Rant Rave and Blog

Monday, December 31, 2007

Maytag and Home Depot Follow Up....

...well it's been a little bit and I thought I would let you know what has happened as far as Maytag and Home Depot. I received a letter from Maytag, inside this letter was a rebate form to fill out to receive the Consumer Care Kit. So after all of this, all I need to do is fill out this form and magically I will receive the Consumer Care Kit.

As far as Home depot goes, well my dad works at Home Depot in Atlanta, Ga. So I told him what was going on and after some investigation he also found this rebate form to fill out and receive my kit. He faxed me the form, so now I have received the form from both Maytag and, indirectly, Home Depot. Not a very exciting ending, but an ending none the less.

Friday, December 14, 2007

Home Depot Again

Well of course a day has come and gone and no call from Tasha. So I decided I would once again call in. Now I am talking to Jayden. Let's see how this call goes. She has looked up my order and put me on hold. She's back and tells me the Supervisor is not in today. I explain to her that there is a reason I ordered it online rather than in the store and would rather not go to the store. She understands and puts me on hold again. She's back and tells me that they have run out of the internet stock of the Complimentary Customer Care Kit. And that in order to get one I need to go to Customer Service and fill out a form in order to get it. I ask her if there is any way of getting around going to the store and she informs me that there is not. I tell her ok, and she asks if there is anything else she can do for me. I say no, this has already been a big enough headache. She says ok and wishes me a nice day. So my question is, Does anybody care about Customer Service anymore?

I guess I will go back to the store and fight with them, because I am sure they will have no idea what I am talking about. Wish me luck.

Thursday, December 13, 2007

Home Depot Follow Up

I was supposed to receive a call from Maria, from Home Depot, yesterday. But of course I didn't. So I decided I would call back in. I called back in and spoke to Matthew, he seemed very nice. He said there was a note on my order that said my issue had been escalated to a supervisor, who then spoke to Maytag. The note said I needed to go into my local store and fill out a form to get the Customer(Consumer) Care Kit. I asked him why i was never called back. He didn't know. So I asked to speak to his supervisor, and of course they weren't in. I asked if they could give me a call when they got in to speak about why I wasn't called back yesterday and to let them know that there has to be something else I can do about the form. There is a reason I ordered it online rather than directly form the store in the first place. I guess we will see if Tasha, the supervisor, calls me back. Any takers?

Maytag Follow Up

So I received an email response from my complaint to Maytag. Here is what they have to say:

"Dear Mr. Kirby:

Thank you for visiting the Maytag website. We appreciate hearing from you.

We are sorry to learn of the problem that you have experienced in finding the information that you require.

There was no record in our system that you had called, just what we call the customer account file that contains your phone number, address and the model and serial numbers that you have supplied us with. This makes me wonder if you ever actually spoke to someone in Maytag customer service or whether you were transferred to some other line. You did mention that you started out with a representative for Home Depot. It is usual for our representatives to make notations in the file when we speak to a consumer. In fact a copy of this e-mail and the e-mail that you sent to us will now be a permanent part of your file so that any representative that needs to know what I have said to you or what you requested can go into your file and look that information up.

I apologize that your experience was less that satisfactory. From the information contained in your e-mail I was not able to tell if the kit you were asking for was missing from the refrigerator when you bought it or if it was a bonus pack being offered by Home Depot or if you wanted to purchase the kit. That may have been part of the problem on the phone today. In any case I apologize that you have had a less than pleasant experience and if there is anything further that we can do please do not hesitate to call or write.

Thank you for allowing us to assist you today.

You are a valued customer and we apologize for any inconvenience this concern may have caused.

We invite you to contact Maytag again either by calling (800) 688-9900 between 8:00am to 8:00pm EST weekdays or by emailing whenever the need arises. When calling please press the available option or stay on the line to reach a representative.

