- Report: #475489
Complaint Review: Furniture From Home - Internet
-
Author Confirmed
Why?
Furniture From Home
1041 W. 18th Street Suite A203 Costa Mesa, California 92627 Internet, U.S.A.
Phone:
877-232-0783
Web:
N/A
Categories:
Business Rating:
(0)
Tell us has your experience with this business or person been good?
Furniture From Home Online furniture company delivered badly damaged furniture that did not match the online description, then kept a large restocking fee. I call scam. Costa Mesa, California Internet
Lesson learned. And that lesson would be "never buy furniture online."
This is the desk I'd ordered for our new home office/library: http://furniturefromhome.com/products/Traditional/Grand-Home-Office-Desk-Hutch-Bookcase-Cabinet-furniture-coa800510.
And these are the bookcases we ordered: http://furniturefromhome.com/products/Wood/phdav-1. I don't know which bookcases they're listing at $3,599. Those aren't the ones we got. Still, this furniture wasn't cheap.
Point is, we waited five weeks for this furniture to arrive, and when it finally did on Sunday... the bookcases were damaged, with big chunks taken out of the bases. And the measurements the website had give for the desk were off by an inch, so my computer CPU didn't fit in the CPU cabinet of the desk. It in fact stood well ABOVE the top of the cabinet so that the top of the desk itself would have had to sit on the top of my computer!
Add to that the fact that everyone with whom I spoke at this online company gave me different descriptions of these pieces, and when I finally found a woman who claimed to have seen the desk up close, she said it was gorgeous and that the CPU cabinet actually rolled out for easy access to your computer. Sounds great, right?
Problem is, the desk doesn't really look like it does in those photos. It looks much smaller, and much more like a cheap prop than a gorgeous desk. And that CPU cabinet? Not only is it smaller than the website says it is, but it does not roll out for easy access.
I was also told that I had to tell them at the time of the order how many bookcases we wanted because the rolling bar for the ladder was one piece, and they needed to know how long it had to be. Of course, when the bookcases arrived, each piece had its own individual segment of bar, which means the ladder would fall off the bar if the bookcases were at all misaligned.
I was, it goes without saying, furious. We told the deliverymen to pack it all back onto the truck. We weren't keeping it.
Of course NOW, Furniture From Home, the site that claims "prompt, friendly service" was suddenly hard to get ahold of. When I told them I wanted a full refund, they said they charged a 15% "restocking" fee. I told them I didn't feel I should have to pay to restock damaged furniture. I also told them that since there were factual problems with the furniture that directly contradicted both what I had been told on the phone and what was on the website, that I didn't want to pay ANYTHING, since had I know the truth I wouldn't have bought the furnture in the first place.
My complaints were finally passed on to someone in the Claims department (seriously. At this point I was wondering whether I'd mistakenly purchased furniture from an insurance company) who called me last night and revealed himself to be... the co-owner of the company.
He went on to tell me that if things arrive broken, they can repair them and send them back (as if! Keep in mind it would then take another month or more for this repaired furniture to arrive!) But that if I wanted to wash my hands of the matter, then the best he could do was a 7.5% restocking fee, because, he said, they had to recoup some of the money they'd lost in shipping this furniture. His partner, he said, wanted to go ahead and charge me the full 15% fee, but this guy was willing to bring it down to 7.5%, because he likes "to work with the customer." He also claimed that every piece of furniture is supposed to be closely inspected before shipment.
I insisted that this was their fault, that I was given bad information, that the furniture was not what I thought it was going to be, and that it was CLEARLY not inspected beforehand. Why should I pay ANYTHING for their mistake?
Ah, well. At the end of the day I agreed to pay the 7.5%, which still pisses me off. The more I think about it, the angrier I get that this company is so inept, fraudulent and mismanaged. And that I'm out $300 now because THEY screwed up.
So take from my plight these words of wisdom: don't buy furniture online unless you have seen it with your own eyes first. And whatever you do, NEVER buy anything from furniturefromhome.com. Their stuff looks great on the site, but they will screw you over.
