Office Depot

Full review
Introduction
When it came time to choose another compact refrigerator for our home, I chose Office Depot. I had used them for my first compact refrigerator and liked that they offered free home delivery on orders over $50. Since my order totalled more than $150 I took advantage of that free delivery.

Ordering and Checkout
Finding the items you want at Office Depot's online web store is simple. You can choose from a set of categories, or you can search for an item.

Once you locate the item you want to purchase, simply add it to your cart. Continue adding items until you are ready to check out.

Office Depot uses 128-bit SSL encryption for their checkout services, ensuring that your credit card is safe.

Your order will be shipped from the Office Depot closest to you using Office Depot's own delivery service, not UPS or FedEx. When you start your shopping experience online at Office Depot, they prompt you for your zip code. They use this zip code to determine what is in stock at the store nearest you.

When you check out, their warehouse processes your order and sends it out to be delivered within one business day.

I ordered my Office Depot merchandise on Friday morning. I was promised my order on Monday.

Waiting for the Delivery
I was home all day long yesterday, the day that Office Depot promised delivery. No one came to the door to drop off our refrigerator.

I tracked the order online all day long, watching as my order status went from "Out for Delivery" to:

Tracking Info: 10 Customer not available
Status: Not Delivered
Delivery Date/Time 08/18/2003

This was a load of ... well, you know. I had been at home all day long and in fact, I was there waiting on the Office Depot delivery person to show up.

The truck never showed up at our house and the delivery person never even attempted to deliver our refrigerator.

Customer Service? What a Waste!
I called Office Depot's customer service number to let them know that we were home and wanted our item delivered, as promised. I got on the phone with a bland support person who kept on saying, "It says right here that our driver attempted delivery." She even double checked my address and said, "Yes, our driver went to your house. You weren't there."

No matter how much I tried to convince her that no I hadn't stepped out, and that I was in the front room of our house all day working and would have seen and heard the truck had it even come down our street, she just kept saying, "Clearly you must have stepped out. Our driver says that he tried to deliver your item but no one was home."

The customer is always right - unless you're a customer of Office Depot.

By the time I called customer service at 3:30PM, I was informed that it was "too late" for them to make the delivery for the day. They promised to deliver it today.

It is now 1:00PM. The status still reads that the customer is unavailable, and that the delivery attempt has been cancelled. I have phoned Office Depot four times to try and get a confirmation of when this order will be delivered, and they say they can't give that to me. They just keep saying that it will be delivered, while their website tells me that the delivery is still cancelled.

More and more it's looking like I will have to cancel this order and go to Staples to purchase the same refrigerator.

Bottom Line
Office Depot's delivery personnel don't seem to actually bother showing up to deliver their products. And their customer service department doesn't seem to care much. I guess you can't expect good service when you get "free delivery" from Office Depot, but I expected to at least get the item that I purchased last week.

Update
5:35PM today. Order never showed. I called to cancel my order. They said they would "try" to process my cancellation but that it might still get delivered.

Unbelievable.

Now I'm in limbo. I don't want to go buy the refrigerator from Staples on the chance that I will come home and find it sitting on my doorstep. I'll have to wait a few days for the mess that Office Depot created to clear out before I know whether or not I should buy a refrigerator from a brick-and-mortar store or not.

This is my last purchase from Office Depot.