Andy C.

You think you know a company because you have shopped with them for so many years and then something odd happens and you realize that you don't know them at all. Sometimes that can be quite scary. This would definitely be one of those times.

I'm not a compulsive Amazon shopper, not by a long shot. But, I do shop with them when the prices are right and they offer the best price compared to everyone else.

This particular time, a week or so ago, I was making a purchase on Amazon when I checked the reviews of the seller. Hmmm, no negative reviews. An Amazon seller with no negative reviews - how odd.

So, I clicked into the most recent reviews and what pops up? A negative review that had happened within a few days. I looked at the stars again and there were no negative reviews. So, I clicked into the one star section and what pops up? Unlimited pages of negative reviews! Interesting! And for anyone who wants to go to the seller's page and look at the negative reviews, please be sure to note that as of today there will be negative reviews and basically on a daily basis going back through the year.

So, I start reading through them. Now, this particular seller is in fact what I believe to be an Amazon seller and the negative reviews are quite interesting. Everything from they didn't get their order, to extreme delays in getting their order, to being told to "deal with it!", to the item being damaged or not what they ordered. Everything you could imagine. And what did Amazon do with all these negative reviews? They hid them from the general public. These negative reviews are happening on a literal daily basis as well.

Amazon struck through them and answered with a standard reply of "Amazon filled the order". They actually lined through the reviews! You know when you line through a sentence? That's what they did - lined through the reviews. That's why they weren't showing up in the overall reviews for the seller. Fascinating! Amazon hiding reviews. Why, I never would have thought that such a despicable act would be done by such a "reputable" company. (extreme sarcasm there)

My suggestion to anyone and everyone shopping on Amazon - click into the 1 star section of the seller that you are purchasing from and see what Amazon is hiding from the general public. I will be willing to bet you might be quite surprised at what you find.

And people say the world is getting better - I seriously don't think so.

In this day and time things are vastly different than they were say 10 years ago when it comes to retail business. We often don't make the connection until we are in a situation with the retailer where we are so shocked and dismayed at what the retailer is doing (or isn't doing) that we can hardly conceive that it is actually happening. But, it all too painfully is. What to do, what to do.

I came down to Texas to help family get a business up and running. Anyone who knows the state of Texas knows that it gets hot here. It competes with Hell in the outrageous temperatures. This makes AC a necessity in Texas. Especially during the grueling summer months.

The building that was acquired had no AC. So, on May 20th of this year I went online to see who had the best prices for AC's. As it turns out, that company was Home Depot. Little did I know that I would be entering into what could only be described as the twilight zone.

I placed an order online for a thirty three k btu and a twelve k btu system. These were items that Home Depot did not normally stock and it would have to be ordered online through their manufacturer. Okay, no big deal I thought. The total came up to over three thousand dollars for both units. I placed the order.

Now things are going to get weird.

One of the manufacturers for Home Depot is Ramsond in Detroit, MI. You place your order online through Home Depot and they forward that to the manufacturer. The manufacturer fills it and gets it on the trucks to be delivered either to you personally or to a store. I wanted them delivered to my shop.

Because UPS has a weight limit for the items that they can handle, Ramsond went ahead and used a company called Central Transport, there in Detroit. You think you know about couriers - until they show their true colors.

Central Transport was nothing but a headache from day one. Once a tracking # was issued by Home Depot/Ramsond, trying to get that information to come up on CT's page was a nightmare. I had to call CT and have them give me their issued tracking #. Wow! No one told me about this minor glitch.

Once I got that information, I was able to track the order - sort of.

Trying to talk to CT in Odessa, TX to see when my order would be delivered was like trying to talk to the head of the CIA. They weren't getting up off of any information. I got alot of "yeah, yeah, yeah's". The guy told me that it would be on a truck that could handle the AC's being offloaded. Three days I waited. Different excuse everyday. Finally, when the truck did in fact show up, it was at the end of the day, the very last delivery and it only had the large unit on it, and it was less than fifty pounds in weight and the box was clearly damaged and not all there. The little unit wasn't even on the truck and the driver was totally ignorant and this was his last stop, so there was no other items to confuse things.

