Racist Actions

You know, I'm amazed at how we deal, so blatently different in front
of the person we should hide from the most. But I have to say,
sometimes I wonder how much more we brothers need to keep blaming the
"white" man for our problems. I mean, your friend is hispanic. Tina
was probably attracted to him and worked her wilds, not realizing what
she was obviously doing in front of you. The policy is correct, she
gave it to you right, but she obviously had a thing for Steve, your
hispanic man. I think what goes down the hardest is that we black
mothers take issue with the clerk for her actions, but we sure as hell
don't take issue with our own people caused the distrust to begin
with. If your brother laid down some smoothies and scammed you, do
you think you'd trust him or some "white man" if you had to take a
credit card number that belonged to someone else. Let's face it, the
white man can be a fool. We should be taking the time to get pissed
off over that fact--our own people making us suffer the wrap--not over
some two bit clerk with a HO over a customer who is hispanic, but
we've twisted him to a white boy, just to make our story go down
better.

Somethin to think about.

I have worked for a couple major hotel chains (yes, I know, they are
not Home Depots, but still...) and we were never able to take credit
card payment over the phone. We had to at least have a copy of the
card, front and back, a copy of the cardholder's driver's license, and
a written statement with signature stating that it was alright for us
to charge that card for a stay at our hotel. People used to get
outraged at this. "Well, I use my credit card to order things online
or from catalogs over the phone." Great, and when someone else gets
ahold of that credit card and orders a bunch of crap online or from a
catalog, you'll rethink whether or not that is such a great thing.

Home Depot was protecting not only themselves, but also your mother,
from credit card fraud. You should be grateful. If they want to hand
their own HD cards in a different manner, that is their choice. Why
don't you just apply for one of those?

And stop with the racist card, already. It's old and used up. Not
everything in the world has to do with race unless YOU make it so.

One thing to note, Home Depot does issue floating cards. Cards that
can be used by anyone in a company or group. And they can also be
called in if necessary.

First of all, why was this racism, because the OP ASSUMED it was? Why
is the cop out of racism or sexism always used? Also, not being on
all sides of the conversation that was between Steve and the sales
person and Steve's sister, I think the OP is just jumping to her own
conclusions. When people write letters like this and play the
race/gender card, I always wonder what they are hiding. I seriously
have to wonder how the OP was acting when she didn't get what she
wanted.

Next time someone doesn't give me the service I want, I am going to
blame it on the fact that I am overweight and they don't like fat
people.

I don't see how race had anything to do with this.

i think some women and some black people are paranoid about the whole
race/sex thing. if you want to read something into a situation, you
will because you already have the mind set. i don't think it was
racism or sexism because quite frankly i believe hispanics get
discriminated against more than blacks. i think it had to do with
steve's having a HD card and you didn't.

This is about the cardholder.... The cardholder signed a contract with
the "bank" that states I will be the user, or I will get another card
for someone AND gaurantee their purchases. The cardholder should look
at this as a blessing, as it is a safeguard,built in for protection.
If the signature doesn't match the front of the card,a retailer could
possibly lose proceeds. Some Bank Cards [credit cards] are very
strict.

This letter is slighty hard to read- to me at least (maybe it's just
me, but whatever), but are you saying a FEMALE cashier discrimated
against you...A FEMALE???

If you were wearing a green shirt, and steve was wearinga red shirt,
would you assume Home Depot discriminated against people who wear
green shirts?

Denise,

My name is Mario de Armas and I am the Product Manager for the Home
Depot Credit Card. I am very sorry to hear that you had a negative
expereince at The Home Depot. I cannot comment specifically about
your experience because I do not know your mother's or Steve's card
type or account number. I can confirm what other folks have already
stated, that being an authorized user on the account may be the the
origin of the situation youdescribed. For security reasons, I do not
want to go into detail on what Home Depot's procedures are surrounding
authorized users, but if you would like to discuss this please feel
free to contact me directly at 770-384-4086 or
mario_de_armas@homedepot.com. At Home Depot we value every single
customer, and I hope that I can clear this up for you and keep you as
a valued customer.

I see that a credit card and a HD card are treated differently. You
can't use someone else's card unless you are on the account, so that
is why you couldn't present their card. HD stores don't take credit
cards over the phone, so that is why they couldn't do that.

It sounds like, if anything, HD was doing a favor for an HD card
holder (Tina), by allowing the HD card transaction.

The manager should have explained this. But did you ask why you were
treated differently? This would have avoided you leaving thinking
that you were the victim of racism. I would have been beside myself
if I were standing there while another person successfully completed a
(coincidentally) very similar transaction.

It could be that Steve was an authorized user on the Home Depot card
which would allow him to use it. From working at a Home Depot I can
say that because of the amount of charge backs that we received from
amex, visa, mastercard and discover we were very strict with the
credit card companies policies. Amex was the most strict stating that
unless you were the actual card holder you were not allowed to use it
and it could be grounds for the HD to not get paid. Even spouses that
were not actually listed as authorized users were unable to use the
cards. With the Home Depot credit card employees were able to contact
credit services easily and were able to get permission from HD credit
services to authorize transactions. I do not necessarily see any
racism and in fact HD was helpful in putting the OP's products on hold
for here without her actually paying. At the store I worked for if you
didn't pay for the items we would not put them in will-call for you to
be held for a later day. Especially if you were not coming back later
in the same day.
Because I wasn't there and neither were any of the other commenter's
it isn't fair to really make judgment calls on the situation.
According to the OP the staff was courteous and polite throughout the
whole transaction. The customer service rep was concerned that someone
was listening in to a customer who was providing social security
numbers and credit information so she questioned you standing so
close.
Again this is just some input from a person who worked at the Depot at
special services so the OP and others can understand a little better
the policies and procedures that the workers were following.

When I worked retail we could take the store card over the phone but
not a visa/mastercard/etc.

Since you mention the social security number it sounds like Steve was
using a store card. Were you going to use your mother's visa or also a
store card?

Of course if that is the case than the manager should have been able
to explain that to you and it doesn't sound like they did.

I hope PFB was indeed able to send this letter to Home Depot, since it
does not show it went to a company.

Usually, I do not buy into claims of racism during retail
transactions.

However, it does appear this may well be the case in this situation.

Please stop back and tell us what happens from here.

I see absolutely no difference in the two situations. They both are
about having a strange voice on the other end of the phone give you a
credit (or other) account number to which to charge the purchase, and
having faith that everything's legit. The black person got denied,
the nonblack person did not (I don't think gender would be a factor
here).

I see racism, with no other reasonable explanation coming to me.

I hope the company responds.

I don't work for Home Depot, but I do work retail. We don't accept
credit cards over the phone where I work. It is for the customer's
protection that we have to see the card in person and be able to
verify a signature match by the card owner. It also means we treat
everyone the same and it's good customer service. But obviously that's
a different case at Home Depot.

One was a real credit card and one was a store card and you are both
minorities. These things make it hard to say for sure that this was a
racial incident. I would be curious to know what their actual policy
is on card use without the cardholder being present. It opens them up
to liability, so a lot of companies don't allow it.

So... you **weren't** together?