The bargain that wasn't... My new microwave won’t shut off!

I thought I had found a bargain earlier this week at Home Depot. There were two items I needed that the store offered at great prices. One was a backyard gas grill. At $49, it serves my purposes, brand new in the box too. (Just need a tank now!)

The other thing I needed was a microwave. The store had a small one on sale, also priced at $49. Not bad. But then I noticed a bigger model with more features up on a top shelf. It had a sticker on it, “Damaged”.

If you read my haggling story from last month, you know that Home Depot will routinely discount damaged or flawed items. (And sometimes perfect items as well -- if you ask!)

Okay... So I looked over the microwave. On the back corner, the casing was dented. Otherwise, it appeared to be fine. Hmmm... I thought it was good enough. Larger, with more features... I can live with the dent in the back. It was loaded into my cart and lugged home.

My son, Ryan, 19, was visiting later that evening. He’s a great kid, and always willing to give me a hand with whatever needs to be done around the house. I gave him my handyman list of to-dos, which included assembling my new grill and helping me to find the best spot in the kitchen for the new microwave. As I looked over the paperwork that came with it, Ryan plugged it in. As soon as it was fed electricity, it was running at full power — without having been turned on. We hit the ‘clear’ button and another we thought might stop it, but to no avail. I went through the manual, again and again. The only way to stop it was to open the door and/or unplug the thing.

One might think if the store is selling a damaged item, that it would still be in good working order as far as function is concerned. Today my own to-do list includes trying to return my new “damaged” microwave. It wasn’t such a great bargain after all.