The Home Depot Complaint

The Home Depot - Illegal Business Practices and Consumer Fraud

I Originally ordered a 20,000.00 lumber order from The Home Depot based on delivery agreement with the pro desk manager. From that moment on, this was the transaction from hell. The delivery truck could not get up my driveway. Not even close because the driver stated that he had a bad tire on his truck so he could not come closer to my building site. The driver stated that he had spent an additional hour on the drive just to avoid the truck weigh station because his tire was so bad. Why was my order even placed on this defective truck?

The entire load was taken back to the Home Depot to reschedule another delivery with a forklift. The 'acting manager' instructed me to have a forklift on site for the next scheduled delivery. He said that he would pay for the cost of the forklift. He paid for half of the cost and left me with the other half after use of the forklift.

It was discovered that the windows were the wrong color and defective. The factory rep came out to the site and determined that the windows were defective. The rep stated that he would credit The Home Depot for the windows. The Home Depot gave me a credit for the wrong color. They never reimbursed me for instillation, re-work, re-instillation or lost construction time and fees for any of their mistakes.

I had paid for materials that did not arrive on shipments. The Home Depot took up to 4 months to actually provide materials ordered, with the most ridiculous excuses provided, such as Hurricane Katrina caused all materials from Simpson to be red-flagged and un-deliverable except to Louisiana.

Home Depot delivered an entire shipment of finish lumber which was defective and unusable. The shipment manager of the store informed me that he knew that the order was defective and that when it was time to install it he would send new lumber to replace it. However, when I made a call to complete the agreement, Home Depot refused to change out the defective lumber. It is still taking up space in my driveway a year later.

Home Depot would leave-off materials that had been ordered and paid for up-front and then refuse to redeliver them. I would have to make other arrangements to receive the materials. Home Depot would send out large orders of defective materials and expect me to bring back the defective materials for replacement. Home Depot sent out a large order of 2x4 studs that were ordered as 2x6 8-footers. I was forced to return this entire wrong shipment back to the store which is a 96 mile round trip. Home Depot had informed me that they would remove delivery charges form my bill. They did not. Home Depot over charged on billing and to date, has not reimbursed.

The Home Depot delivered an entire order of lumber in front of my site in the middle of the road. The road is only 12 feet wide and it is strictly forbidden to leave anything on the road. There is no parking. I was out of town when The Home Depot dropped the shipment in the middle of the road. Fire trucks could not have accessed this road for an emergency if they had to. Neighbors complained that they couldn't access the road. Home Depot sent out 2 boys to move the shipment out of the road and onto the property. The 2 Home Depot employees had to hand-carry a truckload of lumber up a hill. The boys were at the site working for 7 hours. When they called their assistant manager to check in, she told them not to stop until the job was done. They were not to have a break or eat. I purchased their lunch and drinks and insisted that they take a rest break. I also, paid them for their time. Home Depot never reimbursed me for any of this.

The district manager in Orange, Ca., told me that I would be reimbursed for many of these problems. When asked for the promised reimbursement, my request was rudely referred to the corporate office in Atlanta. Of course the Home Depot has failed to reimburse me and complete the agreement. I have estimated that doing business with The Home Depot has cost me an additional 20,000.00 over budget.

I began this transaction with the pro desk manager at the retail level. He quit so then there was no manager in which to deal with. The store manager quit so there was no store manager to deal with these problems. Then the District manager quit, so I had to deal with one who had no knowledge of this matter and really could not be bothered with understanding my legitimate complaints. Then the customer service specialist at the corporate office that was dealing with this case quit. Why is it that every manager has quit through this one transaction? Why does The Home Depot go through so many different employees? Why am I left to deal with Home Depot’s incompetence?

Home Depot is too large to take on the concerns and needs of the general public.
You’ll get better service and wind-up saving money at your local lumber yard!

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