Neil Gobioff

January 14, 2003

Home Depot

Attention: Customer Care

2455 Paces Ferry Road

Atlanta, GA 30339-4024

Re: Special Service Customer Agreement Number 0279-114482

To Whom It May Concern:

I recently spent over $4000 to have laminate flooring installed in my home. This will most likely be the last $4000 I ever spend with your company. When I ordered the floor from store #0279 on December 16, 2002, from Tirso Ochoa I was impressed at how easy it was. Someone would be out to measure by Wednesday, December 18, and then I would have a call with the final quote by Friday December 20. Then the nightmare began.

The measurement of my home on December 18 went smoothly. However, I did not receive a call about the final quote on our order when we expected it (Friday, December 20). I called on Saturday, December 21, instead. I verified that the amount I was being quoted included all the areas (living room, dining room, office and foyer) and was told the installers would call within 2 business days.

They called on the first business day, December 23. When I spoke with Jeff from US Installation Group, he informed me that an installation could not be scheduled until the materials had been delivered. This was news to me, since no one had mentioned scheduling a delivery. I got on the phone again. At-Home services first transferred me to a store’s delivery department. When they didn’t answer, I was sent back to the operator only to find out I was transferred to the wrong store in the first place! The operator put me on hold and transferred me to the store’s service desk, which answered the phone, and I was able to schedule the delivery.

When the materials arrived on December 24, I noticed that there was no moisture barrier. This was surprising since the person who took my order initially said concrete floors (like those in the office) would need a moisture barrier. On December 26, I spoke with Jeff from US Installation Group who suggested asking the store if the flooring already had a moisture barrier on it, and I set up a date for installation. I called the store again. When no one answered the phone, I went in to the store. The person in flooring did not know if I needed the moisture barrier, but wrote a message for Mr. Ochoa who took my order intially.

The next day, December 27, Sandy called us back. She looked at my order and the measurements and said they had made a mistake when writing the order. She said that I would need a moisture barrier. Then, she asked if I had made a decision regarding the foyer. I told her that I had verified that this was included in the quote I was given. She said it was not and explained how the numbers are calculated. I compared this to the materials delivered; she was right. I asked who I would need to speak to about this, and she told me Carlos, who was currently at the store.

I went into the store again. After waiting 20 minutes, Carlos came out and did everything he could to be helpful. He even took $100 off the additional materials I needed to pick up. I asked Carlos if the installers would need to be notified of the additional area and the ceramic tile that would need to be removed; he asked an employee at the service desk to call them and make sure they knew. After another 20 minutes of waiting, someone finally came up to pull my order. I got home only to find there was a hole in one of the moisture barriers.

A few days later, I went back to the store to return the moisture barrier. The computer said there were another 39 in stock. An hour later, two people had not been able to find them. I had them check another store, so I could get it there on my lunch hour during work. The next few days were without incident (other than the ridiculous amount of waiting that occurred when buying various things at the store.)

The installers arrived on January 6, 2003. The installers were unaware of the foyer with the ceramic tile. After pulling my carpet up, they said it was level enough and they would leave the ceramic tile in and put the laminate over it. After an hour or two into their working, two other gentlemen showed up. They asked me if I was going to put baseboards in. I said no and they confirmed I just wanted the 1/4” round molding. They spoke with the installers some more and then left. No more than five minutes after they left, I received a call from the Home Depot At-Home Services department saying the installers needed me to spend $95 to purchase leveling compound. This was interesting, since there was almost no leveling being done. In fact the only area leveled was about 2 inches wide and 3 feet long. I asked Roberto (the lead installer), and he said he did not need it.

Later I checked on progress. I noticed that there was a springboard type effect in the area where the ceramic concrete met with the concrete. This was the exact area Roberto pointed out as “level” and why they didn’t need to remove the ceramic. He said he would fix it later. I called US Installation Group, and they said that it was fine to leave the tile in, but that they should have leveled it first. He assured me it would be okay before they were done. Next, the installer got to the fireplace. He did not know what to do around it. Roberto suggested caulking the top layer of the laminate under some transition. I suggested using the 1/4” round molding instead, and my wife agreed. He finished the rooms, only to find out he didn’t have enough transition. I went to your store and bought another piece.

