Return Line at Home Depot

Dear Home Depot,

My name is David Robert, and I am writing to you today regarding my experience at your Home Depot location at Buckland Hills in Manchester, CT. I paid a visit to your store at 7:15pm on Sunday, July 15th.

Earlier in the day, at 3pm, I had visited this location to purchase a cordless drill for a project I was working on. To my dismay, the drill that I purchased was defective, for the motor clutch assembly was making awful noises and not spinning.

So, at 7:15pm, I went back to the Manchester location, to return the drill. After patiently waiting in line, the employee at the customer return counter (Kristin) wasn’t very pleasant to me. She asked me several questions about the drill, and then told me to get a new one for an exchange. So, I went to the power tools department, and found out that they were out of stock. So, I walked back to the return counter.

Standing in line at the return counter was an individual with (no joke) 8 receipts and an overloaded cartful of items, including 50+ small assorted plumbing pipe pieces with missing barcodes. He was returning everything. As Kristin scanned each item, she realized that certain things were from other stores, and hence, had to explain to this individual that he can’t return an item that he bought from Lowes. The customer became agitated.

After about 10 minutes of waiting in line behind this disgruntled customer, I walked up to a individual at the service desk – Joe – and stated that Kristin has my drill and my receipt and I just want a credit to my account, cash back, or store credit – whatever was easiest. Joe said “he was very busy, and that the store closes in a half hour, and that I was just going to have to wait.” I told him the guy in front of me, in line, had 100+ items, and Joe responded “that’s not my problem sir. We close soon.”

Unacceptable. Absolutely unacceptable, inexcusable, and unprofessional.

I ended up waiting about 15 more minutes.. continually hearing “Attention Home Depot customers.. we close in approximately 10 minutes…”. Finally, I was able to get my cash back (the whole return process took 40 seconds), but it surely wasn’t worth the rudeness and disrespect I got from Kristin and Joe.