And if they're a small enough company that they'll screw a customer over just for $300, then they are a small enough company that they can be severely impacted by negative reviews and word of mouth. So pass it on.
Daniel
Reseda, California
U.S.A.
This is the desk I'd ordered for our new home office/library: http://furniturefromhome.com/products/Traditional/Grand-Home-Office-Desk-Hutch-Bookcase-Cabinet-furniture-coa800510.
And these are the bookcases we ordered: http://furniturefromhome.com/products/Wood/phdav-1. I don't know which bookcases they're listing at $3,599. Those aren't the ones we got. Still, this furniture wasn't cheap.
Point is, we waited five weeks for this furniture to arrive, and when it finally did on Sunday... the bookcases were damaged, with big chunks taken out of the bases. And the measurements the website had give for the desk were off by an inch, so my computer CPU didn't fit in the CPU cabinet of the desk. It in fact stood well ABOVE the top of the cabinet so that the top of the desk itself would have had to sit on the top of my computer!
Add to that the fact that everyone with whom I spoke at this online company gave me different descriptions of these pieces, and when I finally found a woman who claimed to have seen the desk up close, she said it was gorgeous and that the CPU cabinet actually rolled out for easy access to your computer. Sounds great, right?
Problem is, the desk doesn't really look like it does in those photos. It looks much smaller, and much more like a cheap prop than a gorgeous desk. And that CPU cabinet? Not only is it smaller than the website says it is, but it does not roll out for easy access.
I was also told that I had to tell them at the time of the order how many bookcases we wanted because the rolling bar for the ladder was one piece, and they needed to know how long it had to be. Of course, when the bookcases arrived, each piece had its own individual segment of bar, which means the ladder would fall off the bar if the bookcases were at all misaligned.
I was, it goes without saying, furious. We told the deliverymen to pack it all back onto the truck. We weren't keeping it.
Of course NOW, Furniture From Home, the site that claims "prompt, friendly service" was suddenly hard to get ahold of. When I told them I wanted a full refund, they said they charged a 15% "restocking" fee. I told them I didn't feel I should have to pay to restock damaged furniture. I also told them that since there were factual problems with the furniture that directly contradicted both what I had been told on the phone and what was on the website, that I didn't want to pay ANYTHING, since had I know the truth I wouldn't have bought the furnture in the first place.
My complaints were finally passed on to someone in the Claims department (seriously. At this point I was wondering whether I'd mistakenly purchased furniture from an insurance company) who called me last night and revealed himself to be... the co-owner of the company.
He went on to tell me that if things arrive broken, they can repair them and send them back (as if! Keep in mind it would then take another month or more for this repaired furniture to arrive!) But that if I wanted to wash my hands of the matter, then the best he could do was a 7.5% restocking fee, because, he said, they had to recoup some of the money they'd lost in shipping this furniture. His partner, he said, wanted to go ahead and charge me the full 15% fee, but this guy was willing to bring it down to 7.5%, because he likes "to work with the customer." He also claimed that every piece of furniture is supposed to be closely inspected before shipment.
I insisted that this was their fault, that I was given bad information, that the furniture was not what I thought it was going to be, and that it was CLEARLY not inspected beforehand. Why should I pay ANYTHING for their mistake?
Ah, well. At the end of the day I agreed to pay the 7.5%, which still pisses me off. The more I think about it, the angrier I get that this company is so inept, fraudulent and mismanaged. And that I'm out $300 now because THEY screwed up.
So take from my plight these words of wisdom: don't buy furniture online unless you have seen it with your own eyes first. And whatever you do, NEVER buy anything from furniturefromhome.com. Their stuff looks great on the site, but they will screw you over.
And if they're a small enough company that they'll screw a customer over just for $300, then they are a small enough company that they can be severely impacted by negative reviews and word of mouth. So pass it on.
Daniel
Reseda, California
U.S.A.
