I purchased a fridge a couple months back from the Home Depot. At the time they were giving out a $75/gift card to offset the delivery fee. I figured that wasn’t a bad deal. A few weeks after the purchase the gift card arrived. This afternoon I decided to head down to the Home Depot to purchase $34 worth of stuff. I went to the self-checkout, passed all items over that goofy scanner and all was going smoothly at this point. When it came time to pay I select “Pay by Gift Card” on the screen and swiped my never been used before gift card. Crap. It didn’t work and, in big letter, the screen told me I need to talk with the service person manning the self-help area. After waiting about five minutes the service lady took my card, scanned it into her special computer and told me there was nothing left on the gift card. Hmmm….. I told her I’d never used the card and had recently received it in the mail. She was stumped. She called her supervisor who arrived about five minutes later. I explained myself again to the supervisor who took my card and disappeared for at least fifteen minutes. Had I known she was going to be gone that long I would have paid with another card in my wallet that’s “valid”. 
When the supervisor returned she said that my card had been activated on June 7th and deactivated on the 14th. This makes absolutely not sense because I wouldn’t have received the card until well into July. She said it appears Home Depot sent me an invalid card. Ya think??
So now I’ve waited about 20+ minutes and am told there’s nothing the supervisor can do about it today since it’s a holiday and she has to call someone at the home office to solve the problem. So I scan my Amex to pay for my purchases and leave the store 30 minutes later.
Home Depot made a mistake by sending me an invalid gift card. Problems happen and I’m not bitter about that. But I am mad that I was made to wait 30 minutes and still be told there’s nothing they can do about it until tomorrow.
To make matters worse the supervisor asked me as I was leaving, “After I get this figured out should I call your or do you want to call me?” Hey, I’ve already wasted part of my holiday so why wouldn’t I want to call you tomorrow, be put on hold and wait for you to again?
Sept 5 Update: Home Depot called this morning and a friendly woman said they had a glitch in their system which cancelled a batch of gift cards. That’s why mine refused to work yesterday. For my troubles they were adding an extra $10 to the card. Although I wish this could have been taken care of at the store I applaud Home Depot for calling me to say they made a mistake. The only strange part of the call was hearing that they couldn’t just issue me a new card and call it a day. They had to wait 30 days because of policy before issuing a new card, so I’m supposed to call back, ask for the “computer room” and explain my story yet again if I don’t receive my card in 30 days. I wonder if they’d send me a $10 gas card instead? 🙂
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