After posting my message this morning I called the Home Depot where I
bought the joiner and asked for the Tool Corral. The man who answered
is actually someone who is on the ball as I recognized his voice from
having spoken to him in the store. I wanted to see if they had another
joiner in stock that may not have been on the shelf or in their
overhead storage but sure enough the one I bought was the very last
one in the store. After reading the posts here I now know that there
should have been a zip tie of some sort around the cardboard outer
wrapper and the plastic case (there wasn't on the one I bought).
Looking at the box now I can see where one should have been. Since
others here have posted that their's were pristine coming out of the
box I have to assume that this was a return that was put back on the
shelf or that someone in the store was playing around with it. I don't
want to take any chances with my new baby. The store has some on order
and if that order is filled they should arrive on the 27th so I will
return this one for an unopened one hopefully within a week. I can
only pray that it will be as easy as going to customer service and
exchanging it without having the spend excess amounts of time or
having to talk to ten people to get the problem fixed. My blood
pressure has a tendency to rise when dealing with the BORG. Thanks for
all the feedback. Happy Holidays.

Dale

B a r r y B u r k e J r . wrote in message . ..
On Sun, 21 Dec 2003 20:10:55 -0800, wrote:

There are customers who buy a tool, use it, and return it,
taking care to make the packaging appear unopened. I have seen too
much of that in the past seven years working in a tool corral.

It's called free rental.

People did this to my buddy's musical instrument and equipment store
all the time. They would buy something like a wireless transmitter
for that special showcase gig, and return it on Monday. This practice
is also why the bicycle shop I work at part time will not accept a
return on a bike You can swap it for a different one, but we won't
take it back. We had college students doing this when they'd come to
town for two to three week summer courses.

I know some local tool dealers that operate with a similar policy.
Used tools can be exchanged for the same tool, the same tool in a
different brand, or a slightly different tool in the same family (like
a palm sander for a small ROS). This forces the free rental folks to
deal with the BORGs.


Barry