Later that night I was checking the reviews for CT and come to find out that company deals in theivery. Many, many people have reported lost shipments and damaged items, empty boxes delivered, etc., by CT and CT basically ignores the customers. Like, what's that idiot customer gonna do? So, CT feels that they can do whatever they want, whenever they want and all they do when you call is "yeah, yeah, yeah" you.

I refused the shipment when it arrived at the end of the day. Home Depot tried to break bad on me and tell me that it was my fault for refusing the shipment and I was forced to explain to them that accepting a partial, damaged order isn't to my benefit, if Home Depot cannot make sure that I get what I paid for, then I'm going to hold them responsible for not fulfilling their part of the transaction.

So, after a month of this madness, the Resolution team agrees to refund my money. Once they did that and I had the money back, I placed the order once more and had the order deliver to the store just to make sure that the order would in fact deliver. No, it didn't quite work out that way.

June 21, I placed the order a second time and waited.

The one thing that I can say about Home Depot from personal experience is that they do not communicate with their customers. I had to do the calling, chase down the people who were supposed to know. And guess what? They were not easy to get in touch with and when I did manage to catch one, they didn't know nothing. They would check and get back with me. Right. They never did. I have yet to hear from anyone at Home Depot.

So, another month passes, it's over 120 degrees here in TEXAS. The shop is even hotter.

I finally call Ramsond and talk with Gary. He's their only customer service person. He stated that he personally saw the units leave the dock. The big one went out with CT and the little one went UPS. He saw it.

After no arrival, no word from anyone, no nothing, I call Ramsond back and talk to Gary. It seems that the smaller unit came back damaged. UPS never said it received that package. A label had been created weeks ago, but UPS never took possession of it - but it came back damaged. Had Gary been in touch with me? Not even close! But, he said he would see that another unit would be shipped out. The big one that CT had did in fact make it undamaged to the Del Rio store. Just took 3 weeks to arrive at the Del Rio store on August 3. The small unit arrived there on August 8th.

I finally met with the store manager there in Del Rio on the 8th when I came to pick up the smaller unit. It was a very unfortunate meeting. The manager basically explained to me that the store itself knows nothing about orders that go through them directly to the manufacturer to be delivered. The store knows nothing and can't help the customer because they are essentially "out of the loop". How stupid is that? You order through Home Depot, but they aren't involved? Everyone gets their money immediately, but the customer may or may not get what they paid for. What kind of society are we living in here? Retail didn't use to be that way.

The best the manager could do was offer me one hundred and sixty dollar credit toward my next in store purchase. I pay thirty five hundred dollars for 2 AC units and go through three months (ninety days) of trying to get what I paid for and he offers me one hundred and sixty dollar credit? Yeah, whatever dude!

And for anyone who is interested - if you want to take Home Depot to Small Claims court - good luck with that. It seems that Home Depot spends so much time in Small Claims court that their lawyers don't even bother showing up for cases. They live in court. Why? Because of their less than honest business practices! Going to court solves nothing and if by chance the customer does win, Home Depot fights to have the judgment questioned for years. The customer ends up with nothing in the end. You don't have to look far to see all of this on the net.

What a sad world we live in.

I was in Kingsville, TX helping my son move. We needed a 15 foot truck and I started looking at the U-Haul locations there in town. I started out at Farmer's Exchange on 14th Street. The gentleman was exceptionally nice and helpful, but did not have the truck that I needed, so he called around until he found one. Unfortunately for me, it was located at TCB. Here's my experience.

Upon arriving at TCB, I was informed by a woman at a window that I had to wear a mask even when outside on their property. Those rules obviously did not apply to the staff, because the maintenance man was moving back and forth from inside to outside without one. When I informed her that I didn't have a mask, she insinuated that she would RENT me one. I found that gesture to be quite unusual to say the very least.

Trying to talk to this woman was like trying to speak to someone who only spoke in a foreign language and her attitude didn't help.

Sure, she had the truck, but she wasn't going to rent it to me because it was a one way rental and she only did in town rentals. You see, she likes to maintain control over having all the vehicles. And she reserves the right to rent to whom she chooses.

She wanted me to give her a secondary phone number as a courtesy. I told her that I could not give her a secondary phone number and she basically rolled her eyes and refused to help me any further. When I started questioning her about what she was doing, she told me to leave the property or she would call the cops and have me arrested.

