American Signature Furniture Tries to pass off defective/refurbished furniture as new; Lied to and cheated us! Peggy Siewert store manager Kennesaw Georgia

This is the beginning of my publicity campaign to tell the general public about our experience with American Signature Furniture. My husband and I purchased nearly $7,000 worth of furniture from this store. We assumed that we had spent our money on new furniture in good condition.

All of our leather living room furniture was delivered damaged with holes in every piece. They attempted to deliver our sofa EIGHT TIMES -- four of those times, they delivered the same exact sofa that we had sent back the time before, trying to pass off the same damaged merchandise time and time again.

After their third try at scamming us, I made a mark in an inconspicuous place on the damaged sofa for identifying purposes, and much to my surprise the same exact sofa was re-delivered again the following week. THEN, they had the gall to sloppily fill in the damaged areas with some kind of brown colored putty and attempt to redeliver this same couch AGAIN.

They took a damaged couch and once again tried to pass it off as new by trying to disguise the damage! They obviously think that customers are stupid or they would never have the nerve to try to get away with such antics.

Our living room chairs took FOUR tries to get them right. One was delivered with scratches on the leather, and rather than exchange it for us, the store sent a "technician" out to repair it. This guy merely applied spray paint to the scratches to cover them up. The scratches are still there on the "new" chair that we paid full price for, just disguised with cheap spray paint. Obviously this is not the "new" leather chair that we shelled out $700 for.

Our bed was delivered with bent hardware which the delivery crew attempted to "fix" by banging it with a boxcutter. Yes, a boxcutter. That was the only tool that they showed up with. They had absolutely no other tools with which to assemble my furniture, and insisted that I ask my husband where he keeps his tools so that they could use ours.

Our kitchen table and chairs were delivered completely damaged, all five pieces in fact. The table top had gouges in it, and all four chairs were dinged and scratched. I finally told them to just forget it and refund us for this set. I in turn found a similar style table at another store, which delivered all five pieces in perfect condition the first try. Interesting...

Our bedroom dresser has a defective panel which is causing the mirror to fall out. After waiting three weeks for the store to obtain the correct replacement part (so they told us), their repairman showed up with an equally defective part that he said was ripped off of a dresser that was in their back room. Again ... trying to pass used, defective merchandise off on us.

Thoroughly annoyed at this point, my husband brought the defective part into the store last weekend and personally showed it to store manager Peggy Siewert. Peggy assured us that she would look into the situation and call us back first thing Monday morning (today). Hmmm... it is nearly 7 pm now ... no call, no message, nothing.

What I find interesting is that all of the furniture in the showroom is in perfect, pristine condition. Clearly they have no problem at all having furniture delivered to their own showroom without being damaged ... only to customers' homes. After each botched deliver attempt, I asked the drivers where the defective merchandise ended up. They gave me a variety of answers from "I don't know" to "We put it back in the warehouse" to "We fix it and resell it." They even admit to selling damaged and refurbished crap!

All of this furniture was scheduled to be delivered on August 19th. They have wasted 10 days of my time with their "three hour windows" during which they have brought me defective furniture each and every time. Either myself or my husband have had to take unpaid time off from work to meet them for these deliveries.

Peggy Siewert and her "merchandise manager" Mike have ripped us off in other ways too. Weeks ago, Mike called me on the phone to say that due to the inconvenience and missed work, etc., they would be crediting my account for $350. Not seeing this credit on my account after a week had gone by, I called the store, and Peggy (the store manager) told me that "the best she could do" was $284 plus tax. The amount that was actually credited to my account was $280. Both Mike and Peggy have flat-out lied to us. We do not do business with liars. Of course we will never buy another piece of junk from this store again.

My next course of action is to contact the local Atlanta TV news stations, the attorney general's office, and other local media. Perhaps a little publicity will inform the public of this store's scam.

The bottom line is that when people spend money on new furniture, they should not end up with refurbished junk that the store tries to pass off as new. If I wanted to buy junk, I would have bought stuff from a yard sale or a charity rather than wasted $7,000 at this store!

Pamela
Kennesaw, Georgia
U.S.A.