Home Depot - Arbitration or Court

I expect their policy is to ignore anything except a nastygram from a lawyer making a credible threat to sue. If it isn't worth that to you, then drop it and get on with your life.

Get your pals Guido, Paulie and Joey Bag of Donuts and go make them an offer they can't refuse ;-)

Doc

On 9/30/2005 5:26 PM US(ET), bregent took fingers to keyboard, and typed the following:

Take it up with the BBB.

Better Business Bureaus accept complaints that meet the following criteria:

The complaint includes the complainant's name and postal address; The complaint includes the company's name and provides sufficient information to determine the company's location. A mail address or phone number (except for toll-free numbers) will ordinarily be sufficient; The complaint seeks assistance from the Better Business Bureau; The complaint is from a customer, or the customer's authorized representative, of the company complained about. Authorized representatives include lawyers and guardians or caretakers who are filing on behalf of minor children, the elderly, or persons with disabilities; The complaint relates to a marketplace issue (see below for a list of complaints we cannot handle); The complaint alleges a problem experienced with the services or products that the company provided or agreed to provide; The complaint is not in litigation and has not been resolved by a previous court action, arbitration, or settlement between the parties; and The complaint contains no abusive language.

The BBB is just another business. It's not a governmental agency. It makes money though membership dues and won't bite the hand that feeds it. The BBB is at best worthless and and worst a sham.

On 9/30/2005 6:42 PM US(ET), Sacramento Dave took fingers to keyboard, and typed the following:

It did when it involved Capital One.

Sue their ass. If the contract requires binding arbitration, you can be SURE they'll let you know at that point.

Now that is the best description of BBB, it is just a joke and as always there is someone making money pretending to be the consumers friend.

Depending on the amount you may want to check out small claims court and or see a local attorney. One of the problems with this type of thing is it tends to have differences in different areas.

Their policy is to get your money in return you get no service, no real help and no satisfaction. But on the bright side you get half of what you ordered, half ass job and more grief than you need. Home depot is a store if it's on the shelf your fine. As someone mentioned The Better Business Bureau That's the only thing that's a bigger joke than home depot. Do you think a business as large as H D gives a rats ass about the Better Business Bureau.

On 09/30/05 06:47 pm snipped-for-privacy@hotmail.com tossed the following ingredients into the ever-growing pot of cybersoup:

Perhaps BBB varies from place to place. I called BBB many years ago and asked about a particular company and was told that said company did not respond to BBB inquiries and complaints. This was sufficient to steer me away from that company.

Perce

I can remember the BBB in Toronto, Canada as being cast out of the Canadian BBB for unscrupulous practices. Makes you wonder!

BBB is where you check BEFORE you buy.

Do you have a FOX network tv station there? (any network will do, but Fox seems more aggressive here.

Most stores and contractors tend to prefer NOT to be on the evening news, unless it's showing how they fixed the problem this morning ;-) And there isn't even a filing fee.

Seems to work in Dallas, even if volunteers or another contractor shows up to finish the mess. And the TV ratings go up when they show the contractor carted off to jail a few months later.

good luck

-larry / dallas

Contact the CA. Contractors state License Board (

That's probably because that company wasn't a member of the BBB and didn't give it's annual contribution.

The trouble with the BBB is that much of the public think that they are some sort of ombudsman to sort out problems.

They are simply a database of complaints, and if used BEFORE hiring the services of a company, can be a source of information on whether the company is reliable or not.

The fact that the BBB has "members", is a source for concern as it raises a conflict of interest aspect. That said, it only means that a consumer has to weight the information from the BBB with the fact of whether the company in question is a BBB member.

For instance, if the BBB had no complaints on a company and the company was not a member, that is a good indication that the company is reliable. On the other hand, if the no-complaint company is a BBB member, it would indicate that more homework was needed on this company before a conclusion could be drawn.