Over the last week, I've discovered a couple of these businesses that will fall by the wayside. Their founders will be baffled because they aren't aware (or aren't involved enough to care) of the terrible customer service offered by their hired help.
A few months ago my wife and I decided to surprise my son with a "Total Room Makeover" while he was away at his grandparents. This handily coincided with his birthday. We decided on a Cincinnati Reds theme and planned ahead so that we could order everything we needed and be ready to spring into action as soon as he left with his grandparents.
The Furniture
A local furniture store advertised a "Going Out of Business Sale" so we stopped in there about one month ago. We saw a perfect baseball-themed bedroom suit, but we didn't really like the dresser it came with and the price seemed a little high. So I whispered to my wife "Let's see if we can find it online." I did.
TheBedroomSpace.com advertised the bed and 5-drawer chest (which we preferred over the dresser in the picture), so we placed our order on July 6. Man was I proud of myself for ordering so far in advance!
On July 14 I received an email from Elaine Hogan who told me that the trundle unit we ordered would not fit under the full-size bed. That seemed odd since the one on display I saw was a full bed with a twin-size trundle. I told her to go ahead and send the trundle anyway. Now we're getting excited because they must be preparing the shipment!
Wrong.
On July 22, I contacted Elaine to find out if they had an estimated arrival date. TJ is due back home on July 29. Elaine responded that day:
I have just received word from the manufacturer that this bed has been discontinued and there is no stock available. Please check our website and see if there is something else that you would want to order in place of the Holland H0use Alex’s Room Youth Four Post Bedroom Set. I apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused. I will understand if you want to cancel the order completely. In either case, please let me know via return email.
Needless to say, I was not happy. I thanked her for the offer to order something else from them, but passed and asked for the CEO's email address. She referred me to corporate@rjdstores.com Looking around on the Internet I found three people listed as the founders: Joel Kornbluth, David Fingerer, & Raffe Lahav. I sent an email to the corporate address with a request that it be forwarded to these three. I never received any sort of response.
The next day we went furniture shopping again, trying to find something before TJ returned. Interestingly, we stopped at a Badcock store and found the same baseball-themed set in their 2008 catalog. I asked if they had it available even though the manufacturer had discontinued it. It took 30 seconds for the guy to find out that they had three beds in their warehouse, but no chests. It took him 30 seconds to do something that TheBedroomSpace.com couldn't do in two weeks.
Eventually we went back to the "Going Out of Business" store and bought their set.
Lesson learned: Buy local. And whatever you do, don't order from TheBedroomSpace.com
The Comforter and Valances
If it didn't have something to do with sports, I would never order a comforter or valances. But we thought it would look cool, so we looked around for a Cincinnati Reds comforter and valance. If you do a Google search, you'll find the same Reds comforter and valance advertised everywhere. I finally ordered both from http://www.domesticbin.com/ on July 11. On July 13, they informed me that the valances were not available, but the comforter was shipping that day. Not a big problem because I still had plenty of time to order the valances elsewhere. I would definitely order from domesticbin.com again.
On July 13, I looked around and found the valances at http://www.sportskids.com/. Just to make sure, I emailed help@sportskids.com to ask if the valances were in stock. I received a quick reply from priyankainfo@sportskids.com that the valances were in stock, so I placed an order. They were nice enough to provide an "estimated shipping date" of July 20-22. Perfect timing.
Wrong again.
On July 27, I emailed priyankainfo to inquire about shipping. No response. On July 28, I sent another message to help@sportskids.com. No response. I tried their live online chat-based help. No response. I called the toll free number. No answer.
On July 28, I tried the online help again and actually got a response. They "checked with the manufacturer" and discovered (you guessed it), the item is no longer available from the manufacturer. When I told the entity on the other side of the chat what I had been told, it quit the chat session. So I called the toll free number and actually talked to a live person. He wouldn't tell me his name, so I'll call him "Surfer Dude". Surfer Dude also "checked with the manufacturer" and told me the same thing as the chat entity. When I expressed my displeasure, he kept to the script: "I'm very sorry. It's the manufacturer's fault." Eventually he hung up on me.
Lesson learned: Never order from www.sportskids.com
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