The Bill For Our Fence
Last week, we bought vinyl fencing to replace our old wooden picket fence that was falling apart. I had estimated that the total cost was going to be about $600, based on an earlier trip to Home Depot to get prices, and the measurements we made in our back yard. My husband picked up the fencing on Saturday (and managed to get it loaded into the back of our Honda Civic – no easy feat!) and we’ve got about half of it installed so far.
When he got home, he told me that the total was over $700 – he had to buy some additional hardware that I hadn’t accounted for. But it still seemed really high. I looked at the receipt, and noticed that they had charged us $48/section for the fence. The week before, when I had gone to price everything, the sign by the sections said $40 each. We needed 9 sections, so that’s a big difference. My husband had to go back to Home Depot anyway, to pick up the rest of the fence, so he went and asked them about the price. Turned out that their computer had made a mistake – the price was indeed supposed to be $40 each. So our total came out to about $630 once everything was straightened out.
Always check your receipts! Especially with a big expensive project like this, it’s easy to overlook a small overcharge. But they can really add up.
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I’m glad you got THAT straightened out! Those people at HD are really crooked sometime. I used to work there, I know. They laugh about overcharging people and getting away with it. On the other hand, I’ve seen them take back those pre-decorated Christmas trees the day after Christmas for a full refund. They aren’t real bright.
wow – the christmas tree thing is pretty bad! My parents bought a 5 gallon bucket of drywall compound there, and discovered that it was 1/3 water. Someone had opened it, used part of it, filled it back up with water, and returned it to HD!! As my old boss used to say – some people are just no darn good!
But, HD has been great for us this year, with all the remodeling we’ve been doing. They’ve taken back all of our returns, and really helped us figure out what we needed. I really hope the overcharge was just a computer glitch!
Nice catch. I’m far too lazy about checking these sort of things.