Inspired by some neighbors who own a dry cleaning appliance (what? who knew those existed?), we ordered a small-ish freezer. I do some freezer cooking, especially as we prep for RV trips, and a decent amount of frozen food preservation (onions, celery, herbs, ginger, broth, beans, etc.) and we are constantly having to “Tetris” the freezer to make room. You know it’s bad when you have to hunt down a place for a pint of Ben & Jerry’s! His solution to that is to eat the whole pint!
Anyway, we ordered a 7cf freezer from “House Armory” aka HD. (We vote and we “vote” with our money, so we try not to shop there, but these smaller freezers are damn hard to find. Amazon was the only other source.)
We couldn’t see a floor model in the store. So, it was weird when we learned that we were ordering it from a store, and not from some HD warehouse out in the sticks. So they have all the in-stock freezers at the store, but they can’t carve out 6 square feet for a model? Whatever. Their messed-up business model isn’t supposed to be our problem. But, we made sure it could be returned and bought it.
Then, we learn that it will be delivered on a Saturday, if that fits. It does, so we say okay. Then, she tells him that they will call at 6:30am to give us a 4-hour delivery window starting as early as 8am. Eeeek at the early of it all, but he can wake up for a call and go back to sleep, so he agrees.
They called at 6:33am. They were here. Not, “hey, you’re first on today’s map, would 7:45 be okay so we can get a head start on our day?” No; it’s 6:33am, and they. are. here! He throws on some clothes and meets them for the delivery/signature. He sleepily goes through the motions and climbs back into bed.
There is a giant and deep ding on the front door.
Now, I didn’t use calipers or take samples of paint scrapes, but it’s pretty obvious to me that they did this with the forklift. The whole thing is still in the box at this point, but the box opens like a fridge, so the damage is easy to get to.
He called our HD store. A really nice clerk tried to figure out what to do, but needed a manager’s help. After that “customer service experience” fizzled, he called and talked to the manager. The manager then accused us of the damage that he’s never seen.
Why yes, Mr Manager Man, I do have a fuckin’ forklift in my living room, I must have hit it hard enough to knock it over to put a ding like that! Thank you for the keen insight, asshat!
-L
MMM told him that “there was nothing he could do” and to call HD corporate and work it out with them. So he did. They said they’d call back in two days. Four days later, he requested a charge back, and our credit card honored that request. We were supposed to hear from HD, but never did.
Last night, he unboxed the freezer, set it up where we want it, turned it on and added a bottle of water so we could see how well it works.
Today, our Butcher Box arrived. We needed a place for the meat, so we are now officially using the dented–and so far free–freezer.
At lest we have a maybe-free freezer and a story to tell?