Complaint Review: The Furniture Authority

On Jan 29, 2013 I ordered a vanity set for $190.03 and FREE SHIPPING. A part of the order submission indicated "for some fragile/oversized items the freight brokers mat demand a surcharge." There were no details that what I'd ordered would be such an item, and no range or estimate of what the surcharge might be was given.

On Jan 31, I got an email saying there was a surcharge of $175 to ship the item, which in effect doubles its price. This is NOT FREE SHIPPING. We immediately looked into our options and found the same item in two other places online for $235 with no additional shipping fees.  (We later sent an inquiry and had this confirmed by the companies offering the item.)

Upon receiving the email telling us we were going to be charged $175 for shipping, we immediately looked into cancellation at Unitech / The Furniture Authority, and found that even though they had not even shipped our item, they demand a 30 percent restocking fee/cancellation fee!

We sat online on their online help chat for 45 minutes trying to get through to cancel the order, but never had a response from the company's online chat.  We also sat on hold for a half hour waiting for them to pick up on the phone.  We also immediately sent an email to cancel the order with a full refund.

We heard nothing from them about this until Feb 17, when we got an email repeating that because I'd said "Yes" to the shipping surcharge section, they were demanding the 30% restocking fee for the cancellation. They have not even shipped the item or moved it through their system at all yet and they are still demanding money!

It's unreasonable to have people check a box that says essentially "you might have to pay an unspecified extra amount if you agree to buy this product from us" and then penalize them for not wanting to pay DOUBLE the price you advertised. The language in their email that gave the $175 surcharge gives the impression that they EXPECT people to react negatively. It is almost as though getting the buyer to pay a 30% restocking fee (for an item that was not shipped) is what the company was hoping for as a result, rather than a successful satisfactory transaction for the company AND the consumer.  It is clearly a bait and switch tactic.

I want the order cancelled and any information about me taken out of their system. To this point, I don't believe our card was charged;  We contacted our credit card company and reported this swindle and they took actions to protect our account.  I encourage EVERYONE in this situation to do the same if they have not yet been charged.

I don't want any charge to go through for restocking an item that we cancelled within hours of getting an order confirmation and finding out the company is a scam. Take our information out of your system entirely. We will never EVER knowingly do business with you.