On 17 August 2015, Facebook user David Carleton posted a first-person account of a Home Depot manager in Spokane Valley, WA, supposedly (rudely) refusing to provide a veterans' discount to a customer:
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So I am at Home Depot today and the older gentleman in front of me shows his ID for a veterans discount. The clerk tells him he does not qualify for a discount so the gentleman asked to see a manager. They ask me to go to another line because this may take a few minutes. I tell them no thanks I want to hear this.
So a young cocky full of himself moron comes to talk to the gentleman and says no you do not qualify. The gentleman tells him he has always gotten a discount there. So the moron says well we have told our people to tighten the rules and we only give what corporate requires we give and you do not qualify. The gentleman says he will then take his business elsewhere. The young moron replies that is your choice. The gentleman starts to leave and I step in.
I tell the moron if one of your idiot friends walked through the door right now you would have the option of giving him a discount and with your attitude you would do it. So step over to the register and give this guy his discount. He says he does not qualify for it.
So I tell him look here is how this is going to work. Either you give this guy a discount and I call Home Depot corp and tell them how good of a manager you are in spite of the stupid policy.
Or I go home call Home Depot corp tell them I stupid the policy is and their manager is a moron, then I blast face book and it goes viral and you get to be the moron you are.
I think you know which one he chose!
So people please blast Facebook with this story.
It was store E Spokane #4714 5617 E Sprague Ave Spokane Valley, WA 99212
What a shmuck, he also told the gentleman that he would have to talk to the CEO of Home Depot to change his mind.
I hate people who do not respect our military.
BLOW IT UP PEOPLE
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The story also showed up as a Facebook video with the title: "Man Notices Store Manager Being Disrespectful to a Military Veteran."
We reached out to both parties to try to obtain more information about this incident. Our public relations contact at Home Depot told us that:
While we can’t verify his depiction of what happened, there seems to be some confusion about our veterans' discount policy. The discount is available to all veterans on major patriotic holidays including Veterans Day, Memorial Day and Independence Day. We're also one of only a few retailers that provides an everyday discount to active-duty, National Guard, Coast Guard and reservists, as well as retired and service-connected disabled service members, and their spouses.
Given the date on the original Facebook post (i.e., mid-August), it didn't seem likely that the described encounter could have taken place on one of the designated patriotic holidays when Home Depot's veterans' discount was in effect. Without more information, we couldn't determine whether the issue was that a customer was seeking a discount at a time when it didn't apply, or whether the real issue was something else.
(A Home Depot rep told us that a store manager could choose to offer a veterans' discount even on days when it does not apply, but they are discouraged from doing so in order to ensure consistency of application across the chain of Home Depot stores.)