Maytag 25.3 Cubic Foot Side-by-Side Stainless Steel Refrigerator (Model # MSD2576VEM)

Maytag 25.3 Cubic Foot Side-by-Side Stainless Steel Refrigerator (Model # MSD2576VEM)

We purchased a $1600 Maytag 25.3 Cubic Foot Side-by-Side Stainless Steel Refrigerator (Model # MSD2576VEM) through Home Depot's website (www.HomeDepot.com) on November 26, 2011, just over two years ago. It is now a 250 pound door stop!

A $1600 refrigerator should last more than two years and 120 days, but this one died last week when the condenser failed, an $863.46 repair. 

When I called Home Depot to see if they stood behind the faulty products they sell, I was told "we're so sorry for your troubles, let me connect you with Maytag". I told the individual that the Maytag warranty was for 12 months, parts and labor, and that my MasterCard extended warranty added an additional 12 months to the warranty, expiring less than 4 months ago. I asked again "are you going to stand behind this product" and was told "I'm sorry, but you'll have to contact Maytag" … WRONG ANSWER!

How can a $1600 appliance fail after just two years? Because it is garbage. Why will Home Depot and Maytag NOT stand behind their products? Because they can! These companies could care less that one of their products failed just as Apple Inc. could care less that their products are junk, and only because individual consumers just do not count. If I do not buy another Maytag or Home Depot product, which I will not do, it means nothing to their bottom line. They only care about large losses and knowing that people care only about themselves, they know all too well that we will not unite and boycott their products and services, so they blow us off. Being the owner of two homes, one a rental property, I spend several thousand dollars each year at Home Depot. As a Home Depot, Inc. and Maytag Corporation shareholder (large cap mutual funds), I have serious concerns when the companies I am part owner of fail customers with faulty products and poor support. You should too!

I refuse to spend another penny, much less $863.46, to repair a two-year old Maytag refrigerator which should last at least 10-15 years. This is not the first problem I have had with Home Depot and have only continued as a customer because the nearest Lowe's is over 30 miles away. This was my first Maytag appliance, even though I had heard terrible things about their products prior to purchase, AND MY LAST.

I hope I can save at least one person the same grief and expense we have suffered at the hands of Home Depot and Maytag by writing this review. Hopefully, enough people will read it and Home Depot and Maytag will get the message, but I am not counting on it because THEY DON'T CARE, THEY DON'T HAVE TO!

No surprise, BOTH REVIEWS (Home Depot and Maytag) WERE REJECTED! "Your opinion is very important to us, but ...". Give me a break! Here are the emails I received:

From: Maytag <noreply@messages.maytag.com>
Date: Friday, March 28, 2014 at 1:33 PM
To: Chris Sorrentino <combatcritic@gmail.com>
Subject: Your Review has been Rejected

Hello CombatCritic, Your opinion is very important to us and the Maytag community. We appreciate you taking the time to write a review on Side-By-Side Refrigerator with Beverage Chillerâ≥¢ Compartment. Unfortunately your review did not meet ourguidelines for posting on our site for the following reason(s): To protect your privacy, our publication guidelines do not permit the mention of such personal information as your name, phone number, email address, or postal address. Also, it does not permit the use of derogatory comments or profanity. We encourage you to review our guidelines and resubmit your review on Side-By-Side Refrigerator with Beverage Chillerâ≥¢ Compartment. Thanks for being an active member of the maytag community. Sincerely, Team Maytag You may contact maytag with questions or concerns related to customer support and satisfaction. This email was sent by: Maytag 553 Benson Road Benton Harbor, MI, 49022, USA

From: The Home Depot <HomeDepotCustomerCare@email.homedepot.com>
Date: Friday, March 28, 2014 at 8:34 AM
To: Chris Sorrentino <combatcritic@gmail.com>
Subject: Your review has been rejected

Your community engagement helps other customers get the right products for their projects Please add HomeDepotCustomerCare@email.homedepot.com to your address book. Learn how.

Hello CombatCritic, Thank you for taking the time to provide your feedback about 25.3 cu. ft. Side-by-Side Refrigerator in Monochromatic Stainless Steel. Your insight is very important to us and the other Home Depot customers who will read about your product experience. Unfortunately, your review did not meet our guidelines to be eligible for publication on our site. We want to post your review, so please remember to omit references to other websites and do not include URL links. We encourage you to look over our guidelines below and resubmit your review regarding 25.3 cu. ft. Side-by-Side Refrigerator in Monochromatic Stainless Steel. Writing Guidelines We want to publish your review, so please follow these writing guidelines: Focus on the product Avoid writing about customer service issues - instead, contact us to discuss your concerns Do not mention competitors or the specific price you paid Do not include any personally identifiable information such as your full name or address Thanks for being an active member of The Home Depot community. Sincerely, The Home Depot Team If you have questions regarding the submission and approval process, please call us at 1-800-466-3337 (1-800-HOME-DEPOT). - SAVINGS CENTER  |   LOCAL AD  |   STORE FINDER

Please do not reply to this email. To contact us, click

"I am sorry to inform you Maytag and Home Depot, but" ... 
CombatCritic Gives the Maytag MSD2576VEM Refrigerator, Home Depot, and Maytag Corporation 1 Out of 10 Bombs … MORE BOMBS ARE GOOD!