Sincerely,

Susan M.
Maytag Customer Loyalty Team
Maytag Customer eXperience Center
http://www.Maytag.com"


So apparently no one knows what part I am talking about and apparently I wasn't clear enough in my email for them to understand what I wanted. I am not sure how much more clear I could be. So I emailed them back trying to be as clear as possible. Here is my response to their response, confused yet?

"I did speak to someone at Maytag. The person i spoke to at Home Depot gave me this number: 1-800-688-9900 . That is the number I called 2 days ago and yesterday. The customer account file was filled out by the second lady I spoke to yesterday, the lady who said she was in New Sales.

The kit I am missing, which is called the "Consumer Care Kit" on your Maytag.com web site or "Customer Care Kit" on the Home Depot website, consists of; a Butter Dish, Egg Bin, Bin Liners, Over-the-Sink Cuttingboard and Refridgerator/Freezer Deoderizer. This kit was according to both your website( maytag.com) and Home Depot's website(homedepot.com) was supposed to come with the Refridgerator. But I did not receive one.

If you want to see where I am talking abotu on your web site go to http://www.maytag.com/catalog/product.jsp?src=Refrigerators&cat=14&prod=1522
then click on "Features" on the right hand side. Then under additional features you will see "Complimentary Consumer Care Kit"

On the home depot site you can go to http://www.homedepot.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?jspStoreDir=hdus&catalogId=10053&marketID=401&productId=100597132&onlineStore=true&locStoreNum=8125&keyword=msd2669key&langId=-1&searchRedirect=msd2669key&storeId=10051&endecaDataBean=com.homedepot.sa.el.wc.catalog.beans.EndecaDataBean%4044a86482&ddkey=Search

The 5th bullet point under description the "Complimentary Customer Care Kit" is listed.

The last person I spoke with yesterday was Robert and he said that I needed to call Home Depot again, so I did. I spoke with a Maria in Internet Appliance Orders, she was supposed to call Maytag then call me back. I have yet to hear from her, so either she is still on the phone with Maytag, or no one really cares.

Very Disappointed Customer,
--sean."


Oh, and for those keeping track I still haven't heard back from Maria at The Home Depot. Maybe today will be my lucky day...nah!

Wednesday, December 12, 2007

Call to Home Depot

Well I just made call number one of the day to Home Depot. I spoke to Maria in Internet Appliance Orders. I explained again what I was missing. She says she is going to call Maytag and then give me a call back to let me know when I will be receiving the missing parts. Anyone want to take bets on when Maria calls back and if she was actually able to get me the right parts?

Fridge follow up

I have received my fridge. The shipping company was now able to find my house. They delivered the fridge and a 4 wheel dolly. After they left the house and I went back to work I received a call from the delivery guy stating he left his dolly at my house. I told him I could be home in 40 minutes and would meet him then, or he could wait til 4:30pm and I would put it out on the porch for him. He went with the 4:30 plan. After I got home i set the thing outside and left, when I returned it was gone, so i assume he came and got it. All done with the fridge story...or so I thought.

3 days ago my wife realizes that we were supposed to get a "Complimentary Consumer Care Kit" or "Customer Care Kit" depending on what website you look on. So I called Home Depot to find out what happened to the part. I explain to them what I am missing and they tell me I need to call Maytag, they give me the number and off I go. So yesterday I called Maytag, I explain what I am missing and they ask for the model number and serial number of the fridge. I give them the model number, but don't know the serial number. I am told they can't help me without the serial number and I needed to get it off of the fridge and call back. So after work last night I went home adn emailed the serial number to myself so I can call today.

