A week ago I wrote about our washing machine healing itself for the second time and almost buying a new one. This link will take you the long winded story, but to sum up, on a Monday I ordered a washing machine from Homedepot.com and on Wednesday I called to cancel the order. The CSR assured me the order would be cancelled and my money refunded in 7 to 10 business days.
So of course on Thursday morning they hit the charge card for $598. Of that, $50 of this was for them to haul off the old machine. So I called the customer service number, but the wait time was going to be pretty long, so I chose the option of the text chat. Below is an excerpt:
- CSR: Excellent! Thank you so much for your order number Brian! I do see that since the order is in transit the cancellation is pending however as soon it arrives to the warehouse the cancellation will be processed for you Brian! I do apologize for the delay this is causing you today!
- Me: So you can guarantee that I won’t have delivery service show up at my door tomorrow with a washing machine?
- CSR: Absolutely! I checked out delivery team page just to be sure and your delivery is cancelled Brian! I also post a note on the delivery team page to make sure that it is not delivered for you!
Not longer than an hour after my text chat I got a phone message from Temco Logistics, the delivery agent for Home Depot, informing me that I would get a 4 hour window for delivery and a 30 minutes heads up before the truck arrives. There was a phone number to call if I had any questions. I called it and of course got an answering machine. I left a message, “Please do not deliver this item tomorrow as I have cancelled the order.”
Once again, no surprise, at 1:30 Friday afternoon I got a call from an unfamiliar number that I didn’t answer. The driver of the truck delivering my cancelled washing machine left a message that they were 30 minutes away. I called the number right back and predictably it went to the answering machine. When the truck pulled up I greeted them with the bad news and said, “Sorry you had to make the trip for nothing.” The driver replied, “No worries, it happens more often than you think.”
Wednesday two days ago, which by my count was the tenth business day, I checked the charge card to see if the money was credited back and it was, but only the $50 haul away fee. The $548 wasn’t there, so it was back to the Home Depot Customer Service phone lines. The CSR informed me that I was only on day 9 and I should probably call again on Friday (today) if I don’t see the refund.
The money was still not there. I’ve called this number so many times at this point that I knew witch numbers to hit after the robot picks up to get me to the right section. And this time I got a CSR who did some research instead of just reading something off the menu. Turns out that the cancellation never got to the right people the first time. Even though the HD website didn’t say the washing machine was shipped it was in transit from a distribution warehouse to the delivery agent. Now, the reason the money hasn’t been refunded yet is that the washing machine has yet to be returned to the distribution warehouse. So this CSR says that it should be getting there today and then there will be a 5 working day gap until I get the rest of my money. So we’ll see what happens next Friday.