On 14 Nov 2005 14:35:34 -0800, the renowned
wrote:

Harold and Susan Vordos wrote:

Today I was in Home Depot, standing in line to pay for a couple rolls of
hardware cloth. In front of me was a gentleman, and I use that term
loosely, that had placed on the counter six one inch electrical PVC ells,
along with six couplings, each of which was attached to the ells. The
ells had their UPC stamped on them, but the connectors had a stick-on label.
To a woman clerk, that may or may not be wise to how such things look and
are used, it was very easy for the items to be scanned by the label only,
considering the UPC on the ells blended well with the other data printed
thereon.

Home Depot has some self service checkouts in some locations. Would
people be inclined to handle the situation differently if they saw it
at one of those?

HD doesn't have those here, but if they work like the grocery store
ones it would have been caught. The grocery store self-checkout lines
weigh the items as they are run up. Because of weighing tolerances, a
crook could probably get away with something small and high value
(saffron?) inside something heavy (stainless pot?), but I suspect the
human overseer would check that sort of thing.

Recently my dad bought many hundred $$ of stuff at HD, including an air
nailer. Got home, looked at the receipt and they had rung it up twice.
Drove many miles back, before correcting the charge they looked at the
security tape to verify there was only one purchased.

Sounds like they've been scammed on that before. I always have a
pretty good idea of what stuff will cost (including tax)- maybe within
a few percent- before I go to the checkout so that sort of thing
seldom gets by me (unless it's small in relation to the total), but
some people don't seem to add things up in their head as they go. It
helps with restaurant bills to know the total so you can fiddle for
the tip before the bill comes.

I returned a never opened, still sealed cordless drill kit bought there
when I found I could borrow one from a friend for the project instead.
They opened the package to check for the presence of the battery.
Interesting question what my recourse would have been if the battery
had been missing from the factory!

Take the drill back home, call up the manufacturer and tell them what
happened- chances are they would already know about it, that sort of
thing tends to happen in bunches, and they'd likely send out a new
battery immediately, then return it when you get the new battery. No
sweat (of course I live 10 minutes from two HD stores and pass them a
few times a week anyway, so the drive wouldn't be an issue).