The Doll's Trying to Kill Me and the Toaster's Been Laughing at Me!

Ok, so the toaster's not laughing at me. But, my dining room set could be (the salesman I bought it from certainly is). The saga of the dining room set began in May, but it didn't really become a saga until June. I know the date, because it was also the day I tried out for the Milwaukee Talkstar contest and I used the first chapter of this epic in my audition piece:

With plenty of time left, I described the furniture delivery I'd received that morning. I ordered a dining room table, six chairs, a hutch, and a dresser to stand the hutch on. What I got that morning was four chairs (one scratched and loaded back on the truck), the dresser and the hutch. This was almost a month after the order and everything was supposed to be in stock within two weeks! The dresser was brought in and it rocked back and forth. We sent it back and told them not to bother with the hutch because it was useless without the dresser. So, at this point I'd waited around all day for THREE STINKING CHAIRS! But, an hour later the delivery guys show up again and say "we got a tech to meet us."

They bring in the dresser and put it down. It still rocks. So now, one of them grabs a battery operated circular saw and starts going to town on the dresser, in my dining room! He's fighting with the safety guard, so he tries to tape it open. While he's doing this he's holding the blade toward himself, with his finger in the trigger. I said "I thought I was going to have to tell the police why there was a bloody black man on my dining room floor." The panel cracked up again, even Bailey Coleman, who happened to be a black woman. I was almost scared to tell the punch line to this story, but decided to just let it ride.

You may have picked up on the fact that we ordered a dresser with the dining room set. We didn't like the look of the base that matched the hutch. We spent a good hour in the store trying to find a black hutch and base combination that we could settle on. Suddenly, I realized that there was a bedroom set in our color! Both sets were labeled "Merlot," and the dresser was exactly the thing we were looking for. The salesman even agreed that this was a good solution.

After the delivery, we noticed this:



It's not really a good match, is it?





The second delivery eventually came: the remaining chairs and the table. Again, we tried to have them leave this delivery on the truck, because we could plainly see scratches on the furniture. They insisted that their technicians could fix the damage, so we hesitantly accepted.

Let me tell you: the technicians are MAGICIANS! He repaired a gouge in the table by scraping out some of the wood, filling it back in, and staining it perfectly. You can't even tell where the repair was made. The technician said that he could lighten the dresser to match, but that would cost twice more than the dresser. He said that the company would send us a new dresser instead.

So, we went to the store and they agreed to send us a lighter dresser. Nearly a month later, the replacement showed up. Not only was it still the wrong color, it was constructed poorly. This wasn't delivery damage. The face of one of the drawers was missing part of its bottom edge. It was pretty obvious to me that the board had a knot hole in it when it was cut. That knot hole ran along the length of the bottom of the drawer. The exposed wood was so rough that the stain didn't even fill all the holes. It looked awful! We didn't even let it come off the truck.

When we told the delivery driver what we wanted, he told us that we needed to contact the store again. He said that we needed to tell a manager and see the dresser in person, in the warehouse, or they were likely to keep attempting to deliver the wrong color.

So, we called the store and spoke with a manager. She told us (not so politely) that they couldn't get us a lighter stain, but she would put in another order for us. That was more than a month ago, and we haven't heard a peep!

We were told by a a salesman (no longer with the company), a technician, and a delivery man that the color change should not be a problem. And I have talked about this problem with friends, on the radio (very briefly), on an internet forum, and now in this blog. I've never mentioned the company (except to friends) by name up until now.

I think that people ought to know Ashley Furniture's customer service is not at all helpful. They do have good products at reasonable prices, but they don't back the sale after it's been made. We've talked with friends who have gotten a similar run-around.