Home Depot
Store Refused Two Years of Will-Call Receipts, $850 Rip-Off

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 does a multi-million dollar, international company need 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 the poverty level, scrimps and saves her dimes and nickels so that she can renovate her bathroom. She purchased her supplies from Home Depot in Abilene, TX, a little at a time under "will call," which means she can pick them up at any time with her receipts.

She does this for two reasons. First, she does not have the room to store all the supplies she needs 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 was able to make the last purchase and asked for help from me, a professional truck driver, to move the supplies from the store to her home. Understand, we had volunteers standing by to unload and complete the renovations. Not to mention that I sat my truck in Abilene overnight at the store waiting for them to open.

She brought all her receipts and went to the "will-call" desk to have them gather her order. In short, they told her that her receipts were too old. They were no longer in the inventory system. They had no way to tell if these supplies had been picked up or not, and they would not honor ANY of them, not even the most recent.

Now keep in mind that the oldest of these receipts 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 writing stating that they were refusing to give up the supplies, nor would he give me a corporate 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 finally 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 than 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 receipts.

She then followed me through the store with several very helpful Lowes employees, and I bought her everything on her supply list. Of course, had I had even a hint of what she was going through to get a working bathroom, I would have ponied up the money when she started, and there never would have been an opportunity for Home Depot to do this to her.

In closing: it has been nearly 8 months since this dismal day. Of course the corporate office was contacted many, many times and has only offered the runaround. No lawyer will touch it until 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 writing I could take it straight to a courtroom. So we learned the hard way. Here is hoping you take the warning...

Company: Home Depot
Country: USA
State: Texas
City: Abilene
Address: 4590 SouthWest Dr
Phone: 3256901032

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