rooms to go? A big fat no!

Many of you have heard about my plan to bring down Rooms To Go, one customer at a time. Just yesterday someone mentioned my extreme dislike of this company at a staff meeting, and that reminded me "I have yet to post anything about RTG on my blog." I am now choosing this post as a wonderful opportunity to share some information with you all in hopes that NOT ONE OF YOU ever buy anything from this horrible, horrible company ever again.

To help me tell my story, I will share with you a letter I wrote RTG in 2006:

September 21, 2006

To Whom It May Concern,

I am writing this letter to inform you of how extremely dissatisfied I have been with my Rooms To Go experience.

In April of 2003 my husband and I bought a blue leather living room set from your store on Wendover Avenue in Greensboro, NC. By the end of that year, the threading in the sofa had begun to unravel and the cushions had begun to detach from the sofa. Because this line of furniture had since been discontinued, my husband and I had to go in the store and “re-select” a new living room set, one of “equal or greater value.” We chose a brown leather set, one that was several hundred dollars more. This extra money was then added to our remaining balance.

On March 16, 2006, we had to call in the service technician again out to our house. The frames in both the loveseat and the sofa had snapped in half, posing a safety risk to my family. We were told that the loveseat had a faulty piece of wood and the sofa frame had broken due to the fact that no one had installed a center leg upon delivery. The technician, Bob W., wrote up the report and on March 29, 13 days later, the furniture was picked up from my house. Having two broken pieces of furniture in my living room for two weeks with a small child made me extremely nervous, especially after being told by the technician that a large splinter could come up from the loveseat at any given moment. Once the furniture was picked up, we were without a sofa or loveseat until it was returned on April 8, 2006.

On September 1, 2006, only five months later, the sofa frame broke once again. When one sits on the middle cushion, the frame is resting on the floor. We proceeded to visit the Rooms to Go on Wendover Avenue. The manager on duty, Ken Canovali, came out to speak with us. Ken was extremely rude to my husband and very impatient with our problem, explaining that there was nothing he could do for us at this time. We would have to email (not call) a woman named Bonnie, the Regional Customer Service Manager. He explained that he would have to email Bonnie and explain our situation and have her call us. When we explained our frustration with the furniture, he offered no help, just continually said that Bonnie would call us. Ken later apologized for loosing his temper with and yelling at my husband, explaining he was under the weather that day. However, I found his behavior extremely unprofessional in all respects. Ken told us that he would speak with his supervisor after we had requested certain paperwork from him. We would like to have a copy of our phone records. Ken said that he would mail these papers to us after the Labor Day weekend. We still have not received this paperwork nor heard a word from Ken 20 days later.

Later that day, we received a phone call from a Customer Service Representative. It was not Bonnie and there was no Manager on duty that day with whom to speak. The Representative explained that she would need to schedule a technician to visit the home. We scheduled the visit for the following Saturday.

Saturday morning, September 9th, we received a phone call at 8:00am explaining that the technician was not going to be able to come due to a “family emergency.” We rescheduled a technician to visit the following Friday, September 15th.

At this point, I have now had a broken sofa (again!) for two weeks. I have tried to contact Ken three times, and have yet been able to reach him at the Wendover store. Neither he nor “Bonnie” has called to follow up with us at any time over the past three weeks.

I have been extremely dissatisfied with not only the quality of your furniture, but also the quality of customer service this Greensboro store has offered us.

Bob W. returned to our home on Friday, September 15. He has been the ONLY Rooms to Go employee with whom I can say has been extremely kind, compassionate, understanding, and apologetic to our situation. Bob explained that he will write up the report once again (yes, he was the same Bob W. who visited our home in April.).

My husband and I both work full time, and I have had to take a total of four days off work to wait the “4 hour time slot” for the technicians to arrive for all of our furniture troubles. This does not include the Saturday last week we freed our calendar for the Service Technician and any more days that may come with this new problem.

We have yet to receive a call 6 days later about the status of our furniture.

I am extremely upset with your company’s customer service as well as the quality of this furniture. We hope to resolve this issue with our current furniture as quickly as possible, and I can assure you that neither I, nor my family or friends, will be visiting a Rooms to Go for any of our future home furnishing needs.

I thank you for reading this letter, and I would appreciate correspondence back at your earliest convenience.

Sincerely,
Jaclyn Johnson

Well, after that letter was written, we had to "re-select" another set of furniture- this time a microfiber set that was less expensive than the previous 2 sets. Because they do not give refunds, we had to find something else to use the rest of our "store credit," so we chose an entertainment center.

To make a long story somewhat shorter (longer?), since that re-select, we had the couch break (and then replaced), the entertainment center delivered with two different pieces (a different base and top), the correct base to come later, but the top to crack and have to be replaced, and a crazy delivery man who stalked us for weeks saying that he lost his sunglasses in our front yard.

If you are keeping count, and made it to the end of this post, our living room furniture count is (5) couches, (2) loveseats, (1) chair and ottoman, (2) coffee tables, (6) end tables, (6) lamps, (2) entertainment bases, and (2) entertainment tops. This all stemmed from one purchase in early 2003....just so we could save a few bucks. Trust me, the time and energy spent fighting this company, taking off work, calling customer service, and dealing with broken furniture was NOT worth "no financing until 2006."