Sleepy's The mattress store from hell Nationwide

I had the worst ordering experience with Sleepy's I have ever had with any company. I just moved to a new place and need a mattress urgently, as I left my bed behind at the old place and currently have no mattress to sleep on at the new apartment. I thought it would be enough to go to a Sleepy’s store a few days in advance before moving to a new place, but little did I know what I was getting into. Let me tell you my story – a tale of suffering and sleeplessness on my part and of complete lack of competence and customer focus on Sleepy’s part.

 My partner and I tried a few mattresses in the store and found one that was advertised for $1099. After haggling for a while, we got a quote for $789 plus a $99 delivery fee. I didn’t want to buy the mattress immediately, as I wanted to compare it to some other offers online first. This was probably a smart decision, because after checking Sleepy’s website I found out quickly just how much they try to rip you off in the store. They offered the exact same mattress that was quoted to us for $789 plus a $99 delivery fee after haggling for 30 minutes in the store at a regular price of $699 online. With a coupon code I also found online I was able to get a further 10% off plus free delivery, so if I would have bought the mattress in the Sleepy’s store right away I would have wasted hundreds of dollars.

 The better price however was well made up for by a horrible ordering process. I tried twice with three different credit cards to order the mattress we wanted from Sleepy’s website. The system is cleverly designed in a way that forces you to enter the exact same data all over again each time something goes wrong in the ordering process. So I had the pleasure of entering my name, email address, phone number, billing address, shipping address and credit card data a total of six times just to always get the exact same message in the end: “Your payment could not be processed. If this problem persists, please contact your bank or credit card company.”. It didn’t matter that I tried different credit cards from different banks that worked totally fine for all my furniture purchase right before and after trying to order from Sleepy’s. They did not intend to give away their overprized mattresses so easily.

 As ordering online was pretty much a dead end, I tried to order with them over the phone. I explained my online experience to the sales representative, but she could not give me any information on what might be the problem. She just requested that I gave her all my data again, which I had only given them once in the store and a total of six times online already. But I guess it is too much of a hassle for them to store such data anywhere on their end. It anyway seemed like she was just entering my data into the exact same forms that I had already used online numerous times, and I knew pretty well where that was going to lead. As expected, she also couldn’t complete the ordering process as the payment wouldn’t go through. In addition, she could give me absolutely zero information on what might be the problem and only kept coming back to me having to contact my bank and try again later.

 In a notion of completely unfounded optimism, I decided the following day that I should maybe just try again online, as it just might have been a temporary problem with their system. But that would have been way to easy and obviously my order didn’t go through again. So even though my card worked total fine for everything else, I decided to contact my bank to make absolutely sure that the problem wasn’t on their end. I talked to bank twice and they confirmed that they were not blocking the payment requests from Sleepy’s, but that something must not be properly working on Sleepy’s end. Yeah, you could say that, something is definitely not properly working at Sleepy’s! The bank specifically recorded the exact details of the transaction to remove any security checks for future attempts that might trip up Sleepy’s system. In my naivety, I thought it might be worth another try online after that. After I netered my complete data for the 8^th time online now, I of course ended up on the same screen that was oh so familiar by now: “Your payment could not be processed. If this problem persists, please contact your bank or credit card company.” Yeah jackass, it’s not like I have just done exactly that.

 I honestly can’t say exactly why at this point I didn’t just say screw it and simply ordered a mattress from a different place. But I guess I have a very persistent nature and somehow just didn’t want to give up on the mattress that we had tried out and liked in the store. I wish now that I had, because then I might not have to sleep on a couch that is about two feet shorter than my body right now…

 Anyway, I kept going and called Sleepy’s again to try yet another time to order the mattress over the phone. I told the sales representative my tale of suffering up to that point but she showed no mercy and just made me give her all the exact data again that I had already entered so many times. Seriously guys, do you not keep a record of anything? Miraculously however, this time the payment went through! Oh the excitement, I thought I was so close now and could almost smell the victory of owning a mattress. But that is obviously not the Sleepy’s way, that would be way to easy. She had to transfer me to a different guy first to schedule the delivery. Of course, my data was not transferred along, I had to give him everything except the credit card data again. If you ever have problems remembering a new address, phone number, e-mail address, etc., I can highly recommend ordering at Sleepy’s as they will make you repeat your data so many times that you will certainly remember It by heart afterwards. In any other case however, please don’t order there.