Key Words: Home Depot, home, depot, Maytag 25.3 Cubic Foot Side-by-Side Stainless Steel Refrigerator Model # MSD2576VEM, Maytag, Side-by-Side, Stainless, Steel, Refrigerator, Model, MSD2576VEM, CombatCritic, combat, critic

Great idea … bad product! (Defiant 180° Motion Activated Solar LED Floodlight)

Great idea … bad product!

REVIEW: Defiant 180° Motion Activated Solar LED Floodlight

I purchased a Defiant 180° Motion Activated Solar LED Floodlight on-sale ($79.95) at Home Depot less than a month ago.  I read the reviews beforehand and, although mixed, most were very positive and the rating average on HomeDepot.com was well over 4 out of 5 stars, a pretty good bet!  What do they say about gambling?  The house always wins?  I lost this bet folks.

We have a dark area on the side of our 150+ year-old house and I thought I could save the expense of hiring an electrician to run electricity and install motion-activated floodlights ($150-$200) while being “Green”, saving electricity by utilizing the power of the Sun.  Great idea … bad product!

After reading the reviews, it was imperative that I follow the instructions to the letter.  Almost every reviewer mentioned charging the battery for a full 4 days prior to installation and that was exactly what I did.  I also tested the unit as instructed and everything seemed to work fine, at first.  The installation was straightforward and took about 15 minutes, not difficult.

Since then, the unit only comes on 50% of the time.  I return home after dark and park right in front of the light, so a vehicle the size of an SUV should easily trigger the motion sensor.  Sometimes it does, sometimes it does not.  I tried adjusting the sensors to various angles and changing the shut-off delay between two and three minutes (the only two options), but nothing seemed to work consistently.

When the light does illuminate, it is “adequate”, but being an LED, it has nowhere near the illuminating power of the electric floodlight in the rear of our home.  It is much better than nothing and does provide enough light to help see in the dark, but the light is so dim that it is nearly impossible to tell if the light is on or off when in the kitchen, adjacent to the light’s location.  One of the reasons we wanted the light was to alarm us if someone was lurking on the side of our home, trying to break-in or “peep” through the window.  Unfortunately, the light does not illuminate consistently enough to serve its intended purpose.

Based on the reviews I had read, I had a 70-80% chance of being satisfied with the product.  Maybe I am unlucky, like to 20-30% of reviewers appeared to be, but this product is a non-starter.  It is cheaply made and at $80 plus tax, not a bargain in the least.  The light, when it works, is dim and inadequate and only having worked half the time, a rip-off.  I am returning the light to Home Depot today for a refund a recommend you do not waste your valuable time or money on a product that, while a great idea, was poorly designed and brought to market before being perfected.  I do not know about you, but I do not enjoy wasting hours of my valuable time buying a product, charging it, installing it, testing it, adjusting it, testing it again, removing it, and returning it to the store where I bought it.  All that for $80?  I have better things to spend my time and money on, like an electrician!

Key Words: Home Depot, home, depot, Defiant, LED, motion, activated, solar, floodlight, energy, efficiency, efficient, product, faulty, poor, light, CombatActivist, institutional, terrorism, InstitutionalTerrorism

Home Depot (Lawrence, Kansas) Pulls Bait and Switch on Disabled Vet

We are moving to Lawrence, Kansas after losing my business, our home, and most possessions after the federal government and government contractors retaliated against me, illegally cancelling a $50,000 contract this past January and blacklisting my service-disabled veteran-owned small business because I "BLEW THE WHISTLE" AFTER WITNESSING AND REPORTING FRAUD, WASTE, AND ABUSE ON A GRAND SCALE LAST YEAR.

After being forced to give up our 4,200 square foot lakefront home, we are moving to a 1,000 square foot "fixer-upper" in Lawrence . We desperately need to install new floors in the Lawrence house after years of neglect, so we went to Home Depot (Lawrence, Kansas) to look for flooring.

The salesman, Robert Jenkins, a seemingly nice person of British descent, told us they were having a special on installation ... JUST $399 FOR A WHOLE HOUSE! We could hardly pass up a deal like that, particularly in our present financial situation, so we picked out the flooring we wanted and scheduled a measurement appointment for the next day (8/6/2013 - we were charged $50 that would be refunded upon completion of our order). 

I called the day after the measurement, being told that I would receive a call "as soon as the measurements were taken" (which never came), wanting to schedule installation as soon as possible because Robert had told me that installations were running three weeks out and we wanted to have the work done before we move-in.

Here comes the old "Bait and Switch"! I finally got a call at 8:30PM last night (8/7/2013) from a salesman stating that he had my quote. One of the type (of salesman) that love to hear their own voice and cannot listen to save their life, he started rattling off prices for the job that I estimated, based on what I was told in the store on 8/5/2013, at $2,200 after military discount (10%) and taxes.

