Chalk it up to bad timing: Some Home Depot customers are up in arms after a recent April Fools Day prank from a tool review website led people to believe the home improvement giant would start charging parking fees due to inflation, sending Home Depot scrambling to clarify and set the ill-timed joke straight.Thats as the misinformation came when Americans were already anxious that President Donald Trumps tariffs will send the high price of goods and services even higher. And when it came to Home Depot, that was no laughing matter: Some angry customers took to social media, creating a Reddit thread about the supposed fees, with one duped X user even suggesting people #BoycottHomeDepot, forcing the company to respond on its official X account with some damage control, explaining, we do not charge for parking.So, what exactly happened? On April 1, Pro Tool Reviews, an online product review site, published a fakenews article that saidHome Depot would start charging for parking to combat inflation and offset increasing operational costs [to] keep prices competitive, and that the modest parking fee ($2 for up to two hours in central Florida, to $5 for a full day of parking in Los Angeles) would help the company avoid passing those extra costs directly on to customers.Unfortunately for Home Depot, as the target of the joke, American consumers are now particularly sensitive about retailers passing the cost of tariffs on to them.Pro Tool Reviews told USA Today that the articles high viewership was truly humbling, indicating the traction this apparent PR nightmare has received, with editor-in-chief Kenny Koehler adding, we hope our friends over at Home Depot were able to laugh as well. (Were not so sure about that, Kenny.)This isnt the first time an April Fools Day joke has caused trouble. In fact, there is a long list of brands whose pranks have gone awry, from Google to Volkswagen. In 2016, Google announced a new Gmail feature that it claimed would add a GIF of a yellow animated Minion character dropping a microphone at the end of an email. Google later apologized. And in 2021, the German carmaker claimed it was changing the name of its American division to Voltswagen, causing the stock to rise, as well as a great amount of confusion.The origin of April Fools Day dates back to 16th century France, whenCharles IXdecreed that the new year would no longer begin onEaster, but instead on January 1. Those who refused the change were named, you guessed it, April fools.