Just had to add my 2 cents on an experience I had with trying to get carpet installed in my basement. If you guys ever look for carpet, I wouldn't use Home Depot. I went to Home Depot. Because they were cheaper, and on their carpet signs it listed cost per square foot, with installation included. Thus I picked out some carpet, and had a guy come over to measure my basement.

Shortly after that Home Depot called me, and gave me a quote of $1600 which is what I expected for 600 square feet at $2.42/square foot. They asked for my visa card number, so they could get it started, and the amount was taken out of my account. Several hours later, I got a call from them telling me there was an error on their estimate, and that the cost would be another $1000 in addtion to the $1600 already taken. I told them no, and called the store manager. The store manager wasn't sympathetic at all, and said they forgot to add the price of the carpet in the estimate. I told them to give me my money back then.

They said they credited the account and a reciept of it would be in the mail, mean while $1600 of my money is tied up. I called their customer service, and reported the incident. The guy told me that labor and carpet are always seperate in costs. I told him that is not what the signs say at home depot, and I would gladly take a digital picture of it, and email it to him if he doesn't know what his stores advertise. He agreed to give me his email, and I have taken some pictures. If it is not false advertising it is indeed very misleading. I will email him the pictures and see what his response is. I know I can't be the only one complaining on that, so I would guess they intentionally mislead customers, by having signs all over the place indicating installation and padding are included in prices. Thus I got my blood pressure all worked up, and paced around the house with the phone wanting to strangle some one, heh. I just always believe in good customer service, and being fair. I have already contacted 2 other carpet places to get estimates, but I will gladly take this issue up home depot chain of command as far as I can to let them know how much I didn't appreciate the experience.

Vladaar

I bought my shed and fence from Home Depot and had no problems (in fact was very pleased with the whole process) for my shed which was delivered as a big stack of wood and assembled on site, but had a similar experience to yours (though not quite as bad) with my fence. In my case, they came out did all the measurements, quoted me a price, I went in signed the contracts and paid up front, then their crew got here and determined that the shipment was short a few needed pieces (about $250 worth) that I needed to let them go buy on my card. At that point they'd already started the job, so I went along, but I won't be using Home Depot for anything like that again either.

Sounds about like the experience I had with trying to get the new blinds installed on my window. You'd think that would be a simple enough thing to do, but I had to jump through a whole mess of hoops just to get the order placed, the job scheduled, the parts delivered, and the install time coordinated.

Thankfully once the guy actually came to put them in he was friendly and knew what he was doing. He was even willing to put up with cramped quarters and having to climb over my gargantuan computer desk to get at the window.

Home Depot's biggest problem though is their customer service. They basically suck at it. But in their defense this was largely because Bob Nardelli was …. well… an idiot. He got to a point where he didn't give a crap about anything and that attitude reflected down through the ranks to the people at the desks and registers. The new CEO has publicly stated that he plans to change that, and I think he's serious about it because the same information has been passed down internally to both Depot and their partners. It just so happens I work for one of those partners, and we heard about the coming changes during our last quarterly meeting.

Yah,

At least I have a picture of the sign thats $2.42/square foot Installed, and am going to talk to the District Manager about it. I think they were trying to money launder at that store, and some how take the extra thousand dollars.

Maybe, but it sounds more like a case of misleading/false advertising to me.

False advertising is all too common at some Depot stores. I've witnessed it myself on the rare occasions I need to be in one. I have no use for Depot most of the time though. The only reason I bothered when I had my blinds done was because I get a discount on purchases made there. Semi-secret arrangements between Depot and the company I work for.

We stopped by the Home Depot the other night when we were looking for a deep freezer (which we ended up getting at WalMart instead because the exact same deep freezer was $20+ less there) and their employee told us they were not on commission and didn't even get discounts on most purchases. I'm not sure I believe him, frankly, from what I've seen of their stores, without a discount I can't really imagine a reason to want to work there.

Depot associates don't work on commission. They get paid hourly just like most people. But he was lying to you if you were told they don't get an employee discount. It should be something like 20%. But it wouldn't surprise me if he didn't know he got one.

People work there for the same reason idiots work in fast food. They're either kids fresh out of school, or older people looking for easy part time work to supplement their social security with. The career ones are easy to spot because they're the only 30s types you'll find.

That makes sense, this guy was considerably senior to me, so prolly one of the retiree types.