Complaint Review: Pottery Barn - Internet

Here's a WARNING about Pottery Barn‬ (part of Williams Sonoma ). My wife and I ordered a loft bed with desk from PB Teen a few weeks ago for our daughter. Here is a rough outline of what happened.

Delivery was pushed back a few days from the original date - no big deal.

Delivery and setup crew arrived late on the scheduled day (Saturday the 6th), no call (we had to call them). Still not a big deal.

Delivery and setup crew dinged the walls in our new house in a few of places. OK, starting to get annoying.

Delivery and setup crew assembled the bed incorrectly. Unfortunately I was not there when they completed the job and my wife signed for it. The problems were not immediately noticeable to the eye, but upon close inspection, it was clear that the bed was A) not safe and B) did not look right.

Some bolts were missing, and it appeared the crew took the "extra" hardware with them.

I called their customer service line right away (on Sunday July 7th) to report the problems, and was given another number to call on Monday when they would have someone who could deal with this. First thing Monday I called to give them the details and request another crew to come in and fix the bed. I was told that "someone will contact you within 48 to 72 hours" (i.e. two to four days). They offered to refund the delivery & setup fee ($160) which I accepted.

Turns out that they called my wife later that day. She was told that the first someone would be available would be the 19th!! (11 days later) and she told them that this was unacceptable. She got a call later that day stating a crew would be out on Friday the 12th (four days later) to correct the problems, and that someone would call later in the week to confirm the time.

On Thursday the 11th, my wife called to ask about the crew for the following day and was told THEY DID NOT HAVE A RECORD OF THAT CALL.

After Jane got very firm with them on the phone and explained the chain of events thus far, she was promised a crew on Friday the 12th between 2 and 4 PM.

Friday the 12th rolls by, and no crew, no call. Jane called and was transferred around, put on hold, and finally given another number to call (dispatch). She called that number but the office was closed.

I spent my Friday evening taking that bed & desk apart and re-assembling it correctly. I had to purchase extra hardware for several parts of the bed & desk, in order to make it structurally sound. Nearly every bolt and screw their crew had installed was only finger tight. WTF??

All that my wife received from them upon her last, scathing email to customer support was a canned apology, with no further offers to make it right.

The only thing they did right during this saga was to refund the delivery/setup fee. We still incurred additional costs including the hardware, the time, and the need to patch & paint the dings in the wall.

We are DONE WITH POTTERY BARN and their parent company WILLIAMS SONOMA. Absolutely HORRIBLE customer service and lack of ownership of the problem at hand. It really seems that they are having serious problems keeping track of customer orders & repair tickets.