Earlier in the day, Roberto made sure it would be okay if he stayed until 8 p.m. to finish. At 8:20 p.m., he began to fix the problem where the floor was not level. This requires installing a t-molding. I told him that since he was installing one there, a t-molding would need to be installed at the other side of the foyer as well. At 9:30 p.m., I checked on the progress, and noticed that they were using cardboard from one of the boxes that the flooring was packed in to try and level the area. I decided to deal with the situation on the following day, since they still were going to have to do the area by the fireplace, clean up, and bring my furniture in from outside. At 10 p.m., they told me they still didn’t have enough transition pieces for the fireplace. I asked them to clean up and come back in the morning. Five minutes later, when I still heard a saw running, my wife and I went down and began bringing our furniture inside. They got the hint.

As they were leaving, I noticed there was still a large section of the transition piece. He said that was different than what I bought. In other words, what I bought wasn’t what I was trying to buy. Instead of telling me this, he cut it and tried using it. He had me sign the paper accepting the work before he left that night, even though it wasn’t complete and I was anything but satisfied. I mentioned this, but it seemed he wasn’t going to leave without that paper signed.

The next morning on January 7, I called US Installation Group and asked that a supervisor come out and see the work they’ve done. I spoke to Mike. He transferred me to John who handles Tampa. John said the installers’ boss would come out with them.

They all arrived around 8:30 a.m. The two men from the day before were the managers of the installers, Jay Sims and Alan Green. They informed me that they would have to float the areas that were having problems. They also said I would need to purchase stair nosing for the fireplace. This would need to be special ordered, which means more inconvenience, since the installers would have to come out again at a later date. Mr. Sims said he would provide me with a replacement for the piece I purchased so that I would be able to get my money back.

Due to problems and having to redo a section of flooring twice, they ran out of 1/4” round, and I have had to pay for another piece.

After the installers left, I began the clean up. While vacuuming, I noticed a large gap under the door frame of one doorway (Picture 1). During the day, I received a call from US Installation Group asking if I was satisfied. I told them the details to this point. They said someone would be calling to schedule a time for someone to come and look at the door frame. Soon after, Cheri called from Home Depot about the extra materials needed. Apparently, they also tried to order two more bags of float. They had not informed me of this, and had not used that much to level the areas they did. Two bags should not be necessary, especially since the day before they barely used any, and I was told one bag is included and should cover 50 square feet. The area they leveled was 30 square feet at most. Later that evening, I also noticed the same leveling problem in the middle of the office. This was the area they had kept the couch until right before they left. There was also a problem with the 1/4” round along the edge. It was not lined up in some areas, and nail holes were visible throughout the house (Picture 4).

I called John at US Installation Group first thing on the morning of January 8, 2003. He said he would call and have the installers take care of it. I called him back, and he said he talked to Mr. Green (Mr. Sims’ boss) and they were going to take care of it that day. I let my office know that I would need to be working from home another day. They were not pleased with this. A few minutes later, Mr. Sims called and asked what the problem was. I reviewed it with him. He was unsure that it would get done that day. He said he was almost to his warehouse and would get back to me when he knew what his schedule was. When he called back, he said he was sending a more experienced installer over to assess the situation.

The new installer, John, arrived with the original installers. After looking at the problems, he said the 1/4” round problem existed because the nails are so small they usually don’t fill them and because the nails that were being used were not long enough, since there are no base boards. Since this was noticed by Mr. Green and Mr. Sims, I would have expected them to inform Roberto to use longer nails. Mr. Green said they could float the floor, and I may get charged. I called John, who assured me I will not be charged, since they should have noticed this the first day before they put any flooring down. They had to remove the flooring from the entire office so they could float the areas that I found where it was really bad. Before the end of the day, six people were involved, including Mr. Sims and Mr. Green.

Later in the day, Home Depot called again saying the installers needed four bags of leveler. I told her to speak with John, who said I would not have to pay. John called a couple of minutes later, and told me I would have to pay. He said he misunderstood and did not realize that they would need more. I explained to John that I was not paying. They had used one bag of leveler so far at most (included in the job as I understand it) and had already tried to charge me for an additional three bags. After they damaged a 65-year-old door frame and were fixing it with putty (Picture 2), I was not paying for four bags of leveler. The workers had already started using the leveler. John said they should not have started without approval. I told him as far as I was concerned this was between him and them. He said he would take care of it.

Around 2 p.m., John had me inspect the sub-flooring after it had been leveled. He showed me that it would not be perfect without raising the floor significantly. However, it was a vast improvement. I accepted this as satisfactory. Around 3 p.m., the flooring had been installed, and Mr. Green had me verify that the result was acceptable. While there is still some give in the floor, I recognize that the sub-floor is not perfect and found the result acceptable. He had me speak with Cynthia, who is the installation manager in Tampa and let her know that I found this acceptable.

