TIME!!!!11 - Good proofreading consumerist!

Re: "THIS TIME!"

It is to remind us that they are, and forever will be, more powerful than us.

Okay, more, it's to remind themselves of that.

Well, no, really, it's just to keep that illusion alive in their head.

It was on purpose. It's an intarweb coloquialism that finds its origins in the hacker language, "1337 5p34k". Way to jump in uninformed sparky.

And, vr4z06gt, welcome to the internet. I'm pretty sure that wasn't a typo. It's a style choice. Specifically, a sarcastic one requiring some general web awareness. Don't worry; stick around and you'll get it.

dangit, someone snuck in ahead of me... the previous comment was aimed at vr4z06gt. :)

Eleven.

Home Depot sucks, I always go to Lowes. The idiots in HD have no idea where they are or what products they sell.

sounds like every other loser douche with some iota of authority.

FWIW, Home Depot let me return light bulbs. I fully expected them not to, but they did, and let the record state that I appreciated it.

See, what happened is as follows...

I bought six of the "True Light" bulbs or whatever. They're supposed to cast pure white light instead of slightly yellowish light. I put them in my bathroom, flipped 'em on, and almost went blind. They only cost a couple of bucks, so if I had to eat the purchase, I would have, but I also figured it couldn't hurt to ask. I returned to the Home Depot, receipt in hand, and exchanged every last bulb.

My bathroom now glows ever-so-slightly yellow.

I couldn't be happier. ;)

If I read one more post from someone who goes to shop at a transnational chain and then complains about lousy service, I'll...
try suggesting again that you should be going to your neighborhood independent (if you have one). From my experience 3-4 times as many indies have good to excellent customer service as the chains.

my ex-gf used to work customer service at home depot during summers and she would tell me stories about people who would pull the return scam. However, she was told to never bust them as it was better to take a loss on one scam than to falsely accuse someone and lose their business.
Sounds like this kid didn't get that message.

A friend who worked at Macy's said they had the same policy...for what it's worth.

Didn't HD's CEO take out a full page ad apologizing for poor customer service not too long ago?

I wish you had said: Yes. You're right! This was my plan all along! Buy a thermostat on my credit card, go home, bring back the empty bag with the receipt, go back to the aisle, take another thermostat, tear it out of its packaging, put it in the bag, wait patiently online, and then get a refund while keeping the other thermostat! Yes! Yes! Yes! Free thermostat!

And then you could have jumped onto the counter and started screaming Free thermostats for everyone!

Well, anyway, I always want to do that. In those situations.

It's called a power trip.

If they refused the return, dispute purchase with credit card. easy. done. don't have to listen to bitchy overpaid retail workers (mind you, there are exceptional courteous ones but those are rare in major stores).

How do you steal something and get a receipt? Seriously, I want to know... I have some home improvements to do myself and I'm on a budget...

i've had to return a couple items to home teapot, including opened items, and sometimes without a receipt. they do the same thing as target where they store purchased items per credit card in their database and can process returns w/o a receipt (including refunds directly back to your cc). i found that to be extremely helpful. but of course, if you get a moron manning the returns register, then none of that goodness helps you =(

does anyone know if blowes does the same thing?

those are not typos...

@jeffj-nj: Of course they let you exchange your light bulbs for new bulbs. The subject of this post wanted a refund.

I've definitely told customers that I would make an exception for them "this time," although when I did it was when the customer was not aware of the policy and I was actually making an exception for him or her. I also would reiterate the policy and explain that we were actually making an exception

I realize the futility of the phrase (what are the chances that you will ever deal with the same customer in a similar situation?), but you have to make sure people know that you are making an exception for you when you are. I've had a plethora of customers come in thinking that the exception was the norm because nobody told them otherwise.

Clearly in a situation such as the one in this article, the manager should have simply apologized and then told the associate to involve him the next time before he accuses somebody of fraud.

@vr4z06gt: From Wikipedia's "Exclamation Mark" article:

In recent Internet culture, especially where leet is used, an excessive way of expressing exclamation in text is seen as !!!!!!111. This notation originates from the eagerness to add multiple exclamation marks but failing to hit the shift key combination properly. Later this behavior has evolved into a sign of recognition for certain Internet cultures who now intentionally add 1s after their expressions either to ridicule people who do it without purpose or as a sign of recognition towards others who also are familiar with the behavior. As a further pun to this development of linguistics, some add literal ones such as !!!eleventyone!!111one! to explicitly state that their use of 1s was intentionally typed, since eleventyone cannot be typed by accident.