Well I jsut spent the last 1.5 hours talking to various people at Maytag. And it turns out they can not help me and I need to call Home Depot again. While I was on the phone with maytag I started filling out the contact us form with the experience I am having. Below is what I wrote to Maytag:

"I had the unfortunate experience of calling your customer service number today. The first person i spoke to Lindsay, seemed very helpful, except that i was on hold for at least 20 minutes while she looked up a part number. Once she found that part number she said I needed to speak to a different department to order it. I was then transferred to the New Sales Department. The lady there was rude at first. She said she couldn't help me and that I needed to call back in. I told her there was no way I was calling back in, I was just on hold for 20 minutes and was transferred to her so either she was going to hep me or she would need to find someone who could. She stated that there was no one there that could help me and she could not transfer me. I asked to speak to a supervisor, but was told there wasn't one. I then asked to speak to whoever her boss is. She then tried to help me and became friendly. She took my information and looked up the part. It took her about 10-15 minutes to find the part, but eventually found it. She still stated she could not help me, but by some miracle was now able to transfer me? She then transfered me to Customer Service and I spoke to gentleman, who again I had to explain the part that was missing from the Refridgerator. He said he would put me on hold to help me, but instead dumped me into another queue. I am now on the phone with the fourth person, who again I had to explain everything all over again. She has apologized and of course I am now on hold again. She's back and within 2 minutes has found the part number. The lady I am speaking to now is Lucretia. She seems like the one so far who knows what is going on. She is giving the part number to customer service and I assume will transfer me again, but I hope not. Also i am now an hour into this phone call, just for a Consumer Care Kit. How fitting that I am calling for a Consumer Care Kit, but have not received any actual Consumer Care. Oh well I have been transferred again. Talking to Robert now and he is about to order me the WRONG part. He wants to order me a Feature Kit, which is NOT what I need. I am now explaining to him what I actually need, the Consumer Care Kit. Which just in case you don't know consists of a butter dish, egg bin, cutting board, bin liners and deodorizer. OK Robert is back and guess what? He says he can't help me either. He says that I need to go back through Home Depot, which is where I started. He tells me that Home Depot calls one person and that person would order the part, but Robert doesn't know who that person is and tells me no one there knows who this person is. I am very frustrated as a customer and because of the lack of service I have received from Home Depot and Maytag, I will no longer be doing business with either. However, judging by both of your customer service departments I sincerely doubt you even care. Also feel free to read my blog oldmankirby.blogspot.com, where I am posting my experience for everyone to read. Again, I doubt you care, but just thought I would let you read about my experiences."


Well I am about to call Home Depot again and see if I can finally get this kit.

Wednesday, December 05, 2007

It's official.....

...I am in my new house.

This past couple of weeks have given me much to blog about, unfortunately I just haven't had time. So I will try my best to remember the past couple of weeks and give you a quick recap of what has transpired:

On October 24th we sold our house and the same day buy a new house. A good deal was made by all and I think everyone won in the deal. So after that the buy of our house had a home inspection done and everything passed for the most part. I had some painting to do and some other little things, but in all it wasn't bad. We start packing, now I had the intention on getting everything into the garage by the time moving day came around(Nov. 29th).

In the new house we need a few appliances, we need a fridge and a washer/dryer. I find that Best Buy is going to be running a sale on a washer/dryer that I want. So the Wednesday before Black Friday I go to Best Buy and order it. This was by far the best experience I have every had at a chain store. The service person was very friendly and knowledgeable. They didn't give me any grief about the sale or try to up sell me. They set up a delivery time that I was ok with, they even had the items advertised in stock in a warehouse in Baltimore. Next, I needed a fridge so we went to Home Depot to check out the Fridges, we wanted a Maytag since the other appliances in the kitchen were Maytag, and Home Depot sold Maytag appliances. The lady we spoke to that night was very nice and told us we may want to come back in a few weeks because they would be running a sale on the fridge we wanted at that time. We thanked her and off we went. We didn't order the fridge yet, but we knew what we wanted.

Ok so a few weeks goes buy and we are still packing stuff and running out of room in the garage. We also head over to Home Depot to order our fridge. Well I get there and am "greeted" by a rather arrogant man, who is really no help at all (should have taken this as a sign). He was very rude and short with every question we asked, but we had already worked out what we were getting so I bit my tongue and ordered the fridge and set up the delivery date, ok fridge ordered.