He said the flooring was actually $300 cheaper than I expected because I had overestimated the square footage by 100, so things were looking good ... UNTIL HE STARTED LISTING THE THINGS WE WERE NOT INFORMED ABOUT IN THE STORE!

He went on: "you're going to need sub-flooring at 25¢ a square foot" ... Hey, wait a minute, nobody ever mentioned having to put in a sub-flooring at the store; he continued: "the installation of the sub-flooring and the quarter-round baseboards are an additional $400" ... baseboards? "Yes, THEY ARE REQUIRED and will cost an additional" ... I tuned-out at that point due to the shock of what I was hearing. When he said "that brings the grand total to $4,500" and change ... What? What happened to the $399 installation? "Oh, your order does not qualify for that special pricing". And I have to pay for baseboards and their installation that I never asked for? "You bet, we do not install flooring without new baseboards". At that point I was so pissed-off that I told him to take his bait and switch tactics and put them where the "SUN DON'T SHINE" in so many words or less.

I called Mr. Jackson this morning (8/8/2013) and told him what happened. He said their was some kind of mistake and that he would sort it out and get back to me shortly, knowing we were on a tight schedule and needed the floor installed BEFORE we move-in next week. Six hours later, Mr. Jackson called me and said "I was able to have the installation reduced to just seven hundred and some odd dollars, so now we are at only $4,000". After asking him why installation WAS NOT $399 as I had been told and to please itemize the bid, he had some information wrong, had to "fix" our estimate, and would get back to me in a few minutes ... THAT WAS OVER TWENTY-FOUR HOURS AGO!

I have been a loyal Home Depot customer for decades, driving past Lowes on dozens of occasions to spend tens of thousands over the past 25 years. The new house, which is over 100 years old, neglected, and in a desperate need of repair, we will likely spend tens of thousands of dollars more in the near future (if we can afford it) AND YOU KNOW WHAT? I WILL NOT BE PASSING BY LOWES ANYMORE!

Lowes also has a 10% discount for military and retirees, so they will be the recipients of my business and hard earned money from now on ... UNLESS ... Home Depot has the integrity to DO THE RIGHT THING and honor the promises made during our initial visit on 8/5/2013, which I highly doubt based on previous experience with large companies who could care less about customers, focusing on short-term greed and profit more than repeat business.

You KNOW why they think they can get away with treating us like shit? Because they do ... ROUTINELY ... and because most people do not have the backbone, the discipline, THE NUTS, to follow through with a commitment ... EVEN IF IT COSTS THEM MONEY ... THEIR SELF-RESPECT ... THEIR DIGNITY ... THEIR INTEGRITY!

That is exactly why the airlines treat us like crap ... THEY KNOW WE ARE GOING TO BUY THE CHEAPEST, MOST CONVENIENT TICKET NO MATTER WHAT THEY DO ... NO MATTER HOW BADLY THEY TREAT US! They act with impunity because they can, because people let them get away with it ... IT IS CALLED Institutional Terrorism and is the reason I started this blog ...

WELCOME TO THE "HALL OF SHAME" HOME DEPOT, YOU HAVE A DISTINGUISHED LIST OF NEIGHBORS, INCLUDING:

Verizon Wireless

CenturyLink

KMart

Best Buy JE Dunn Construction

Greater Kansas City YMCA

The Diocese of Kansas City, Missouri University of Missouri - Kansas City YMCA Governor Jay Nixon, Missouri

Missouri Department of Higher Education

US Department of Education Congressman Sam Graves (MO 6th District) Senators Claire McCaskill and Roy Blunt US Department of Interior MHN Government Services

Magellan Health Services Etc ... Etc ... Etc ...

Join me ON THE FRONT LINES IN THE BATTLE AGAINST INSTITUTIONAL TERRORISM ... THE FIGHT FOR OUR DIGNITY AND THE RIGHT TO STAND UP AND SAY "WE ARE MAD AS HELL AND ARE NOT GOING TO TAKE IT ANYMORE!"  DO YOU HAVE THE BALLS TO JOIN ME? WITHOUT THE MUTUAL, ORGANIZED SUPPORT WE CAN PROVIDE EACH OTHER, LARGE INSTITUTIONS WILL CONTINUE TO CRAP ON CUSTOMERS ... CITIZENS ... ANYBODY THAT GETS IN THE WAY OF POWER ... MONEY ... AND GREED.

UPDATE ...

To their credit, Home Depot contacted me shortly after writing this piece, offering to sell me the flooring at the price quoted by the salesman, nearly $2,000 less than they tried to get me to pay. I was quite impressed by their willingness to do the right thing. Unfortunately, they failed to tell me that the flooring was a "special order" and could not be installed until 2-3 weeks after we moved into the house. Being disabled and unable to move the heavy furniture and concerned about placing our furniture outdoors for two days, I had to refuse their offer and asked for a refund which they quickly processed. It was unfortunate that we could not get the new floor we wanted, but Home Depot went above and beyond in their willingness to make me, the customer, happy.

Home Depot has been removed from the HALL OF SHAME and I continue to shop there (unlike Best Buy, Verizon and others who were not willing to satisfy the customer).

CombatActivist ... OUT!

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