Complaint Review: Primitives by Josh

Last July I finally decided that I had saved long enough to purchase 1 or 2 pieces of handmade furniture to go with my new decor. Over the course of the past 5 or 6 years, I have switched my entire decor to Primitive or Early American, or some even refer to it as Colonial. Either way, I had about $500.00 to spend on some handmade furniture. Since this is not an extremely popular way of decorating in Florida, nor is this furniture made in a factory mass production style, it is hard to find here, and you must find someone who builds it by hand. Most independent web sites that I found that sold what I wanted were way out of my price range, so I decided to look on the ever popular and growing 'Etsy" web site.

While this web site is similar to Ebay, it differs in that it is a web site where people can go to buy and sell only handmade items, furniture included.
There were several sellers I could choose from, but PrimitivesByJosh seemed to have 2 pieces of furniture that I was really interested in having. I sent an email and asked the seller if he would be willing to sell me the 2 pieces that I wanted at a discount if I purchased both. He of course said yes, so I placed my order and paid him. That was pretty much the last time I heard from him.

For the next month I tried not to bother him with "Is it done yet?". I noticed on his Etsy store that he had taken down all of his items/listings as he claimed that he had been hit with a lot of orders and needed to catch up. That made sense to me. I finally broke down and messaged him another week later asking how much longer it would be. He explained that the heat wave we were having at the time (weather wise) was causing the paint to cure more slowly than usual. That made sense to. It wasn't until another week later I went to his store like I periodically did from time to time and saw that it had been completely taken down.

My hearty stopped and I immediately began to panic. I emailed him (to his regular email address) right away and asked what was going on. His mother, Joy answered me back that same day and said he had been in a car accident, and that's why they had taken his Etsy store down. I wasn't sure I believed her, but it was all I had. She promised me that his Dad (Clay Smith) would finish his orders up and that my furniture would be shipped in 2 weeks. 2 weeks later I emailed her to find out if the furniture would be shipping out. She gave a new date that was 2 more weeks from that date. Another 2 weeks later, I emailed her again asking when the furniture would be shipped and this time I got no response. I sent another 5 or 6 emails and nothing, no response. It didn't matter what I said to her, or them, or whomever it was I was speaking to in the emails, I couldn't get them to respond to me.

To this day, I still haven't heard from them and I don't know how to get my money ($450.00) back. I really regret choosing that seller that day! BEWARE OF THIS FAMILY!!