I want the reader to understand that I have no intention of "slanting" this report to make it seem as though Home Depot is ALL at fault. But why a multi-million dollor, international company needs to rip-off a little old lady for $850.00? This I will never understand.
So, here is the scoop. My (ex) Mother-in-law, who is disabled and living just below poverty level, scrimps and saves her dimes and nickles so that she can renovate her bathroom. She purchases her supplies from Home Depot in Ablilene, TX a little at a time under "will call" which means she can pick them up at any time with her reciepts.
She does this for 2 reasons. First, she does not have the room to store all the supplies she will need to for the complete renovation. Second, she does not want her family to know how much of a problem she is having getting this small amount of money together.
However one bright day in May she can make the last purchase and asks help from me, a profesional truck driver to help her move the supplies from the store to her home. Understand, we have volunteers standing by to unload and complete these renovations. Not to mention sitting my truck in Abilene overnight at the store waiting for them to open.
She brings all her reciepts and goes to the "will-call" desk to have them gather her order.in short they tell her that her reciepts are too old. They are no longer in the inventory system. They have no way to tell if these supplies have been picked up or not and they will not honor ANY of them, not even the most recent.
Now keep in mind that the oldest of these reciepts turned out to be 2 years old. However each time she ordered a new item she confirmed that leaving these items on will-call was okay and that they would be waiting for her when she could pick them up.
I could not speak to the manager, he was unavailable. The manager who was available would not give me anything in writting stateing that they were refusing to give up the supplies, nor would he give me a corperate number, nor any other information that I might use to right this wrong. After a few minutes he became rude and abusive at my questions and finnally threatened to have me removed from the store by the police.
Nothing I said made a difference. He knew the poor little old lady would never have the resources to sue the store more then 60 miles from her home, even in small claims court and invited her to "Just try it." I led my mother-in-law away in tears. Got in my truck and had her follow me to Lowes with her reciepts.
She then followed me through the store with serveral very helpful Lowes employees and I bought her everything on her supply list. Of course had I even had a hint of what she was going through to get a working bathroom I would have ponyed up the money when she started and there never would have been an opportunity for Home Depot to do this to her.
In closeing: It has been nearly 8 mo since this dismal day. Of course the Corporate office was contacted many many time and only has the run around to offer. No lawyer will touch it till Corporate gives us a solid "NO" and of course they will never do that. Just like the store manager knew that if he gave me anything in writting I could take it straight to a court room. So we learned the hard way. Here's hoping you take the warning...
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