A new twist on Home Depot's "service"

Home Depot sent me an offer for a percentage off, good only online. I decided to take advantage of it to buy a yard tool I've had my eye on. However, my Home Depot credit card was declined. Since I keep a zero balance on this card (as would any sane person, considering the interest rate they charge), I called to find out why it was declined.

Back story: In my small town, there is no home mail delivery. None. We must go to the post office to pick up all mail (postal boxes are free because of this). My credit card shows my post office box address. I used that, plus my street address, for the online order.

According to the person I talked to, the credit card was declined because the credit card address and the online address did not match. She tells me HD uses the post office for delivery. Okay, sez I, go ahead and put my PO box for the order address.

That won't work, she replies. We must use your home address. Although we use the postal service for delivery, we must deliver to your house.

Okay -- go ahead and change the address on both my credit card and the order to my street address. They will catch it at the post office (although the postmaster will grouse at me for not indicating the PO box number).

That won't work either, she replies. We must be able to confirm home delivery.

But we don't have ANY home delivery in my town, I protest.

Maybe you could talk them into delivering just this one thing to you, she responds.

Yeah. It's pretty likely the solitary employee at the post office would be willing to close the post office, leave, and bring the package over to my house. NOT.

Bottom line: I cannot order from Home Depot online because they will not let me pick up the package at the post office, even though I could sign for delivery there. Even though, if we did have home delivery, they would first have to send the package to the post office to be given to my postal carrier to bring to me.

Doh!

Jo Ann

Reply to
hillacc at yahoo.com
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That's a good one. I suggest you try calling here:

Home Depot Customer Care Call 1-800-553-3199 to speak directly with a Customer Care specialist about your comment or complaint Customer Care Service Hours Monday - Friday: 8 a.m. - 8 p.m. ET Saturday & Sunday: 8 a.m. - 6 p.m. ET

Reply to
Joseph Meehan

I have the same problem with some companies. Changing my address to show my PO box first and then my street address on the next line fixed the problem for all but one idiot outfit.....Paul

Reply to
catguy

In the back of my mind, I was thinking of something like CAtguy, but he said it better than whatever is in the back of my mind.

I'd add that in addition to putting the box number on the line prior to your home address line, if you say POB 9999 and avoid saying POBox that might help too. POBox was rarely if ever used a few decades ago. It was POB. I would think people at the post office know what that means but maybe not other people. But do it over the internet.

A few days ago I was browsing around the electric company website, to pay online, but the only way you can do it on their webpage is to give up getting paper bills in the mail. Today they emailed me that I had switched that even though I sure didn't click on anything that said that.

So I tried to write them an email, with their webform, but when I send it, it says "A system error has occurred. Returning to the portlet main view may clear this problem." I wonder what that means.

Reply to
mm

Problem with your post --Home Depot "service" -- Home Depot and Service should never be that close together there should always be a minimum of a two paragraph space. Same applies for Lowes actually it applies pretty much everywhere.

Reply to
Sacramento Dave

Sounds about like Ebay. I couldn't sign in, so went to their help center. Said to Email them with questions. Fine, but before you can EMail them you have to sign in.

Reply to
lp13-30

LOL.

It was still Saturday at 2, so I though maybe I could call them. Igot their phone numbers from the Contact Us webpage, but they didn't bother to give the hours. I had to wade through the auto-switchboard (just one extra step) to find out they are closed all weekend.

They open at 8 on Monday, but it didn't bother to say when they close. sigh.

So now that I can pay online (temporarily, until I get them to correct it) I thought I'd check it out, and it shows my bill as 217 dollars, even though I paid it 5 days ago and they showed that I have a zero balance at least 2 days ago. They've done it this way for years, giving the last bill amount, and ignoring how much has been paid on that bill (even if it totally paid).

(They did have another page that gave my current balance as zero, but that might not be noticed. Especially if someone clicked on Pay online! before the rest of the page appeared on the screen, something that can be done with dial-up. I wouldn't be in big trouble if I paid an extra 200 dollars and had to wait for months before I used it up, but a lot of people would be.

BGE (Baltimore GAs and Electric) is up there in my top ten worst commercial websites.

Reply to
mm

As I was reading your post I was thinking to myself, that sounds like the crappy website & payment policy that my gas & electric company just changed to. And guess what, mine is BG&E too.

Reply to
Larry W

Can't blame them. There is a lot of fraud. Stores try to get customers to sign up for their high-interest credit cards to make more $$$. I wouldn't expect a post office to anything "special," in fact I use snail mail much less today. Calling HD customer service might resolve your issue.

Reply to
Phisherman

Did you ask for a supervisor who had authority to override the denial?

Reply to
Mike Dobony

You've now learned why they call what a farmer brings his cows to a bull for "service".

Jeff

Reply to
Jeff Wisnia

You need to learn and recite the serenity prayer. At least daily, if not hourly.

Really!

Reply to
Deke

No. You wasted your time giving too much information to a person that only knows how to read a rulebook which can't possibly deal with all situations. YOu know your situation better than she does. You should have simply requested home delivery and worked it out with your post office...

Reply to
dnoyeB

It turns out this number is for Home Depot STORE customer care, and they do not get involved with Home Depot online (homedepot.com) in any way. In fact, I thought the tone of voice of the man who answered my call to this number made clear that they know there are problems with homedepot.com and distance themselves from them as much as possible.

Meanwhile, the person I talked to at the homedepot.com phone number put through my order again, and it was declined again, for the same reason. I called this morning and the very unhelpful person who took my call said "all I can do is put through the order again, but it probably won't work."

I ended up telling her I was tired of begging Home Depot to take my money and that I would just purchase the item at Lowe's.

I've never been Home Depot's biggest fan, and this has put me off them altogether.

Jo Ann

Reply to
hillacc at yahoo.com

The customer service person couldn't care less if you go to Lowe's 'cause she still has a job even if you do. On the other hand, corporate should care if customers are peeved enough to write to them to complain about poor customer service. I know: the manager of a local Baja Fresh had no clue what to do when they got my order wrong for the third straight visit, but when I contacted the regional manager to let him know their poor training of a store manager led me to take my business to Qdoba (I refuse to go to Chipotle since they're a division of McDonald's), he was very apologetic and in fact graced me with several free meals.

So my suggestion is you absolutely must write a letter to Home Depot corporate, specifically to the president (if they have one yet after firing, er, ASKING theirs to resign and giving him a $42 million dollar severance package or some sort). In the letter strike a tone of conciliation: you know Home Depot has been losing business in the past few years and as a customer you just want to let them know why they lost _your_ business. Explain exactly what happened and include the names of people you spoke with, if you happened to write them down.

If you get no reply (and I don't expect you will), one month after sending the letter send a copy of it along with a new letter that is one paragraph: "I posted my experience on USENET and now news of your poor customer service is circling the planet. Good luck on not following in the footsteps of Hechinger's."

Wash your hands of the company, and pray you can find some other hardware/home improvement place that will send to your post office.

On Mar 5, 9:30 am, "hillacc at yahoo.com" wrote: [snip]

Reply to
Kyle

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