3 Updates & Rebuttals
nbnbnbnb
Jamestown,Ohio,
USA
Almost a customer
#2General Comment
Thu, December 03, 2015
I wanted to thank you, Daniel, for taking time to file your report on your experiences with Furniture from Home. I was getting ready to purchase from them and noticed they do not list customer reviews on their site. I was hoping to see some good reviews of this company. When I did a search for reviews for them, yours and a few other bad reviews came up. I hope they know that bad reviews do have an effect. I will not be doing business with them. Thanks again.
Daniel
Reseda,California,
I don't think so
#3Author of original report
Mon, July 01, 2013
Oh, no way. You do not get to have the last word five years after the fact and act as though you've learned from your mistakes.
Let's review those mistakes one by one, shall we?
- It took five weeks for our furniture to arrive and when it did it was extremely damaged.
- Because of the damage, I could see that what was described as solid wood furniture was in fact particle board.
- The measurements of the furniture, which I had confirmed several times on the phone, were off not by a matter of millimeters or centimeters, but INCHES. This made it unusable for me. Not only did my computer not fit in the desk cabinet that, by the measurements online (confirmed by phone) it should have, but roll-out shelf of the desk did not roll out. Additionally, the measurements of the bookcases were not aligned, so the rollbar did not line up, and so the ladder could not roll from one shelf to the other.
- You explained away these differences in measurements and functionality by way of a small line of text on your website that said "Items may differ from descriptions on the site." That is BS, pure and simple.
- I was then told (with an incredible amount of rudeness and spiteful attitude) that I could either replace the furniture, which would take another five weeks and could arrive in the same condition, or I could pay a $300 restocking fee and return the items. I essentially paid you guys $300 for the privilege of having your cheaply made, crappy furniture in my house for fifteen minutes.
You failed so spectacularly and on so many levels, that I have never been so incensed by an experience with any company. I was so upset that I have actively worked to dissuade online customers from purchasing anything from you over the years.
And now, five years later, you resurface with promises of better service and better business practices? The simple fact that even now you throw up your return policy as some golden example of how such things should be done, and use as a defense of your actions the idea that you were working by an exemplary model, completely ignoring the shoddy quality of both your product and customer service, tells me you haven't learned a d**n thing.
Tell you what. Cut me a check for the $300 you scammed from me and I'll consider that maybe you've seen the error of your ways.
Until then, all I see is a crummy company doing damage control.
FFH Employee
Alabama,Sorry about you experience
#4UPDATE Employee
Sun, June 30, 2013
As an employee for FFH for over five years, I'd like to truly and sincerely apologize to you on behalf of the company. We truly strive to offer a world class product and top of class customer service. It does appear like we could have handled your order with additional care.
In the spirit of improvement, in the years since your complaint we worked tirelessly (over literally thousands of man hours) to improve the successful (exception free) delivery! And I'm proud to report that since 2009 we've reduced our exception rate by 75%!!! We did this by working with our suppliers for improved packaging, interacting more with our shipping teams and wouldn't you know it, motivating our delivery guys!!!! Since 2009 the average pay of our delivery team member has grown to a respectable sum.... With our top performers making just over six figures. We finally realized that the "face" of the company has to be well taken care of, for us to maintain our vision for being the best there is online. Pay isn't everything, but it has certainly helped us to keep the right people on the job!
Daniel, you did experience our return policy. At the end of the day we do offer a fair return and exchange policy. No matter who it is a return is subject to the stated policies on the site. I wil refrain from posting the policies here, though I can tell you Daniel, I've personally reviewed the policies of every major online furniture store (including major chain stores) and our policies were and will continue to be the best in the furniture industry.
Im very sorry about your experience Daniel. I hope that some day we are able to try again with you. I think you'll find a marked improvement. We also now offer free interior design consultations, which has helped hundreds of clients chose the right sizes and looks! We are also starting a video campaign to give our customers a much better sense of the product!
Take care and thank you for being instrumental in forcing us to make positive changes in how we do business!
