ROOMSTORE Averted Purchase - Suffering Credit Hardship Temporarily - Consideration for ALL FURNITURE PURCHASES Plano, Texas

Fresh for the fall of 2009, some interesting 'after the fact' issues have come to light about this persisting Texas-based firm.  My wife and I went to replace furnishings for our apartment to this store and location on September 26, 2009.  This was our first (and last) experience with Roomstore.  Had never been in a store of this type before.  I understood they have been around for over 20 years.  We figured they were a good competitor to the more prominent business that is advertised heavily on TV by celebrities. 

My wife's credit file is newer and she was to explore getting a credit line through this store.  We were shown items of interest for dining and living areas of our home.  The tab added up to just over $3500.00.  No interest for 2 years.  Fabric guard, warranties, even motor warranties for the electric recliners in the set.  All was looking fine.  Her alleged credit line through Household Bank, their finance partner (see later comments about this as food for thought for ANY FURNITURE STORE CREDIT PURCHASES), was told to us (no paperwork, keep that in mind as a consumer) as $3600.00.  For this part of the transaction, the result in the mail was a $3100 credit line, rendering my wife's credit over limit immediately before furniture was delivered and payment was ever made!!! No down payment.  We now are in the process of repairing her credit as a result of this unexpected part of the transaction that frankly, liability is there against Roomstore and Household Bank together.  If necessary, both will be taken on should the credit bureau used in this case cause us grief in the removal of this completely from her credit file.  Simultaneously, the pretty young girl in the store that helped with the paperwork understood that the finance company has no information about the transaction until AFTER the furniture is delivered.  WRONG.  Another clue to the reader: most information you get from others in anything we do is wrong; always check with at least a supervisor or manager if you want a semblance of correct information.

So all the above says nothing of the furniture itself.  The reason is that the furniture delivery date to the store was told to us for one week following the upcoming Sunday to our store visit, or October 4, 2009.   This business tends to stick with furniture truck delivery days to stores on days when the stores themselves are closed.  Go figure.  Makes no sense to us.  In any case, our friendly, smiley salesman, told us he would call on Monday the the 5th, as soon as the goods were in and then schedule delivery to us as quickly as possible.  Anticipated date was no later than the 9th of October.  Sure enough as Monday the 5th came and went,  no call.  By post 6 PM local time,  I asked the wife to call the store.  Having been in a flu/cold sickly state, I was listening to the salesman talking to my wife during the call.  He first asked her for her order number (notice 1:  no awareness of who she was as a personal customer despite the warm tidings we often bear between each other in such transactions).  He now stated that 'they give us no reason for why the delay, Mrs., but all I see here is that the trucking company did not make it and now they say October 11'.  

The reference above was for the couch/sofa system, which was not in stock.  The dining table and chairs were in stock.  We were never offered to have the in stock merchandise delivered while the other was still coming in.  No, we had to think of that.  Our friendly salesman offered no apology for not calling earlier in the day, no apology for the lateness of the merchandise, no accountability by the company for what was going on, and this rather aloof, arm's length attitude began to play on me.  As this was going on in my mind October 4 evening,  we had no iota of issue about the credit line.  Nonewhatsoever.  So the call that evening was left to arrange delivery of the table and chairs at least for the upcoming Wednesday.  

However on Tuesday October 5, 2009, we decided to visit the competing store, the one advertised no TV regularly with celebrities.  We were quite impressed with the value for the money and the fact that they were promoting the inclusion of a 40 inch LCD TV name brand to boot.  This motivated us to wish to cancel our transaction with Roomstore and after forming a tighter bond for the new salesman at the competing store with an already crafted letter of cancellation to Roomstore (which interestingly the salesman at the competing store wished a copy of as his 40 years in the business suggested the letter I had of cancellation to Roomstore was the things a salesman should NOT do, so he valued the 'training' aspect of it), we went to have my wife's credit checked again; this time for a line at this competing store.

We were then rather unsettled at the news about her credit line ability;  it was denied.  Knowing my wife's credit file is recent and uncluttered with negatives (unlike, ahem, mine!), I was quite clear on the why.  Now the puzzle was piecing together fine and it was the Roomstore transaction that indeed set up an amount in my wife's file (at this point, we still did not know to what degree, we presumed she had an inquiry only but in fact i suspected the line of $3600 was there already which was proved correct later as you will read but I did not expect her to be sitting with a credit negative before any delivery of anything from Roomstore). 

