Brookstone Brookstone Scam. Bait & Switch, they'll purposely sell you broken equipment, stall you, then charge hundreds of dollars to return it. Fairfax Virginia

The girlfriend and I were talked into buying a refurbished "massage chair" from Brookstone, guaranteed that it would work even better than a new one since it was thoroughly inspected prior to shipment. When the chair showed up, with it came a checklist of all of the things that were "inspected" with a 100% rating that everything worked. The reality:

MP3 player didn't work.
Right foot massager didn't work, and actually cut you with sharp broken piece of plastic.
Attempting to lean the chair back raised the whole chair off the floor due to the leg rests not raising, but extending out.

Here's a summary:

Called Brookstone within 24 hours with complaints. Was told they would send a technician.

2 weeks later, the technician arrived, said the wrong parts were ordered, and new parts would have to be ordered.

2 weeks later, "new" parts arrived but no technician. Called Brookstone and was told that it was our responsibility (this time) to call the technicians.

Technicians called, a week later they arrive. They inform us that the first technician ordered the exact same parts (and showed us, we now had two sets of spair parts) and that the previous technician never opened the chair. The new technicians DID NOT EVEN KNOW IT WAS A MASSAGE CHAIR, much less how to fix it. They recommended we return it.

Note: We had yet to even be able to use the chair.

Called Brookstone to return it, they stated as it was past the 30 day window, and we would have to pay a $600 restocking fee.

What followed was HALF A YEAR of calls to Brookstone's head office, speaking with people as high as the VP of the company before they would agree to a full refund.

After they finally agreed to a full refund, they sent the refund minus $400. Had to make additional calls over a week to get the remaining $400 refund.

The entire tale (minus the final calls to get the refund) I have posted on my web host: www.Javin-Inc.com/brookstone

They need to be sued into the ground. Never, and I mean NEVER consider buying anything from Brookstone. They are flat-out scammers.

Javin
Fairfax, Virginia
U.S.A.