So... Take THAT!!!!!11oneoneeleventyone!!11!!1!

I bought a bathroom fan from HD, got it home, and just before installing it, realized it was the $30 one instead of the $80 one I payed for, and thought was in the box. Some shady low-life had swapped fans and returned it for a $50 profit. They said it happens all the time.

Anyway, HD swapped it for me no problem. Except the fan still sucked, so I returned it and went to Totem and got a real one.

I have a friend who works at Lowes, he said he would never shop at Lowes because they are a rip off on everything and he would only shop at Home Depot because their prices are much better.

Anyways, I have worked in retail and everyone knows you cannot accuse a customer of theft unless you know for sure they stole. That is just a bad procedure put in place by a bad manager who probably got yelled at by his district manager for too much theft.

That manager needs to find a better solution then accusing every customer of theft and refusing to provide refunds.

Isn't this the Home Depot that fires employees for catching shoplifters?

nsumerist.com/consumer/crime/home-depot-employees-fired-for-helping-police-catch-shoplifters-266197.php

Sorry, messed up the link there:

http://consumerist.com/consumer/crime/home-depot-employees...

@alk509: C'mon give the NOOB a break! ;)

This is just another bs stunt by the big-box haters. When will those maroons realize that everyone is still going to shop at the big stores no matter what crap they try to spread about them. Some folks don't have a choice but a big-box store, others like the one stop shopping they offer. It's the same folks that think people will stop buying big SUVs because they are "bad for the economy". get a life haters.

Wait a minute. Didn't we just recently hear that HD employees are not allowed to accuse customers of shoplifting, and in fact have been fired for doing so? Sounds like that store didn't get the memo. If you feel you need vindication, escalate to the district manager.

@cgmaetc: You buy something, keep it, and then use the receipt to return an item you pick up off the shelf. Say you buy a new DVD player, take it home and enjoy it. Then you take the receipt and go back to the store, pick up the same model off the shelf, take it to customer service and return it. Now you have a free DVD player. Of course, at Wal-Mart, they put a nice little sticker on your returned item as soon as you walk in the door to avoid that problem.

@cgmaetc:

"How do you steal something and get a receipt?"

You don't. You buy the thermostat, take it home, and then come back with the bag and receipt, grab another unit off the shelf, and then "return" the unit.

You end up with the thermostat (which is at home) and your money back = free thermostat.

Didn't a Home Depot employee get fired for trying to bust a shoplifter? Talk about mixed messages, do they want us to steal from their stores or not?

Please keep in mind that the starting pay for a 'returns associate' is very close to minimum wage.

The Home Depot generally has the best prices and that is why people will shop there. If you want better service, you will have to go to ACE and pay more.

Since it's been many years since I worked at Best Buy and had to deal with situations like this, I wonder if we can get a post from The Consumerist about how to properly deal with situations like this.

When I worked in Hell, we had a rash of people returning boxes with a brick or rocks or some sort (which had been re-sealed) and us not finding out until somebody else tried to return it after thinking they purchased it "new."

Granted, I never accused any customers of stealing (I worked in PCHO), but it'd be nice to have a post about ways to protect your integrity and the proper channels to follow if unfairly accused of something.

@Seth_Went_to_the_Bank: I once got a jacket at Kohl's that had the security tag still on. After 5 hours, I finally figured out how to remove it. I took the innards out and decided to try an experiment. I placed the guts into a old keyless entry unit. It's funny how I'll beep going in, but not out.

But whenever people give me the eye coming in, I raise my hands and go "Ya caught me, I'm bringing stuff into the store. I'm a shop-placer." OK, I lead a semi-lonely life.

@eross:
I agree about your neighborhood hardware store and using it when you can. The one problem I have, and I have this issue with a lot of mom & pop shops, is their hours are horrible.

Often when I end up at HD or Lowe's on some random Wednesday at 8pm, its because the local store is closed.

I have a friend who works at Lowes, he said he would never shop at Lowes because they are a rip off on everything and he would only shop at Home Depot because their prices are much better.

That makes about as much sense as shopping at Wal-Mart for the same reason. You pay more at Lowe's, you get people who know what they're doing and you get customer service. You pay less and you get idiots who don't know their ass from a whole in the ground (same goes for both Home Depot and Wal-Mart). But at least you got the wrong thing for cheaper. And maybe, just maybe, it'll last for a few months before breaking and you'll have to go back and buy another one.