U-Haul used to be a great company years ago, but it seems that with the change in corporate, it has become a place of business where depending on your look, gender, attitude, etc., determines whether you will be able to do business with this company.

U-Haul really screwed itself by hiring this "woman". Someone needs to be checking her out; maybe a few corporate people need to swing on by as customers and try to do business with her and see what happens. They may be quite surprised at what they experience.

To say the very least, I was insulted and treated as if I were an enemy. IF (and that's a big IF), I have to do any moving again in Kingsville, I will see the gentleman at the Farmer's Exchange, if he cannot help me, I will find another moving company. No more U-Haul for me! It's simply not worth it.

I ordered some Mongolian Fire Oil and Nature's Way Broad Spectrums from them and did so on a weekend. Monday morning the order was in the mail - FEDEX no less. The package delivered on time, but the manager where I am staying thought it was his and took it home. When I questioned him about it, he said it never delivered - not mine anyway. So, I called Vitacost and without any hassle at all, they offered to put another order in the mail immediately. When the manager brought in my package and apologized to me for not paying attention, I called Vitacost and explained what happened and they offered for me to keep the 2nd order as a "gift". It had already been scheduled to be picked up by FEDEX, but I was willing to return it to them and they said "No, please accept it as a gift". And I did.

Absolutely no complaints here! Will do business with this company again. Easy to communicate with and understanding.

I ordered a lift kit for my truck/trailer about two weeks ago. At first, with the first 2 orders there was confusion and AutoAnything canceled the orders. Problem - they never contacted me to let me know. And the reason for cancellation both times was a delivery address issue. It was several days before I contacted them each time only to find out that the order had been canceled. Finally, on the 3rd try, with the help of customer service and the accounting department, we finally got a workable order done. I never thought it would be so complicated.

After all was said and done, they gave me the part at cost and charged no tax. They ate the shipping cost and I basically paid the listed price for it. Then Fedex fouled everything up.

When I did contact AutoAnything by either live chat or phone they were always attentive and helpful. I found that communication was the key here and they tried.

When Fedex finally decided to release the package that they were holding hostage (for no apparent reason); I found that the kit was very stout and in excellent condition (new). It is what I wanted and I hope that all will go well with the install.

Would I use AutoAnything again? Probably. I would just request from them that they not use Fedex as their delivery agent and also to remember that communication with the customer is critical.

I have to say that this was the ABSOLUTE WORST shipping experience with Fedex that I have EVER HAD. EVER. And I don't want to ever have to repeat it either.

I ordered a lift kit from AutoAnything and they paid Fedex 2day shipping to get it to me. Guess what Fedex did? Made it last 7 days.

I'm currently in Fairbanks, AK. The part was being shipped out of Lansing, MI. It left the facility okay, Made it from Lexington, KY to Anchorage, AK okay. And that's where everything stopped. Fedex kept it in Anchorage for THREE DAYS. No word, no explanation. No delivery date. Nothing.

I had to contact Fedex live chat in order to find out what was going on. All in all, I had to talk to Fedex at least 3 times. They had to open 2 cases regarding this package. The funny thing is, the minute I contacted them the first time, Fedex contacted me back and explained that the package was being held for border issues. Why? It didn't cross any borders. It was flown into Anchorage from the states.

As soon, as Fedex called me, the package was mysteriously back en route again. And amazingly, it only took 2 hours to get from Anchorage to Fairbanks. How did they do it?

Then it stalled for 2 more days in Fairbanks. I had to chat with Fedex again twice. I asked them if they were planning on keeping the package indefinitely or were they going to eventually release it? The customer service rep opened another case, promised that Fedex would contact me (which they never did) and as soon as the third chat ended, the package was mysteriously scanned onto a truck for delivery within 15 minutes. How does this happen?

Needless to say, a Fedex 2day delivery turned into a Fedex 7day delivery and would not have delivered then if I hadn't BEGGED them to release my package.

And quite honestly, I was expecting my package to be destroyed when it finally delivered. I figured Fedex would have used it as a basketball or football. I was surprised to see it intact actually. Very surprised. Mystified almost.

Upon receipt of the package, I did contact AutoAnything back and suggested to them that they get their shipping charges reimbursed since the order to deliver wasn't honored. They thanked me for the information.

Keep up the good work Fedex, you're making the US Postal Service look REAL GOOD!