Notice #2 here:  When we as consumers go buy a car, we can actually get a loan from where we choose.  In the state of affairs of furniture buying these days, you are not free licensed to get the financing yourself; this is a questionable area now, a reason for improvement, because of the pitfalls of credit in general which have befallen on my wife temporarily here.  Read on to understand more. 

So we left the competing store seeing more value in it than what we had done (a lesson to go slower in the future and not sign on to anyone's credit until having looked around more to our satisfaction).  We took the letter of cancellation I crafted, along with critique of the salesman's behavior and attitude, to the Roomstore location to in fact cancel.  We stood there watching the same pretty lady that opened our transaction over a week earlier, close it.  Another gentleman there seemed to suggest that furniture that comes in from out of the country has to go through the Port of Houston and each cargo container these days is opened up.  Ironically, our original salesman was in the store at the time we were there to cancel.  He came over shyly, near the end of the cancellation to casually check with us that we were taken care of.  This fellow was allegedly 30 years in the business and  you can form the picture now of how we treated us after the initial sale when there was a lack of information he provided (we knew only of trucking, no port or Houston) and a lack of being proactive. 

So now the transaction was cancelled at our option, no charges, no penalty.  But one matter remained.  I knew the finance company had to be dealt with to cancel my wife's credit line with them as their finance agent for Roomstore.  It is again unfortunate that such a credit line cannot be presented to a competitor to move forward with them.  Apparently, each store chain or store has its own finance company.  There is room for improvement here. 

Let me also mention that on the morning of this day, this Tuesday, October 5, 2009,  I called the Plano Roomstore to get the name of the regional manager since the website is quite deficient at noting address and phone for the corporate center of Roomstore.  I dont believe there is an official corporate center for the public to know.  Not a good sign of any company in the public view.  Notice 3 preceding sentence. 

I called and left a message to the name of the Regional Office manager I got.  I presumed I would not hear back from her rest of day, despite my urgent message to her to call me that day.  I was right.  She was also noted in my letter that I left and encouraged Roomstore in Plano to have added to their file under management. 

So the matter of financing had to be unwound.  My wife and I were not interested to have the credit line at all now.  Outside the store in the car, I phoned the finance company for Roomstore on my wife's new account.  It took another number or two to get to a live party to discuss the matter of canceling the credit line.  The bottom line here was that we ended up having to go back in to the store, to put on the store agent to have the line cancelled.  The store agent was clearly not in the mood to deal with this but did.  Her line was cancelled.  At that time, we were told she was over limit by over $400.00!  We then were greeted by the mail late Tuesday at home that had her credit card from the company for the roomstore purchases and clearly noted was a credit line for $3100.00 not the undocumented $3600.00 the store claimed she was approved for.  Again, no down payment made, no check, no payment, no furniture delivered.  Now we had the final credit bureau (only one, thank God) to deal with to have that transaction removed.  That is where we are in the process.  My wife's credit is temporarily damaged by this lying or misrepresentation on the part of Roomstore with their own finance agent (demand proof before signing anything of the credit line) and we will miss out on the furniture offers at the competing store for now due to her credit being clouded by the Roomstore transaction, which the bureau had better remove completely as it is disputed.  Otherwise we reserve the right to bring Roomstore and Household Bank to justice. 

So in this long real true to life tale,  perhaps you are the better prepared to ask more questions of liability and service BEFORE you get involved.  In the final analysis,  I have been advised that Roomstore has been trying to go out of business for over 20 years now and allegedly family members of a longstanding circle of families is involved to keep propping it up.  Funny how that can be and how a business can sputter along with crappy underlying fundamentals in people, quality, and process.   To us, it is the inherent limitations of our god of money in capitalism that allows this to be. 

In closing, we did the right thing to unwind the transaction as credit issues were next.  While I would have enjoyed pressing their accountability buttons on the presumed credit line from what was real,  best we bowed out as their end failure to deliver.   We remain without living furniture having given our old stuff away to a start out couple but we are the happier for the cut cord and the credit fix should be happening soon, hopefully timing well for near year end sales too.