1/5

posted Mar-24-2010

"DO NOT ORDER FROM THIS COMPANY.

I am remodeling my home and I installed a fancy "car wash" shower that requires 6 body sprays. I ordered six identical Danze body sprays from HomeCenter.com on February 25. Today is March 24, and I JUST received the second batch after quite a headache dealing with this company. The things that I ordered are simple shower faucets available from multiple places. They are not fancy or special-order. Here is my story:

I ordered the body sprays. The website said that they were in stock. I received an email on February 26 saying that the body sprays would ship on March 2. On March 4 I had heard nothing, so I emailed the company and inquired about the status of my order. I did not receive a direct reply to my inquiry, but miraculously, the next day HALF of my order shipped. They sent me only three of the body sprays. To repeat, I ordered six identical items, and the website said that they were all in stock. They sent me an email with a tracking number that said that they had only shipped 3 items, and I did try to contact them to see if that was some sort of a clerical error. I was to unable to reach anyone by phone and my email inquiry went unanswered, so I decided to wait and see what arrived--hoping that it was just a paperwork mistake and that they had shipped all six. The package arrived March 10, and it only contained 3 of the items. I immediately tried to call. I spent 25 minutes on hold waiting for customer service. Then I hung up and tried to call as if I was placing a new order. That time I reached a representative within a few minutes, but after I explained why I was calling he was unable to help me and he transferred me back to customer service, where I was on hold for 35 minutes. I hung up. Then my boyfriend called. He just put his desk phone on speaker and worked while he waited. After 45 minutes on hold he spoke with Stacy Perry who said that they had to order the other three items directly from Danze. She said that they would place the order that day and have them in four days, and that it would take an additional four days to get to me. However, according to Stacy, if I wanted to pay some additional fees, they would be able to get them to me a lot faster. She did not have an explanation as to why I was not contacted when only half of my order could be shipped, or why my email inquiry was ignored. Also, even though they had not yet ordered the items from Danze, and they did not possess the items in question, I would have been charged a 25% restocking fee if I wanted to cancel the rest of the order and get them from somewhere else. I don’t know how they could “restock” something that they did not even have in stock, but. . . My boyfriend told her to that we did not wish to pay any extra and instructed her to proceed as originally agreed. To be clear: They had nothing invested in the other three body sprays. Yet they wanted to charge me to cancel the order. I took my chances to avoid arguing with them. I waited 9 days without hearing anything before calling again. I once again spent 45 minutes on hold, and found out that they had shipped the items on March 18. They emailed me a tracking number at my request. I received the items today. Luckily, they appear to be in good condition.

Those are the objective facts of my experience that can be proved with emails and tracking information from UPS. Now, here my subjective thoughts. First, I believe that calls to this company are not even patched through to anyone for 45 minutes. I find it odd that hold times seem to stand right at about 45 minutes before someone picks up. I think that they rely on people getting frustrated and hanging up. Emails to this company will NEVER be answered with anything other than a canned reply that may or may not even pertain to your question, so don't even bother.

I also agree with so many other posters who say that this company exists to charge people ridiculous fees with very little intention of ever delivering anything. Why else would they wait until I inquired to ship anything? I think that they were hoping that I would cancel so that they could charge me a cancellation fee. Why wouldn't they have ordered the remaining three body sprays immediately upon realizing that their inventory was short, instead of waiting for me to ask? Why would they ship half of an order without any communication or explanation? I believe that this company is a sham, and I would say that they should go out of business, but if they do, they'll just open up under another name and keep scamming people. I wish that this company would be criminally prosecuted, because I believe that they are ripping people off. Yes, they appear to have the lowest prices. But how much is that worth if you either have to beg them to actually ship what you order or pay fees to cancel things that they possibly never intended to ship in the first place? The sad thing is that I have quite a bit of remodeling left to do, and if I had had a good experience with this company, I would have been able to give them more business. But I feel like I am this company’s worst nightmare: I’m a patient person who had the time to wait on the phone and also the time to wait to have my items delivered, so they had to fulfill their agreement with me. If I HAD complained to my credit card company, there is no way that they would have won, so they were forced to actually deliver what they promised for the price that they originally offered. I want to be very clear about this so that hopefully someone else will be spared the headache: I believe that this company is in the business of making money off of fees, which I believe equates to stealing from people. I have learned my lesson, and from now on I will research a company before ordering from them. And I will never order from HomeCenter.com again.

