Workers in Home Depot may not tell you who else they work for

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — If you've been to Home Depot, you certainly know the trademark orange employees wear. But not all of them are Home Depot employees. Some are with other companies, there to solicit your business, but they may not tell you that.

Home Depot partners with other companies. It lets them operate in its stores. It lets them use the name Home Depot Services, a division of Home Depot. Still, those workers are not supposed to lead customers to believe they're Home Depot employees.

One of those Home Depot Services workers was in the Wendover Road store in southeast Charlotte. He was wearing an orange shirt with the store's logo.

Some customers told Action 9 they assumed he worked for the actual store, as an employee. When three Channel 9 producers went to the store three times over more than three months, the man never named the other company he worked for, even when asked. He said, "Home Depot Services." He even told one producer the survey was for Home Depot itself.

He really worked for Carolina Energy Water and Air. Over the years, its sales tactics caught the eye of Channel 9, the Better Business Bureau, and North Carolina's Attorney General. It offered free gifts to get in people's homes to try to sell them home water systems. In a 2011 Channel investigation, the salesperson claimed Carolina Energy had done work for NASA. NASA said that wasn't true. Also, at the time, the company was using the Home Depot logo on its website. Home Depot said it hadn't given permission for that and asked Carolina Energy to take it down.

READ MORE: Company's marketing tactics catch attention of BBB, NC AG

The company's sales approach was very similar to what the company had the man doing this year at Home Depot. He was asking customers to take a water survey and offering them a secret prize.

"I know what it is. They don't let me tell you, but it's a really nice gift," he said.

When a producer asked for specifics, he seemed annoyed.

"But if you don't want to do it, you don't have to. I don't want you to do it if you don't want to," he said. Action 9 found out that secret prize was a free home water inspection, which Carolina Energy acknowledged, it uses to try to sell its product.

Home Depot's response

The company wouldn't talk to on camera, but issued this statement:

"Like many retailers in our industry, we use third party companies to sell and install certain products. We've done so for more than a decade, and we make no secret of the fact that they are not employees of Home Depot, but we do want customers to know they are affiliated with our brand. We continually scrutinize and monitor these companies through an extensive onboarding and compliance program that's arguably the most stringent in the industry; utilizing thorough background checks, customer surveys for every job, and significant fines for non-compliance. We checked back into this company and they have an A+ rating with the Better Business Bureau and an almost perfect satisfaction score by our customers. Regardless of that, we don't condone any sort of misleading sales practices or misrepresentation of our service providers' relationship with the company, and we'll address any such concerns brought to our attention."

Stoogenke asked whether employees and the third party workers go through the exact same background checks, how much the fines are for non-compliance, whether Home Depot ever fined an outside company, and whether it ever fined Carolina Energy.

"Any of our third party contractors that visit or work at a home go through a more stringent background check than one of our associates who's not visiting a customer's home," Home Depot said. "The fines scale up ... they can be ($100) to ($20,000). Big point to clarify on this -- those fines are for things like contractors (or salespeople) on a job without their badge, or even worse, having someone at a customer's home who hasn't even been through our onboarding and vetting process. We might also levy fines for working on one of our jobs unlicensed, unpermitted (when a permit is required) or uninsured. That usually would only happen if a contractors insurance or license has expired. But we also put automated technology tools in place that help our (third party contractors) on this front, with reminders that their license or insurance is up for renewal."

Home Depot also said, "(We) wouldn't call out an individual company that we've fined. That said, keep in mind that our customers give them very high scores. Although fines don't apply to customer service scores, if a third party has low scores, they have to improve or we find someone else."

Home Depot said the man at the Wendover store doesn't work there anymore. Carolina Energy said he no longer works for the company, but that it's stationed workers in Home Depot stores for years and plans to continue doing so.

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