@matukonyc: Fair enough... but they were light bulbs.

r u even serious...i've been on the internet since before it was available to the 'public' when it was restricted to the government and universities...when you had to pay fees just to be considered a part of the 'internet'....

@bnet41: Ditto. All the best customer service in the world won't stop the customer from being stopped by a CLOSED sign and going to someone else who WILL sell them what they need.

and im not talking about dial up access fees, im talking about fees inorder to use the WWW protocols.

@cgmaetc: I actually know the answer to this one, as my miscreant brother used to do it..iut's a common junky trick and Walmart and Home Depot are the usual targets. They look for discarded receipts, grab a matching item,m and head for the return counter. Iirc, a Bush cabinet member went to jail for a variation of the scam.

@cgmaetc:

Stealing something and having a receipt? Easy, get a printer, steal/buy some register tape (depends on the target), and print you own off a laptop. Go into the store, get you're expensive item, go to another store and return it. It does require a little work to fake it right.

When I was with Wal-Mart this was in the Tales Of Loss Prevention in the in-house magazine.

I used to work at HD back in the day. We would get retruns all the time of stuff that people had bought but that had a used item in them that someone else had taken apart and returned. Grills were pretty common like that - people would take apart their used grill seal the box and return it. Nice.

Since the cost cutting days the Depot has cut back on the skilled workers - the guys and gals from the local hardware stores that they put out of business who knew what they were talking about - and replaced them with people who don't know the difference between a screw and a nail. Last time I went there I ended up cutting my own blinds becasue they couldn't find anyone who could opperate the machine. My best advice is avoid the place like the plague unless you know something about what you're buying. If you have a question about something do NOT trust the average HD store associate. Iether go to Lowes or better yet a local place. If you want to be cheap get the advice there, don't pay for it and then go buy the item from the Depot. Either that or research online. Its truly caveat emptor at the king od home improvement retailers.

All that said nothing excusese the behavior in the original post. Again, back in the day that never would have happened.

@Buran:

I try to shop during "normal" hours like everybody used to before all these big box stores opened up. I've never had a problem.

One thing I forgot, it was for computers, tv's, et cetera. The guy got caught when one of the loss prevention guys saw him sit in his van, then head in, come out with something, and do it again later.

@rg: Maroons? And surely you mean "bad for the environment." I've never heard anyone say that SUVs are bad for the economy, especially since they usually cost more and hence more money will be flowing in the economy. Not to mention additional expenses due to gas. Maybe "bad for the environment" eventually leads to "bad for the economy?"

Anyway, at the retail stores I've worked at, we were never allowed to accuse anyone of stealing. At the most we were told to contact loss prevention or a manager.

@vr4z06gt: Well that just makes your lack of knowledge even more embarassing, doesn't it?

My wife had a similar experience at the Hyattsville, MD Home Depot, except she was trying to buy something.

She was buying some pieces of wood trim for a project. One of them, as is often the case, didn't have a sticker with a SKU that the cashier could scan. My wife remembered the price, but the cashier insisted on getting the SKU, so she paged some other worker to go back to the lumber department and get the number.

Anyway, the worker comes back with the wrong number. My wife points this out and the cashier accused her of trying to scam Home Depot.

Needless to say, we no longer shop at that Home Depot location. We go to Lowe's or to another Home Depot in the area, even though it takes us a lot longer to get there.

Home Depot, for most things, is a place you go when you already know what you need, not to learn how to fix your HVAC system. Failing that, BRING THE OLD PART.

Of course, that really applies to everything. But no, the salesman is your friend and just wants to help.

@mopar_man:

He also said the people at Lowes are not trained and that they know nothing.
He said he gets better service and more knowledgeable people at Home Depot. He actually works at Lowes so I trust his judgement over yours.

True, the indies usually have shorter hours, but if you want service from people with extensive experience and knowledge of the store's products, they usually have families and don't want to work nights.

@r81984: I don't give a rat's hind parts if I can get a slightly better deal at a place that treats me like what comes out of the rat's hind parts. Every time I've been to Lowe's, their staff has been both courteous and helpful, without exception. This is exactly why I drive 8 miles to give my money to Lowe's instead of the Home Depot that's 2 blocks away.