DO NOT ORDER FROM THIS COMPANY. ALL OF THESE REVIEWS CANNOT BE WRONG. "

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1/5

posted Mar-01-2010

"Let me add my nightmare to all of the others. I ordered a faucet December 14th and they shipped it correctly. I subsequently changed my mind and emailed them that I wanted to return it on 12/18/09. I submitted all of the necessary information and received a return authorization on 12/21/09. I shipped the faucet via FedeX on 12/23/09 in the original box, which I had never opened. I've waited patiently for my refund. After the 30 days, I've tried calling but the mailbox for the return department is always full. I emailed and got a standard reply that they received my email. I've tried calling numerous times choosing any number on the menu trying to get a live person. No luck. The online status says "Waiting for Brian to Credit". I give up. Today I turned it over to American Express as a dispute. I've never received such poor service from any company, much less on the internet."

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1/5

posted Jan-19-2006

"I ordered a tub and a shower seat and was told they would arrive within 4-6 weeks. Tub did not arrive until after 6 weeks, even though Customer Service told me on consecutive days it had arrived and would ship that day or the next. Follow up calls confirmed both Customer Service people I spoke with were wrong. I asked for a credit of my shipping, but they only credited me 50% of the shipping.

In addition, the shower seat still has not arrived after 8 weeks! They could not give me an estimated time of arrival, so I finally canceled it and found it somewhere else that promised to ship the next day (and it was cheaper).

Bottom Line: Bad customer service (and rude!) Slow shipping. Better deals are out there. Avoid the hassle."

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1/5

posted Jan-25-2003

"Received a bogus ship date from the vendor after the order. After a week of calling, they can't even provide me a tracking number. The customer service persons are rude. Takes a long time to talk to a live person. Usual hold time of 15 minutes just to get a tracking number of my shipment. Stiff restocking fee is there with every order. They keep telling me that the items have been shipped, but they can't provide me a tracking number. This is the worst on-line purchase experience I've ever had. I strongly discourage users to use this web site. They don't seemed to stock anything. So, when they get your order, they might order their items from mfgrs/wholesalers and wait for the parts to arrive at their site, then send parts to you after they get them. I am not sure on this, but it's my gut feeling. Otherwise, why can't they verify stock availability and ship the items they have in stock in the same week? I hope I can get my items. I would be happy to seem them."

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1/5

posted Mar-01-2005

"This online store is terrible. I ordered two items that were shown "in stock". First, they automatically give a "ship date" two weeks after the order is placed. After waiting three weeks, I tried to contact the seller via their site and e-mail. After another ten days, I placed a call to their service number; after over 20 minutes on hold, I got an rep and gave my invoice number. After another 10 minutes, I was told that neither product was available, nor had it been for sewveral months! I was given no apology or other explanation."

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1/5

posted Apr-15-2009

"This store is over rated at 1.59.
I ordered a new faucet and after delivery on 3/31/09 the box was open with a broken seal and when I removed the faucet water dripped all over me. I contacted this company and they insulted me by telling me that they test all faucets.
I can't believe that these people would open a factory sealed faucet and water test them all.
Trying to contact them by telephone is useless. You may be waiting for long,long,long time. They told me to hangup the phone and try emails. They work faster that way. They really don't want to talk to you.
Save yourself some grief and go to someone dependable. I will never again consider ordering anything from this company.
Here is an answer from Homecenter's email: "All manufacturers items are inspected before packaging which would indicate the water dripping from the faucet".
One of the faucets had to be reassembled. If they inspected this item they would have noticed that. I guess what they are saying is the customer is always wrong and that was confirmed by a call from Homecenter. I am not using the faucet yet as they say because the water supply is not connected yet. Water connected now, 5/09, mounting flange (back plate) leaked due to defective casting. Waiting for mfr replacement parts to repair faucet. Good service from mfr."

This review was modified by hsimas on May 18 2009 06:28:35 AM

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1/5

posted Mar-09-2010

"They sent me a broken faucet. It took them 30days to contact me about sending the broken faucet back. Every time I try to contact them they do not reply to any of my emails. The phone option for customer services never picks up. The option for the returns department simply disconnects your call. The sales people refuse to connect you to anyone in customer support and simply transfer the call to a number the is never answered. To make matters worse there is no 1-800 numbers. They do not have any replacement faucets in stock to send me so I asked for my money back. They are now charging me a 25% re-stocking fee (about 100$) for the broken faucet they sent me because it is considered a return even if I wanted a replacement but they didn’t have one in stock. It is now over two months and they have both the broken faucet and all my money. DO NOT BUY FROM THESE CRIMINALS, YOU WILL BE SORRY!!!
"

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1/5

posted Mar-19-2009

"Beware of this company they will screw you .
Should of did a little research on this company though this site and BBB.
What people are say about canceling their order is true beware of this company,
or better yet don’t use them.
"

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1/5

posted Feb-24-2010

"All these reviews about nightmares are dead on correct.

My advice is do not order from HomeCenter.com unless the prices are 1/2 of what others sell for AND you have 2+ months to spare before you need anything. And even then you probably just shouldn't bother anyway.

