It started waaaay back in July. We ordered two pieces from The Roomstore on July 3 with delivery on July 10. Easy, right?
Except that the ottoman was damaged—it had a cracked foot (that fell apart when unwrapped) and a badly ripped corner.
Okay. Crap happens, we get it. So we scheduled another attempt—just thankful they had more in stock since in-stock furniture is hard to come by. So they attempted again on July 13 (#2) and…it was ripped on an edge.
Our friends told us to just cancel it but it’s soooo pretty—it’s the perfect color and perfect size, plus it’s a storage ottoman. We asked for a discount and they refused, saying they’ll just exchange it.
On July 16 they attempted again (#3) and this time we made them unwrap it before they even brought it in the house. Nope. Two of the “squares” were so unbelievably discolored it was ridiculous that anyone looking at it for a second would assume it was good to deliver. I don’t have a photo of this one.
The next exchange (#4) was scheduled for July 20. This one was actually the least damaged of them all but the colors were off. Again. Not as bad as the first one but still unfit to accept.
SURPRISE SURPRISE—delivery attempt #5 on July 23 was a fail. Damaged. The inside edge was really scratched. It wasn’t visible, but the piece was expensive, so we figure it should be perfect to start with. Right? But we told the customer service person that we would accept it at a big discount and she offered us $50. On a $1100 ottoman. Um, no.
They told us it would be another month for delivery because they are getting one straight from the manufacturer to hopefully avoid any issues. UGH. At this point I really just wanted to be done with them, but it’s the perfect color, shape, size, etc.
Previous to this, Tom had talked to managers a few times and they assured him that we would be getting white glove service—that someone would be in the warehouse and looking it over first before it got loaded on the truck. Yeah no. That never happened. As evidenced by the continued arrival of damaged ottomans.
But then! We got a call saying they were going to deliver again. How? What happened to getting one straight from the manufacturer? Honestly at this point I don’t remember all the lies but I do know that they cancelled a few attempts because they discovered before or while loading it that it was damaged. I have texts from 7/28, 7/31, 8/11, 8/12, and 8/19—all of which I think were attempts that got cancelled. So maybe now a manager was actually checking them?!
So, fast forward through almost a month of attempts and cancellations and reschedules and talks with Customer Service (and Tweets!) that accomplished exactly nothing. (Oh wait! Tom had talked to customer service a few more times and they ended up giving us a $75 store credit and another time they refunded our $199 delivery fees. They then turned the store credit into an actual $75 credit but we never saw it on our account.)
8/19 — No idea what actual delivery attempt, but it was a FAIL. The outside had had packing tape on it, so when they ripped it off… OMFG… the color ripped off.
Tom tried to get store managers and it proved to be near impossible. He did finally get one and they basically told him they’d just keep trying. I want to give up but I want this damn ottoman because I haven’t found anything else this size or color or with storage in my search (and I’ve been searching)!
8/25 — Surprise surprise. Ottoman delivery attempt FAIL. It was scratched in two places and when the delivery guys went to try leather conditioner to fix it, it took the color off!
We decided enough was enough and even though it was a perfect size/shape/color, we couldn’t have something that got ruined that easily. (We had also noticed that we were scratching it just in daily use.) So we decided that we wanted to send both pieces from them back. Why both? Well, we bought them together (to go together) and if we couldn’t have one, we didn’t want either. Also? The loveseat turned out to be really crappy and was already getting deformed. We technically don’t need it since we found our real one elsewhere (after) and are just waiting for it to come in.
Well of course they fought it. Tom said if they refuse we will tell them we expect an ottoman delivery every Saturday from here on out until we’re happy…or they take both pieces. It was just ridiculous. Had they just given us a respectable discount to keep a less-damaged one, we would have been done with this in July. I mean, how much time and money did they waste attempting delivery of like nine ottomans?
After like 10 minutes on hold, the manager came back and said they will pick up both pieces! YAY! But also boo because I loved this ottoman. So now we are on the hunt.