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A few weeks ago, we made the decision that it was time to get some furniture for the deck. We had been hemming and hawing on this for over three years (pretty much ever since we moved into the house) and finally settled on a wrought iron set from Home Depot.

Now, since I don’t have a truck, picking up a table and four chairs was going to be a problem. I’ve abused my friendship with folks who have trucks enough over the years, so I decided to cough up the freight costs ($65) and have them delivered.

I ordered them on 6 July. The Depot shipped them on 9 July, from Alabama, via some no name shipper Non Stop Delivery. They finally showed up yesterday, almost. When the delivery got here, I had a table and two chairs. The driver tried to tell me that that was all I ordered. I explained that I’d actually ordered 2 sets of chairs (2 to a box). She called the warehouse, and they said they didn’t have the second set of chairs. So I noted the discrepancy on the receipt, made a copy and took my 2 chairs and table to the deck.

After getting things settled down for the night, I called the Depot’s customer service number. The essentially told me to call the shipper and gave me some phone numbers. The first one went to some dude name Mike’s voicemail. Mike doesn’t even create his own outgoing message, so I assumed that he’d be worthless. I tried the second number they gave me.

I got a hold of someone there who was happy to help me, though at first she told me that the Depot had only shipped one set of chairs. Fortunately, I have the packing slip which shows 2 sets. I told her that I had it and she said she’d call the warehouse.

Two hours later, I get a call back, the chairs are at “a” ware house, but not theirs, in Baltimore. She doesn’t know when they will be at “their” ware house, but when they get there, I will get a call.

So the lesson learned here is, bug your friends for thier truck and save yourself $65 on shipping.