Complaint / Review
Home Depot
Broken dishwasher bracket, no replacement and rude supervisor

Is it too much to expect product support when you buy a product from someone?

After waiting over a week to have my new dishwasher installed, the installers showed up one hour after their scheduled window of time was over. They completely took out my old dishwasher, loaded it up and installed the new one.

After completely finishing the job, I was told (very politely, I must say) that they had broken off one of the support brackets that hold it into the cabinet, but that it shouldn't pose a problem. If it gave me any problems at all, I was supposed to call them within the next few days because he knew they wouldn't let him leave me this one while a new one was being ordered, and he hated to leave me without a dishwasher. (Keep in mind that my old dishwasher that still worked fine was sitting right there on the truck and he could have re-installed it!)

So he wrote a note of what happened on the receipt and had me sign it. One week later the dishwasher began to come completely out of the cabinet. I looked and found that the only bracket holding it in was now bending because of the amount of weight! I called Home Depot and explained that the bracket wasn't going to be enough support. I wanted them to replace the dishwasher with a new, unbroken one.

After I spoke to a supervisor who said he'd contact the installer and then call me back, a girl called back and said that she just wanted to let me know that she was waiting on the installer and would call me back later that day. I never received that call.

At 12:30pm the next day I called Home Depot again. This time I spoke with Rodney, a supervisor. He had this same girl contact the installer again, only to tell me that they had ordered the part and would contact me next Wednesday to come fix the dishwasher. I told him that was not acceptable. I didn't buy a broken dishwasher and I wanted a new one. I also didn't feel that I should have to wait another week to have a working dishwasher. He was very rude and said there was nothing he could do.

I asked for the store manager. He said he wasn't there. I asked for the district manager's number. He told me that they were the district headquarters??? And that there was no one else to call. I said, "Do you think I'm stupid? I know there is a corporate number I can call to talk to someone over your head." Finally, he gave me the customer care number.

I called customer care and talked to a very nice person, but he passed me off to someone in another area over deliveries. That person proceeded to call the same store I had just talked to (Rodney again), who basically said the same thing, that there was nothing they could do. After going back and forth with them, he offered me 10% off. This amounts to about $40. I said, "No thanks. I want a new dishwasher, not a broken one that has to be repaired."

I finally gave up and asked the customer care guy, Scott, to be sure to record my comments about the rudeness of Rodney and the lack of support I had gotten. He said, "Ma'am, I haven't heard him be rude. I think he's been nice while I've had him on the phone." I said, "Of course he has, since this is being recorded. Did you get that he told me there was no one above him that I could talk to?" Rodney replied, "Ma'am, you were too busy ranting and raving to let me give you that number, just like you are doing now." I said, "That's fine if this is how you speak to your customers. I have about $5,000-$7,000 worth of appliance replacing to do over the next year and I won't be purchasing them from you."

So not only did they do absolutely nothing to solve the problem, I still have a broken dishwasher that I paid full price for. Don't expect Home Depot to provide you any customer support if something goes wrong on a home appliance you purchase there. They won't take them back, so they know that you have no options.

Beware of accepting anything broken, even if it seems to not be a big deal and even if they put it in writing that it is their fault. The store only blames the installer (who is contracted by them). If I had bought the same dishwasher in the store that had the same item broken and repaired, they would have taken off at least $100.