Stainsafe Arbitrary Capricious denial of warranty claims - contact #'s for Exec's Ripoff Palm Beach Gardens Florida

*For contact numbers for the Execs, scroll down to the bottom of this message:

Purchased a sofa sleeper, chair, and ottoman from Wickes furniture in Southern California on September 3rd, 2005, delivered to my house on September 8th, 2005. Purchased the Stain protection warranty/service plan for about $200. Sales person said it was our best bet since we have young children. Little did I know that I would need the Stain service so quickly!

About 10 days or so after we got the furniture, my kids were eatting ice cream at the dining table and got the ice cream on their hands and face. They then went over to the ottoman and put their ice cream covered hands and faces on the top of the ottoman. I called Wickes and they said to call Stainsafe the very next day during their operating hours. Spoke to Stainsafe, explained there were several small ice cream stains on the ottoman and one ice cream stain on the chair. Service rep said they would send out a cleaning kit for me to clean the stains myself. No problems so far, right?

About a week later, my 2yr old spilled chocolate milk all over the top of the ottoman. I immediately called Stainsafe to report another claim. Service rep put me on hold for about 10 minutes and came back on saying that this would go beyond a "spot cleaning" and therefore she would be sending out a technician to clean the ottoman. She further advised me that should the cleaning kit come before the technician got there, not to use the cleaning kit, to just let the technician clean it.

Technician came in, looked at the ottoman and then got on the phone with Stainsafe. He told the Stainsafe rep that there were too many stains to spot clean and that the ottoman required a general cleaning. He handed the phone to me and said the Stainsafe rep wanted to speak with me. After handing me the phone he walked out of my house and took off in his truck.

The Stainsafe rep promptly told me that since it was an accumulation of stains beyond what I had reported on my two claims, that the warranty would not cover the cleaning of my ottoman and that they only covered spot cleaning. I then asked why a technician was sent to my house to perform cleaning "beyond a spot cleaning" as the second claim person described it. No response from the rep. I explained to her that it was not an accumulation of stains beyond what I reported, that all of the stains were from the two incidents. She stated that the tech they sent said there were over 30 stains on the ottoman which is more than what I reported. When I first filed the claim and they asked me how many stains, I said several small stains and described how my children had touched the ottoman with ice cream on their hands and face. She said that based on the technicians report, they were denying my claim. I explained again that it cannot be considered an accumulation of stains since each child has 10 fingers, and just touching the ottoman once each would add up to 20 spots, so reasonably there would be 30 or more stains found.

She said there was nothing she could do at this time, we'd have to wait to appeal. Told me to call back and ask for a Consumer Advocate. Spoke to a consumer advocate who said the same thing she did. Asked to speak to a supervisor, no supervisor available, asked for the name of his boss, said he was as high as they go, asked who he reported to, he refused. Finally got him to give me the first name of that person. Kim called back the next day and said the warranty claim was denied because I had a responsibility to prevent the event from occurring.

WHAT? Kids are kids and that is why we bought the warranty because when you actually LIVE in a house, you can't always have your eye on your kids. I asked for a supervisor, she refused. I asked who was in charge of customer service, she refused. Finally got her to give me the name Ruth.

Interesting note: the number she called me on (showed up on caller id), when I called it back there was a recording saying that the number was no longer in service or had been disconnected.

So, I find all of these complaints about Stainsafe online. Figured that if I take this info and give it to Wickes Furniture, maybe they would dump Stainsafe and that would hurt Stainsafe more than me trying any legal action. I would encourage everyone else to complain to their furniture store execs, too.

One last interesting note, the Florida Attorney General's office has received about 200 complaints on StainSafe since 2003 and an investigator from their office informed me that the Florida Department of Financial Services (? not sure of the name) has an open and pending investigation on StainSafe for warranty fraud.

Useful (or useless since they never called back) numbers for contacting StainSafe Executives:

Robert (Bob) Sayre, President (561) 622-4260 ext.114 & ext. 161

Steve Friedman, CFO, Corp Secretary, ext. 118

Irving S. Friedman, Treasurer, ext. 123

Tony Milano, General Manager, VP operations, ext. 117

Doug Write, VP Administration, ext. 200. Here's his cellphone number, too! (561) 324-2040 (I called and actually spoke to him)

Cara Malone, Customer Relations Manager, ext. 126

Other useful info to make life miserable for them, they recently received some capital investment (i.e. someone gave them a bunch of money) from Palm Beach Capital. (www.pbcap.com) Might do some good to let the principal partners of this investment firm know that there are HUNDREDS of complaints, that the State Attorney General's office has received 200 complaints, and that StainSafe is currently under investigation by the Florida Department of Finance for warranty fraud.

Hurt them like they hurt us and maybe we can put them out of business!

WilliamJoe
Huntington Beach, California
U.S.A.

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