For those that care for the details...here's a summary of what I went through:

I placed my order on 1/17/2010, and the system improperly calculated the 7.5% discount (came up with some random 5.32% or so number). I contacted them about this immediately following my order, and that was actually taken care of by the time they charged my credit card a couple of days later.

My order contained about 20 items totalling over $1000. I was informed by the order status page that about 5 of the items were in stock and would ship on 1/19/2010, and the rest were on backorder and estimated 2/19/2010 as the ship date. This was okay as the only items needed early on were rough in valves, and they were in the 1/19/2010 group.

I expected to receive that first batch of items at least by the end of January, so I used the web form on 2/1/2010 to inquire about them, but got nothing more than an automated message with a ticket #.

I also called in on 2/2/2010 about this and after waiting on hold for over 30 minutes, the person on the phone informed me that there was some problem in the warehouse, but could not get a clear answer why the items didn't ship. I was also told that because it was the warehouse's mistake, they were going to ship those items next-day at their expense, and that I would also receive a tracking number via email.

Over a week goes by and on 2/10/2010 I finally receive a reply to my online inquiry from 2/1/2010 with a template style response. I specifically asked about the portion of my order that was supposed to have shipped weeks prior, and the person, Lawrence Griffith clearly didn't read that and even decided to close the ticket without any resolution.

I promptly responded asking my question again, and asking for an actual human response as to what is going on. The next day, 2/11/2010, Stacey Perry posted an *automated* message which once again did not answer my original question. I received no email notification of this response, and just happend to log back in and check up on it a few days later.

I then called on 2/16/2010 about all this, and waited on hold for another 27 minutes before anyone answered. I explained that I understood part of my order was on backorder, and that I only wanted to know about the portion of my order that was to have shipped almost a month prior. After another 10 minutes on hold I was told that all of the rest of my items (originally scheduled to ship on 2/19/2010) were now in stock and would be shipping out the next day. As for the original items, they never did ship them overnight as promised and they were supposedly going to arrive with the rest of the order.

I asked to speak with a supervisor about this, and was transferred to the voicemail of Brian (no last name). I left a detailed message, but still never received any correspondence from him.

On 2/22/2010 two ground shipped packages arrived out of nowhere. One contained a portion of the items that were supposed to ship on 1/19/2010 (that were also supposed to be shipped overnight). The other contained a portion of the items that were supposed to ship on 2/19/2010. But I was still missing some items from each batch!

I replied once again to my online ticket stating all of the above, asked once again where the rest of the stuff is. No reponse.

Called on 2/24/2010 and left another voicemail for Brian the supervisor, but I did not really expect any response from that. So I called once again on 2/24/2010 and waited on hold for 50 minutes before someone answered. I gave my order # and this ticket # and was immediately put on hold for another 10 minutes.

Despite the fact that "half of the systems were down" according to the rep, I finally got tracking numbers for my 3 packages, 2 of which were already delivered 2 days prior. The other should be arriving today according to UPS.

So all in all, the poor communications of this company has cost quite a bit of time on both sides. Considering all the delays, the several hours total that I've spent waiting on hold, and what I get paid per hour, it hardly makes their low prices worth the trouble. For this reason, I will NOT be ordering again from this company."

This review was modified by drcheaphc on February 24 2010 10:05:10 AM

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1/5

posted Dec-18-2008

"Very dissatisfying shopping experience with Homecenter.com. Made purchase of sink based on item availability provide by Customer Service. Tried to cancel order after finding that item is not available and order lead-time 4-6 weeks. Merchant simply ignored request for order cancellation even before order been processed, forcing me to bye item from them. I refused to accept any shipments from them and open dispute with credit card. Merchant provided false information to dispute investigator regarding order cancellation stating that order never been canceled. Think twice, starting business with this merchant - they lure you with lower prices, but they do not care what happen after they received money. Stay away from Homecenter.com
Comment to replay from Homecenter.com:
I have sent request for cancellation to cancel@homecenter.com and even received the automated reply from merchant's website (unfortunately I can not provide copies of emails I exchange with Homecenter.com, this site policy prohibits such postings). Nothing has been done after reply to cancel order, even before merchant has processed it (prior to cancellation I did not received any email confirmed that order been processed with tracking # and delivery dates). Instead, I tried to convince somebody named Bryan Okin, who deliberately ignored my cancellation request and shipped items to justify restocking fee and shipping charge, that I simply do not want to do any business with Homecenter.com. I made that decision after learning that promised in-stock item could be delivered in 4-6 weeks, unreliable customer service and reading review on Resellrratings.com, I agree, Homecenter.com returned $256.76 from initial charge of $469.60 , but ignoring customer's request for cancellation and providing false information to credit card company , stating that they never received request for order cancellation, Homecenter.com earned 212.84 just hiding behind predatory policy.
Homecenter.com will do anything to get your money, even if you do not want their service. Be aware!
"

This review was modified by uminskiy on December 29 2008 11:28:09 PM

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