On the afternoon of January 8, 2002 I e-mailedJohn from U.S. Installation Group the pictures of the door frame. I spoke to him two days later, and he said he had not checked his e-mail yet. I asked him to call me after he looked at them. I still have not heard from him.

On Thursday, January 9, I called Home Depot At-Home Services and spoke with Amanda. I told her that I had paid for the installers to remove ceramic tile, which they had not done. I asked that the charges be refunded. She said this wasn’t a problem and she would put a note for special services at the store to do this. If they needed me to come into the store, they would contact me. Five days later, the charge has not been reversed.

On January 11, I received a call from Nazima at US Installation Group about the door frame. This was in response to my comments to the person who called with a customer satisfaction survey. I returned her call and left a voice mail. On the morning of January 13, I left another voice mail. At the end of the day, I called again and spoke with Nazima. She put me on hold and called the installers. She said, the supervisor is now claiming the gap on the door frame was there prior to the installation. They offered to use wood filler to fix it. I told Nazima that was not acceptable; a carpenter needs to make the repair. She asked if I could fax the photos. I faxed the photos, first thing in the morning on January 14.

At 1 p.m. on January 14, Nazima called. She said that Mr. Green or Mr. Sims would call me either that day or the following day to discuss the cost of having it fixed. I got the impression they would either get it fixed by someone else or have it replaced. She gave them my work number, and told me to call her, if I did not here from them by the morning of the January 15.

Mr. Sims called my home and left a message at 2:45 p.m., January 14, and I called him back within five minutes. When I told him that it needed to be repaired, so that it looked like it should without the damage, he asked, “Do you know where we can get that door frame?” I told him I did not and said he needed to get a carpenter out to look at it. I offered to go through their insurance company if necessary. I told him I have pictures of the area undamaged (Picture 3, bottom right), damaged, (Picture 1) and with the attempted repair. (Picture 2) He asked me to hold, and when he returned, he said he needed to talk to Mr. Green. When he asked when I am available, I told him on weekends, and he confirmed this meant Saturday and Sunday. I then asked about the transition replacement which I had not received. He said he would bring it when he came to my house, although no meeting time had been set. I confirmed that he would call me back. As of 6:30 p.m. he had not called back.

The methods the installers use are flawed. My wife and I were forced to spend hours getting the sawdust out of our couches and off the walls, furniture, etc. This is because no one prepared us for the amount of saw dust that would be in our house. Had we known, we would have taken precautions to cover the couches and other furniture. In looking at the paperwork we have, I found a sheet that talks about what we need to do to prepare. I never looked at this sheet, since the only reason I have it is because it came with the extra materials we needed, because of the initial mistake with the order. Throughout the process, from measurement to installation, I felt in the dark. No one was explaining what was going on. I trusted the experts and after every step I found myself being disappointed and frustrated with the results. I did not realize that I would need to watch every detail of every moment.

In addition, I suggest that supervisors check on the work of the installers after each day’s work. Had a supervisor checked on the work done the first day, some of the problems I discovered probably could have been avoided. I also suggest that you hire more experienced installers. These installers worked to try and get the job done fast, not necessarily correctly. The quality is not what I expected or paid for when I placed the order (Pictures 5-9). With the hassle I have gone through, the quality of the work, and the damage to my home, I could have done it myself. I will be very happy when this nightmare is over, and the floor in my home is finally finished. That extra 10 minutes to Lowe’s doesn’t seem so bad anymore.

Sincerely,

Neil Gobioff

cc: via website’s Online Form

cc: Store Manager

Store #0279

8815 North Florida Ave

Tampa, FL 33604

cc: U.S. Installation Group

3050 N Andres Ave Extension

Pompano, FL 33064

cc: Robert L. Nardelli

Chief Executive Officer

Home Depot

  2455 Paces Ferry Rd.
  Atlanta, GA 30339-4024
 
cc:  Better Business Bureau of West Florida
 PO Box 7950

 Clearwater, FL 33758 -7950  

Picture 1: Damaged Door Frame

Picture 2: Attempted repair to damaged door frame

Picture 3: Undamaged door frame in bottom right before carpet was pulled.

Picture 4: Uneven ¼” round and nail holes. Now part of this ¼” round is going to be replaced.

Picture 5: A smaller gap that was caulked. Not quality work.

Picture 6: More caulking examples of poor quality.

Picture 7: Another example of poor quality the edging isn’t touching the wall.

Picture 8: Nail holes left after the job was considered completed. Notice how the edging doesn’t line up.

Picture 9: A series of unfilled nail holes. This is considered completed.