Mei Kitchens Ace Kitchens Direct Did not abide by replacement policy, Internet

I purchased over $6,000 of kitchen cabinets from this company. I drove down to Pompano Beach to pick them up on February 20. We spoke with the designer and the office manager to confirm we were coming on that day, however when we arrived our order was not ready. We waited several hours for them to gather the order and load in into our trailer and truck. I asked Stanley, the warehouseman, what I do if something is missing or damaged as we could not see in the boxes. He said I have 30 days to make a claim and when I get home to check everything and then go online and fill out a claim form if anything was wrong. We got home and began opening the boxes and constructing the cabinets. After opening two cabinets we immediately noticed a drastic color difference between them. I called Mei Kitchens on Monday to report this and the Office Manager/Receptionist said this happens if the cabinets are not from the same shipment. She suggested I should open the remainder and see everthing to see if any others were off color or damaged and she showed me where the claim form was on the internet site.

During the course of opening the 22 cabinets I ordered we discovered some minor issues and also some pretty major issues. The B12 cabinet was an obvious brown color compared to the other cabinets as was the two trash pullout cabinets. The drawer box on the B12 cabinet was cracked also. The back panel to the 24 x 96 pantry was separated and one of the doors was warped. We had been putting everything together in an assembly line fashion. When looking at the upper cabinets we noticed obvious damage. The W2142 and W3342 had tool marks on the corners that made the corners of the cabinets appear to be rounded off. There were blemishes on one back panel  of the wall cabinets and the bottom edge of another wall cabinet, the W3042. The drawer box front on the B42 had a flaw in the wood. One of the doors on the 18 x 96 pantry had a flaw in the front. This was all concealed damage and Mei Kitchens has a policy in place for concealed damage if you pick up your cabinets. You are to contact them within 30 days to receive an authorization for replacement and it says they MAY require you to return the damaged item for inspection.

I conacted them to advise them of the concealed damage and of a few other issues, broken self closing mechanisms (they are plastic and break very easily. Each one breaks when attaching them to the drawer boxes). The hinges do not always line up with the plastic inserts and sometimes when screwing into the plastic inserts the screw just spins around in the plastic insert not catching anything and consequently the hinge is not firmly attached. Several of the drawer boxes did not have the predrilled hole marks for the slides.

At the time I first contacted them I had not attached all of the doors so only knew about the one warped dor. On every cabinet the doors are warped. They either touch at the top and not the bottom or vice versa. No amount of adjusting the hinges makes the situation better. The hinges as I mention are inferior as they do not allow the screws to engage in the plastic fitting, which just spins or pops out completely, so when the doors are installed, they wobble and after a couple of opening and closings, the hinge just pops out completely.

I completed the online form as Stanley and the Office Manager explained. I didn't even recieve a phone call but had to go back on line to see a comment from Linda Fyfe that she would replace the one warped door on the pantry but she said I had signed for the shipment so was basically SOL. I wrote back to her and said I did not agree with her assessment of my claim. I explained that it would be impossible to open every box upon picking up the order and they had a policy regarding concealed damage claims within 30 days. I offered that I would accept all the inferior issues if they just replaced the warped door and the two damaged wall cabinets. I even suggested that they would only need to replace three panels on the W2142 and one panel on the W3342. She posted on the site that I signed for the items and they didn't accept returns for cabinets that were put together. I wrote back again that there policy for concealed damage did not say anything about the cabinets being put together (that is the return policy) and it even said that they may require return of the item for inspection, so their policy didn't even require the return of the item, so why would they be concerned if it was put together or not. Do they resell them to unsuspecting customers like me? She has ignored the last email and has not communicated further. I have not recieve even the warped door she promised. At this point I would ask a refund for every damaged and off color cabinet that I purchased.

When I contacted them, they said they would would replace the one warped door