claim the same thing???????

How sad does a person have to be to troll a consumer complaint board and try to pin hole the victims complant???

And then come around in a circle and say "How do I know?  Because I have seen obviously "used" items on the shelves."yet here are yoour golden nuggets of advice...

1) try to buy it at a discount, although you cannot believe that it was in working condition???

2) must have been a mistake but..."How do I know?  Because I have seen obviously "used" items on the shelves."

3) yiu still shop at places that try to sell used returns as new at full price???

Do what you want guy. You just proved my point. Bo not trust that the items on the shelf are new.

You can roll over and continue to support such theivery and try to justafy it all you want. I would rather not shop there and give others a heads up to their game.

Quote of the day..."How do I know?  Because I have seen obviously "used" items on the shelves."

It is amazing how the story evolves...

Pay attention....of course I tried for the discount on the used item

- Yet not a single mention of that in your original report.  In your original report all you did was show the associate the items and he dug around for a new one.  And that was good enough for you.

Next piont you try to make...HD is a company that does a lot of training with their workers. They do not some how put stuff back on the shelf.

- Really?  So that is the point I was trying to make.  Funny, all I said is that it was a mistake that it was put on the shelf I didn't say it was because of training or lack there of.

Maybe depending on the display but again it can be sold and will function fine.

- But if the contractural requirements require it to be a certain color, or have the price stickers in a certain place then it is up to the vendor to meet those contractural requirements.  If you as a vendor didn't agree to that, then you as a vendor should have stood up to them before you signed the contract.

 Again not to the point of the original issue of selling used items at new prices,

- Actually YOU brought that up so yes it is "part" of the original issue.

1) you have not been present for any of these discussions or interactions with HD so YOU cannot offer anything usefull here.

- And you were NOT there when the item was returned so you can't say that it was returned for no good reason...that is ONLY your opinion.

By the way I am in no way defending HD, in fact I don't even shop there.  I go to the other Big Box Store as well as smaller indepenent stores.  Where one thing I can guarantee that happens is the same...every one of those stores have done the same thing at one time or another.  How do I know?  Because I have seen obviously "used" items on the shelves.

Lets start with your win-win which then converts to a win-win-win. Pay attention....of course I tried for the discount on the used item ( i say item becuase I only needed one but to be clear there were 2 items found in the original situation). I was not offered any discount and it was later confirmed by management that they cannot do that. There is no "bargin bin" that they would drop such stuff into. This is when the return to vendor part of the convo came up with themanager. He explained that they just get 100% value back from the RTV rather than sell at a discount. So your so called win win was non existant not due to me not trying for it.

Next piont you try to make...HD is a company that does a lot of training with their workers. They do not some how put stuff back on the shelf. This not being a mistake is also reinforced due to the isle worker putting it back on the shelf even after agreeing that it looked used. So someone allowed a return, Thats number 1, someone put it on the shelf for resale thats 2, and someone re put it on the shelf for resale even after it was pointed out as wrong thats 3 errors?. Maybe same guy did all three things wrong but it would seem to show the overall attitude of doing such a thing. Dont believe that many employees would make that many errors of policy on a single item.

Next you get confused about the RTV issue I mention, which is seperate from the main issue of used items on the shelf being sold as new. Having delt with this end of the business, having to generate and review Corrective Action Reports (CARs) when dealing with various (but also including HD) large sellers, no one covers "happy customer returns". If a part is defective then sure, send it back to us and we will credit the next invoice that we send out. However if you return something to us that is NOT DEFECTIVE, then we do not issue a credit until there is proof we owe it by the contract. See there is a difference. If HD gives a refund to a customer to make them happy, that is not the suppliers problem. If the item meets all contractual QA requirements then the big seller does not get a freebie credit. Thats what I question on the RTV. Sticking a supplier with providing a not deserving credit.

Then you go on a tangent about who to pick doing business with based on the strictness of rules. Again not to the point of the original issue of selling used items at new prices, which you like to say was an employee mistake, I would simply fill you in on some basic ideas. First of all there are products which are so simple that there is very little serious QA specs to the item. The item could be demensionally off or a shade off on color and it has NO impact on its sellability or usability. For instance, a toilet plunger. Do you really care if it is one shade of black or somewhat slightly a different shade of black? Will it still plunge? Of Course it will. If the price sticker was on the handle or on the plunger rubber part, would it make a difference? Maybe depending on the display but again it can be sold and will function fine.