Moving day is fast approaching and we need to rent a truck to move all this stuff. Also, we ask our realtor to see if we can move some stuff a little early to the new house to help out with moving a whole house in less than a day. She was able to get us an early occupancy agreement form the builder of the house that would let us move stuff into the garage and backyard the day before the settlement, great! So with moving date in hand Allison calls u-haul. So as you can expect, anytime you deal with u-haul it is never an easy process. But we finally reach a deal on a 24ft. truck, we wanted a 26 ft. truck, but we got a 24 footer.

Finally moving day has arrived. Now if you remember I planned on getting everything in the garage to make this the easiest move ever. Well that didn't happen, probably got half the stuff into the garage. My friends Troy and Rich worked the day shift of the move. They were at my house when I arrived there with the u-haul, which believe it or not wasn't a hassle at all. When I arrived Troy and Rich were playing Baseball on the Wii. After Rich finished his game we were off to start moving.

We got truck load number 1 loaded. And drive over to the new house to start putting stuff in the garage. We get there and start unloading. About half way trough the unloading process Rich and I hear a bang and some thumps, basically something or things are falling in the truck and Troy is in there. Rich and I run to the truck to make sure my stuff, I mean Troy, is ok. We get there and apparently the wall of boxes we built when loading the truck has fallen, luckily Troy is ok and other than some christmas balls breaking everything else appears to be fine as well. We finish unloading and head back to the house, where Allison is waiting with pizza.

After we eat, we start with load number 2. Things are going fine, but not as fast as the other load. We decide to start loading my kids playset into one of the pickup trucks at the house. It's a rather large playset with swings, a rockwall, and a club house. Rich, myself, his brother and my neighbor Jay had taken it apart earlier in the week, I think. Either way, we load some of the playset into the pickup, it doesn't all fit, and head over to the new house for unloading. This went well.

When we get back Troy leaves and the night shift shows up, Jerry, Traci and Jeff. Keep in mind Rich is still there, what a great friend. The night shift starts on the loading process. After some time we decide to load the clubhouse into the pick up truck and drive it over to the new house. So I get in my truck and Jerry and Rich follow me over in Jerry's car (Jerry lives down the street and doesn't plan on coming back to the house). We get about half way there when I here something sliding in the back of the truck. Just about the time I turn around I see the playset fly/slide out of the truck onto Rt. 24 (a busy street i might add). Crap! I pull over and luckily Jerry was too busy talking to Rich to tailgate me. So he didn't get hit by the playhouse. Jerry and Rich pull over and start picking the pieces up out of the road. Jeff and I walk back to Jerry and Rich to look at the damage. All in all, I would say that it was probably the least bit of damage that could have probably happened. The roof came of and a few other boards ripped out form the screws, but it is definitely repairable. We load the pieces back in to the truck and drive to the new house for unloading. The rest of the trip was uneventful..and slow.

After unloading we head back to my house, minus Jerry, and finish loading load number 2. It doesn't look like we are going to make it. We are going to have to continue loading the next day. Rich and his family go home and Allison and I do a few other little things. I go to bed about 1:30am and Allison gets to bed around 4:00am(hey I have to work the next morning she doesn't) So before Troy left we made plans for him and Rich to come back in the morning to load up the rest of the swing set and finish load number 2.

The next morning comes around and I go to work and come back home around 11:00am. Troy and Rich had already loaded everything up and took the u-haul to the new house, what great friends. The people buying the house had a final walk through at 9:00am even though we weren't finished moving yet.

At 1:00pm we meet the buyers for settlement. Things for the most part went smooth. Just a couple of hiccups with some wording on the buyers mortgage application needed changed. But we settled on the old house and now it was time for us to go to settlement. Oh and we also saw Mike Noss, nice as ever.

