Aking Care Of Customers: You Got That Right on Home Services

Nov

Aking Care Of Customers: You Got That Right

posted by admin in Home Depot

According to a media story in the December 18, 1995 issue of the Fairfield County (CT) Business Journal, in November of 1995, a lawsuit was filed in Stamford, CT Superior Court, claiming that two Home Depot employees at a Danbury store refused to accept a customer’s return of a $155 thermostat. The lawsuit claims that the Home Depot employees called a Jamaican-born customer a nigger and threatened to beat him. According to the suit, the customer did not have a receipt for the thermostat, and was not offered a refund or a store credit. The plaintiff claims he saw a white woman exchange merchandise for cash without a receipt. The customer claims he told a Home Depot employee: I bet if a white person were returning this thermostat, you wouldn’t give them such a hard time. To which, the Home Depot employee is alleged to have responded: You got that right.

After some arguing took place, another Home Depot employee came over, and the customer stated he had no intention of leaving the store until this matter was taken care of. The customer claims that the 2nd. Home Depot employee said: If you don’t shut up, I’m going to kick your black ass and have you arrested. The customer says he was crying, humiliated and extremely upset. As he was leaving the store, he told the Home Depot employees: You’ll hear from my lawyer, to which the second employee allegedly replied: Whatever, nigger.

The lawyer representing the customer says she can’t sue Home Depot on civil rights grounds, because a private company can discriminate as much as they want to. Instead, the claim was filed as an unfair trade practice, because Home Depot did not follow their own return policy, which permits returns of merchandise without a receipt in exchange for a store credit. Customers must have an ID for record keeping purposes, and can’t make more than three claims in any 12 month period.