A few weeks ago one of the side chairs broke. Unfortunately some one was sitting in it at the time. Thankfully they weren't seriously injured. The front leg cracked severely.
I'm no expert, but I'm pretty sure this set is defective.
I called customer service, and explained the chair to them. I was flabbergasted that the lady was actually friendly and courteous. The stars have aligned! She let me know they would either deliver a new chair, or repair the old one if possible. She set up a tech appointment for the following Monday, and assured me that someone would call Saturday to confirm a 4 hour window.
We ended up having to go out of town unexpectedly that weekend. My Grandfather ended up in ICU and we went down to be with family. With all that going on, I forgot about the phone call I was supposed to receive. It never came.
Bright and early Monday morning, 8am to be exact, we got a phone call. The tech was outside of our house, wanting to know why we weren't answering the door. Oh geez.
I felt bad. I know it wasn't his fault. So a few days later I called customer service and set up another appointment. Again, they neglected to call me with the 4 hour window. So I called again and was told between 8am and 12pm. 8am and a tech shows up, takes one look at the chair and declares "Yep, it's broken." He told us they would either deliver a brand new chair, or mail out a replacement leg. He wasn't even in my house 5 minutes. This seems like a massive waste of time and money, but it isn't my company so I digress.
A few days later I received a phone call from a lady in the Service Department. She informed me that the chair was discontinued, and that I would need to go pick out another chair from the RTG showroom. Naturally, I was a bit confused. I'd been previously told by two people that the chair would be replaced or fixed. I explained this to her and she said "they shouldn't have told you that". Well that doesn't help. She told me they had looked everywhere, but there were no more chairs to that set. So I asked for a leg. Apparently there were none of those either. I asked if the manufacturer could not send out a leg, to which she told me no. According to her, it was all the manufacturers fault. They were refusing to send any legs because of liability concerns.
Her liability comment left me wondering. We've had so many problems with this dining set. We can't have been the only ones. I received obviously used and damaged furniture so somebody else has dealt with this too.
I decided to try and figure out who the manufacturer was. I started with my chairs. I was on the floor, looking underneath when I discovered my arm chair was severely cracked. Oh joy.
I just got off the phone with a very nervous c/s rep. I'm telling you, you get a different story with every employee at this company.
I explained the second broken chair, and again asked for my money back. They again refused. This time, however, I was told they were replacing the entire dining set. He told me I had to go back to the same showroom, I was originally told any showroom, and could pick out anything of equal or lesser value. If I wanted something higher priced I could pay the difference. Oh whee, more money for defective furniture that won't last.
He did give me the name of the manufacturer of this table…Pinnacle... maybe that will be of some kind of help.
I have yet to verify any of this as I haven't gone back to the showroom. I'm expecting problems, given the track record of this company. I'm dreading trying to find anything else. If I paid $1600 and got this kind of furniture, how much is something solid? Does RTG even have anything like that? I seriously doubt it.
Here are my thoughts on all this. In my opinion, Rooms To Go sells substandard furniture for inflated prices. They hide behind their "contracts" and "policies". I've said it before and I'll say it again…if more people knew what they were getting into, and by that I mean not being able to get your money back, I truly believe they would have less business. Not to mention the poor c/s, rude employees, broken furniture, and everything else I've encountered in this nightmare.
Rooms To Go has not been able to give me what I paid for. I handed over cash when I paid for this set. No financing or credit cards, just hard earned cash on the spot. Sadly, I was never given what I paid for. I was guaranteed satisfaction. Their little pamphlet has loads of glowing guarantees of "prompt service", "expert delivery in days not months", "convenience", "value", "package removal, setup and placement by trained professionals", and the clincher…"We guarantee that the merchandise you purchase will be in showroom condition upon delivery". I received none of this. Not one single thing they guaranteed has come to pass. All this is why I firmly believe I should be reimbursed in full. I'm not asking for anything more. I'm not asking for anything for all the time I've wasted dealing with this mess, the multitude of times I had to rearrange my schedule to compensate for their 4 hour window, tardiness, rudeness, unprofessionalism, and massive stress I've been dealing with because of this situation. No, I'm simply asking for my money back…and I don't think that's too much too ask.