3:00pm rolls around we meet our realtor and the builders folks over at the settlement place, Chesapeake Settlement Company. Everything went extremely smooth, nothing needed to be changed, all the paper work was already done. In all the settlement took 40 minutes and that was with me telling a few jokes, sorry Melissa. I would highly recommend Chesapeake Settlement, as well as Jeff from Wells Fargo. They were both very helpful along the way and very efficient. So anyway, yee-ha! We now own a new home. Oh did I mention Rich volunteered to wait at our new house for Comcast to show up, while we at settlement, is he great or what?

December first rolls around and between 8am and 10am, Best Buy is supposed to deliver our Washer/Dryer. 7:58am and Best Buy is out front. They deliver and hook up the appliances and give me a few pointers. Man, I like Best Buy. Home Depot is to arrive next, sometime between 3pm and 7pm.

At about 11am I get a call from our CIO/Sr. VP, to help him set up outlook. Why in the world is he calling me? Well I walk him through most of it, then my phone goes dead. Oh crap, I just hung up on the CIO! I put my phone on the charger to charge. A half an hour later I look at it, in hopes it has enough juice to give the CIO a call back and explain myself before i get fired. What? It hasn't charged at all. I move it to another receptacle and still no go. I try one last one that I know works and VIOLA! It is charging. Too late to call the CIO though. So 6:45pm rolls around and still no Home Depot. I check my cell phone and there are 2 messages from GE appliance delivery. They say they can't find my house and need directions. I give them a call back, but they are already closed. I then call Home Depot and they tell me to wait around a few more hours, that they will show up, they probably just needed to stop somewhere for directions. They also said if I don't get my fridge tonight to call in the morning and they will get a manager on it. Well 9:00pm rolls around and still no Home Depot delivery.

We wake up the next day and go to Home Depot. At first we tried to talk to someone in customer service, but they said they couldn't help and that we needed to go back to appliances. So we did, and lucky us Mr. Arrogant was working. We explained to him what happened and he got a store manager. The store manager was a complete DICK! His name was Mike, but it should have been Dick. We explain to him what happened and his first response is "ya, what do you want me to do about it". Then he offers us a loaner fridge, but we had to make the arrangements to deliver it our selves and install it, then bring it back when our Fridge that was supposed to arrive on Saturday finally shows up on Wednesday. I ask him if it will fit in the back of a corolla. He said nope. Then I am not exactly sure what happened, but we ended up just cancelling the entire order. So no fridge would be delivered. On the way home Allison called the Home Depot Corporate Customer Service and some how got us $176.00 gift card, but still no fridge. When I get home I look around on the internet and Home Depot actually has the same fridge $200 cheaper online. I know I am just asking for it, but I ordered it anyway.

Oh, sorry to jump stories here, but the reason the phone didn't charge was because the circuit wasn't on. I went to the basement and turned the breaker on and we got power. Ok, on to the rest of my week. Last night I receive a call from my wife. She apparently thinks she may have possibly put too much oil in the car and now it sounds funny and won't stay running. I leave work and go see the car. She did, in fact, put too much oil in, about 2 quarts too much. We drive down to the local auto parts store and pick up and oil pan and a cheap socket set. I drain enough oil so it is now halfway between the full line and the add a quart line. I try to start up the car but same thing. So we go over to the garage where the Explorer is getting inspected and pick it up and leave the corolla at the parking lot at my wife's office. She made arrangements today to get it towed over to the garage that we just got the Explorer inspected at. It has arrived there and the garage called me to tell me it didn't sound good. I told them i know and to fix it. I think they are going to need to rebuild the top half of the engine. Oh well these things happen i guess.

Oh and we still don't have a fridge, but it is supposed to arrive tomorrow. Probably today by the time you read this. I am sure there are things I am missing and just forgot to mention. But you get the jist of it. The past couple weeks have been hell, but hopefully things will get better this week and next.