There are some business that like to nit pick stuff in an effort to renegociate the price down sighting QA problems that are really nothing. Sometimes its a poker game. They say we will take our business somewhere else. OK we say. They go to Vietnam for half the price. But oddly at that price the item doesnt even make it to the U.S. port for some reason, maybe a typhon ruined the factory overseas. Then we get a phone call saying they have empty shelves and cant find a replacement vendor. So much is a game even with large volume contracts. But lets get back to your point

Hose wisperer...yes I certainly did look it over very well. And given my life expereince I can do a compitant inspection. The o rings were there, the threads were good, no holes or bubbles in the hose, but there was dirt on it and it had drag marks in the plastic coupler sleeves. clearly had been out of the package and dragged on the groung. The second one was similar but had multiple kinks in it. There "consumer" level hoses have a habit of blowing out at the kinks. So I would have avoided that one for sure but it had no packaging either. If discounted I would have bought the dirt/ scraped one.

Now here are some additional facts.

1) you have not been present for any of these discussions or interactions with HD so YOU cannot offer anything usefull here.

2) As a consumer I am notifying other consumers of a trap that I almost fell into. HD was caught by me trying to sell used stuff as new. This was confirmend by the store manager that went to the shelf and found exactly what I discribed and he called to apoligise. He called in response to the survey answers I submitted on that purchase in which I selected the box to be called to discuss the issue.

3) What I have posted is the truth and again, YOU cannot offer anything against that. As to the 1 star vs 4 start oposting of the store specific review, I have trashed the e mail already that they sent, but the email did not have a way to reply to it or to reformat the review for resubmittal. The explaination did not include any detail on why it was rejected or instructions on how to correct it for posting. It was a dead end.

Anyway. You can kiss up to HD all you want. I would warn others to be careful of their slimy ways.

He explains that the items should have been RTV (returned to vendor) for a refund back to HD. I question that, as clearly they were not defective, the vendor should not have to reimburse HD for what is clearly an HD problem, which is they accepted back a used item for no good reason.

- It's amazing how with you not even being present when they were returned by the customer that you already know without a shadow of a doubt that it was returned for "no good reason".   

You then somehow though your magical powers know that the hose isn't defective.  Really?  So I guess you took the time to hook it up to a presure washer in the store to test it out where it worked perfectly.  That is what you did right?

Or are you somehow the "hose whisperer" and can instantly tell that the hose was in pefect working order.

By the way if it was truly a perfectly good hose why didn't you look for the "win-win".  Why didn't you go to the management while you were in the store and offer to take this hose that they were going to return for say a percentage off?  Then not only do you get a bit of a discount, Home Depot still gets a sale, and the vendor doesn't get hit.  So in reality it would have been a win-win-win.

Even further I work for a company that supplies a bigger company and we struggle to reimburse the larger company for their rejects on our product for very miniscule issues.

- Oh so now we get to the REAL issue.  It isn't that a Home Depot employee did good customer service but perhaps may have made a mistake and put something on the shelf that shouldn't have been.  It was that the manager said it was going to be returned to the vendor even though in your mind there is no proof it was damaged. 

So what is your definition of miniscule?  Doesn't your company provide a 100% guarantee?  After all to most people even a minisule issue is an issue...that a company still needs to address.  If this is costing your company a signifcant amount of money then perhaps the companies you are doing business are to strict...perhaps you may find some companines that are a bit more lienient with your issues...or perhaps just correct the cause of the issue to keep it from happening again and again.

Additionally I get an e mail back from HD saying my store specify feedback will not be displayed as a review of that store. Reason stated: "Did not fit the format". I don't suppose the format means it can only be 4 or 5 star review, not a truthful 1 star review??? The final step is a cover up.

- So what did the review state...word for word.  Did you state the same things you did here?  Because if you did it is likely that the same reason your review was rejected was for the same reasons I bought up..you have ZERO proof of anything you are accusing them of.  Because I just randomly looked at the HD site for store reviews and a couple of the ones near me had a couple 1,2, and 3 star reviews.