Choose your answer: is the following review positive or negative?

This store needs to hire a professional manager with a customer and employee focused background. It is clear from the reviews and recent interactions that this store does not value either of its greatest assets. My brother Shovel S. posted his own review of his experience with this store. He was laying flooring and wanted to rent a floor sander in order to level some rough spots on the concrete before laying hard flooring. When he asked for this tool from tool rental the employee hooked him up with a floor scraper, the kind of device you would use to remove Kool Deck. He went home, read the manual and realized it is not the right tool for the job and went back asking to exchange for the right tool. The tool rental clerk and then an assistant manager were very rude to him and charged him over $100 because he left the store with a tool, even though it was the wrong tool and he didn't/couldn't use it. As if he is supposed to know what Home Depot's iteration of two such similar tools looks like there at the tool desk all wrapped up. He was just trying to get a job done on his precious weekend off. After much argument with the assistant manager who insisted that it was store policy to take his money without providing him the proper tool, he left the store with $109 less dollars than he walked in with and his day wasted. At this point he made a post to social media and I got involved. As a management professional, his story was so appalling that I was compelled to call the corporate number to get to the bottom of why if a tool rental employee gives a customer the wrong tool the customer ends up stuck paying for leaving the store with the employees mistake. The company does not have this policy in any other department. I have returned dead plants, half used cleaning products that didn't really work as advertise etc and had no hassle. Why would an unused rental tool be the subject of such a hard-line policy? While talking to corporate I gave them the store number for the location in Tempe by accident since they are on the same street. The manager from Tempe called me within half an hour but I realized it was the wrong store. I called corporate with the correction. Meanwhile the Tempe manager was quite appalled by what happened and made efforts to get the Laveen manager to make the situation right. The Tempe manager called my brother to reach out. The Laveen manager remained silent. Not a peep. I originally called corporate because the Laveen assistant manager claimed the hard-line policy on the tool rental was a corporate policy. According to the Tempe manager this is not true. I called to let them know that in the age of social media I and 200 of our friends had already seen his post about his experience being robbed and then insulted by the Home Depot manager. We happened to have 2 birthdays in our friend groups this past week and at both events this experience was openly discussed. I also told my neighbor across the street who I am close with. We are big time gardening enthusiasts and we maintain our yards as well as the yards of a couple of elderly and part time resident neighbors on our street just to keep the neighborhood beautiful. I spent nearly $1000 on plants and pool opening products this week and none of was purchased at HD as a result of this experience. The manager at the Laveen store STILL didn't call me or my brother back, despite my brother calling the manager repeatedly and my lodging a formal complaint with corporate and even accidentally getting the Tempe store manager involved! This is uncalled for. Every day this unprofessional manager held my brothers money and did not reach out to resolve what should never have been a problem to begin with was another day we talked, the saga continued to unfold on social media and now onto Yelp and the manager continued to not reach out. Finally, more than 48 hours later, fed up with being in limbo, having had the Tempe manager offer money out of his own pocket because of how ridiculous the situation was, my brother made a last call to Laveen and was finally able to talk to the manager. The manager did not call my brother; he had to call and leave messages repeatedly, have corporate leave messages and have the Tempe manager make calls on his behalf and finally get through because of his own efforts. The manager did process a refund of the $109 but the fact that it took 2 days and numerous phone calls and multiple people involved speaks of a highly ineffective manager with employees not even empowered to "make it right". If you value your project time, shop at Lowe's or Tempe Home Depot. This store doesn't have its act together and needs to invest in training. With all of the hassle they put my brother through, leaving him with his project still undone, it is my opinion that they owe him more than just a refund. If I was the manager he would have gotten a refund and 24 hours with the right tool on me.

Choose from: i. negative ii. positive
i.