 The delivery guy came up with a new hoop they wanted me to jump. Before they could complete the order, I had to fax them a copy of the driver’s license associated with the credit card I had used for the purchase. This was necessary because the billing address of the credit card was different from the shipping address for the mattress. I assume that this is very unusual for Sleepy’s as no one ever buys a mattress when they move into a new place, right? So he gave me a fax number to which he wanted me to fax a copy of the driver’s license together with the order number for the transaction. It is 2014 Sleepy’s, seriously, who is still hung up on faxes these days? But regardless of owning a fax machine or not, I was determined to get that mattress at this point. After having spent countless hours on acquiring a medium-soft kool gel ortho posture to cushion my tired body at night, I was not going to give up now after all.

 So the delivery guy assured me that I was going to be one of the chosen few to enjoy the delivery of an actual mattress soon under the condition that I somehow managed to get my hands on a fax machine - maybe by breaking into a technology museum or so. Not that soon however, as he also let me know that their whole delivery department does generally not work on Thursdays at all, so Friday was the earliest they could do. My actual theory however is that none of their departments ever do their job regardless of what day of the week it is, but I guess that depends on the point of view under which you are looking at it. Anyway, Friday still worked out for me as this was the last night before I definitely had to move into the new place as I did not have a bed to sleep in anymore anywhere else starting Friday night. So I considered myself blessed after all, as everything might still work out rather ok and focused all my energy on getting out that fax which would decide my future fate.

 I couldn’t really get a hold of an actual fax machine as no one seems to own those anymore, but I found a service online which allowed me to fax a scan of the driver’s license to Sleepy’s. As I knew pretty well how they work by then, I made sure to include my complete contact data in the fax together with the order number and a request to please confirm that everything was according to their liking now and that I could expect the delivery as scheduled on Friday. Contact me of course they did not,  but I assume that would have been a little much to expect, I mean I had only given them my phone number a mere twelve times or so at this point. Well, that is not entirely true, someone from Sleepy’s did contact me that day, but it was the sales guy from the store I had visited in the beginning. He wanted to let me know that he was still holding this quote for me over $789 and was wondering if I did not intend to buy the mattress from the Sleepy’s store now. Oh the irony… When I told him I had ordered it online instead (or at least attempted to do so), he replied that his system did not show that. Before he hung up he showed a little disappointment that I had not decided to spend significantly more to get the mattress directly in the store instead of getting a much better deal online. In retrospect however, it might have been a wise decision to spend a couple of hundred bucks more just to avoid Sleepy’s online and telephone ordering process…

 Anyway, as I got no word from Sleepy’s regarding my fax at all, I called them again to confirm that everything was on track and that I could expect the delivery on Friday as scheduled. They confirmed this to me on Thursday afternoon through the phone and assured me that the mattress would arrive the following day. To be honest, at this point this already sounded a little too good to be true to me. It just raised my suspicion as knowing Sleepy’s processes by now it just seemed way too easy like that. No further obstacles or hurdles to jump anymore? I mean what was I even going to do all day, if there wasn’t some data to send to Sleepy’s anymore? I guess they were thinking the exact same thing, because when I called them again on Friday to ask what was up with the scheduled delivery, customer service told me that for some reason the delivery had been cancelled on their side. I knew that they weren’t going to let me of the hook that easily. Of course, they couldn’t tell my why the delivery was cancelled or how that might have happened. Maybe the delivery department is working on Thursdays after all, but only on clearing out their schedule for the rest of the week by deleting pending deliveries?

 Anyway, the only option customer service gave me at this point was to reschedule a delivery for Sunday. I was asking a little hesitantly what would keep the delivery order for Sunday from disappearing in the same way, but I guess the girl on the phone didn’t want to burden her mind with such completely unrealistic questions. She only offered me to try to inquire how it might have happened in the first place and assured me that she would call me back to let me know what had happened. To be completely honest with you, I don’t really expect such a call.

 What I do expect however, is that I will sleep on the couch for I while. I can’t really imagine that I will receive this glorious mattress any time soon. That kind of optimism has been thoroughly beaten out of me by Sleepy’s by now. It might be too late for me now, but you can still save your money, nerves and soul. Spare yourself from haggling for deals that are way worse then what you would get online anyway. Spare yourself from repeating your data over and over again. Spare yourself from talking to sales and customer services representatives who don’t really have a clue what they are doing. Save yourself some sleep and do not buy from Sleepy’s – the mattress store from hell.