Bob's Discount Furniture. Lack of professionalism, No desire to make things right with the customer. Worcester Massachusetts

On March 15th, 2008 I got married.

The very next day, my new wife & I went to Bobs Discount Furniture for our first big purchase as a newly married couple.

After meeting with a salesperson we rummaged around the selection of the beds & decided upon a "Bob-O-Pedic" adjustable bed. We tried both the plus & firm mattresses & bought the firm.

The only issue was that it was back ordered & wouldn't be in until the first week of April 2008.

We got a call soon after with the news that one was available & would be delivered that week. When I spoke with the store I reminded them that they needed to call my cell phone & not the home number when the delivery people were on their way. These instructions were outlined on the invoice.

A couple days later I just happened to be passing my home from a work errand to find the Bobs delivery truck at my house. (why didn't they call me?)

No matter, I was there & all was okay. I let them in. They took the old mattress & installed the new. They reminded me that it'd take a few hours for the mattress to soften up as it was cold that day.

That night we slept in our new bed. Or at least my wife did. I could not relax on the mattress. It seemed a lot firmer than the one in the showroom. I gave it a couple more days & after getting little sleep & a sore back we went back to Bobs to exchange it for a plush version as well as the non adjustable as neither of us used that feature.

So April 10 of '08 we went back to Bobs & did the exchange. I tried & retried the plush & firm & decided that the plush was best. JUST in case, we went with a dual that has a plush & firm half This time choosing the king over the queen size.

They said, however, the king size was back ordered to May 20th. So we decided to wait for the new one to arrive & just keep the queen automatic until then.

By this time I had started sleeping on the floor on a roll up spare mattress.

Fast forward to May 13th 2008.

I called customer service to see if the new king size was still going to be available on the 20th.

She said "Oh we have those!" I said, "when were you going to call me to deliver it" Basically since I was in there the the 20th, they were going to wait.

So I (again) double checked that they delivery people would do the one hour call ahead to my cell number & she read back the number I'd originally given.

The next day, on the 14th of May, I got an automated call from "Bob" about a scheduled pickup on May 15th between 2:09PM & 5:09PM on my cell phone. "yay" I thought, "they remembered!"

No they didn't.

On May 15th, 2008 I got a call from my neighbor saying that there was a Bobs Furniture truck at my house with people & mattress walking around. This was 2:11pm.

Since I work 15 minutes from home I left work & headed there. When I got there @ 2:28PM & the truck was gone.

I went inside & on my answering machine was a call from the Bobs delivery people telling me they were almost at my house. There was also a call from the Bobs warehouse saying that I'd need to reschedule.

I called customer service was told that once the truck leave an address, it can't go back because it has other deliveries to make on time. When I pressed, she said she'd try to get the truck to go back since by this time it was only about 20 minutes away. When she got back she told me that the truck was already back at the depot & was done for the day.

I then asked her why I didn't get a call on my cellphone as was outlined in the instructions. She told me that that phone number wasn't anywhere on the invoice. "then how is it Bobs called me yesterday at that number?" She didn't answer.

So I spoke with her manager.

She was even less helpful. I was more upset that they didn't call my cell then missing the delivery. But she promised that they'd be back tomorrow (May 16th) with the bed & would "absolutely" call my cell phone.

May 16th, 2008.

12:25PM
I was at lunch with some co-workers & I thought, "I'll call the house just in case" I called & wouldn't you know, there was a message from the Bobs guys saying that they'd be at my house by 1PM. I left the restaurant early & got to my house at 12:58 and waited.

And waited.

And waited.

At 1:30 I called customer service about the delivery time because for some reason the on-line customer tracking didn't work. The lady said they they had two more deliveries before mine & should be there soon.

I waited until 1:45PM & I had to get back to work.

I left a post-it on my door saying that I waited until that time & to call my cell. I was half-way back when someone called from Bobs saying that they were at my house waiting for me.

I asked why they were so late. "deliveries, you know?" No apology. But that's okay.

I called my boss as I headed back to the house.

I was pulling up then they were unloading. My new, $1400.00 mattresses were on the ground. I thought since they were in plastic, I'd be okay, right?

They brought them in & were struck dumb as they say the still un-retrieved queensize bed that they were supposed to pickup. So they left my new mattresses outside (did I mention it was starting to rain?) & brought the old mattress into the truck.

They put the king size on the floor & I inquired about something. "Where's the frame?"

So they called the depot & I heard over the nextel that it was still on back order & then they changed it to that I never ordered one with the bed.

That part is true. I looked at the invoice & there was no frame there. However, one wasn't offered either. So my new bed is on the floor. (my fault on that one, I assumed I'd get a frame with the new mattress.)

They pack up & leave & I head back to work. I didn't even check out the new mattress as I'd spent too much time from work on this.

Big mistake.

Later that afternoon my wife calls. "This mattress is filthy!"

Indeed, there was wet grass stains & leaves & mud on the ends and foot prints on top of the mattress. "probably from where they dropped it in the yard" I said. I was so elated to finally have the new bed I didn't even think to look at the mattress. But there were holes torn into the plastic letting them get in that condition.

My wife called customer service about this & they basically did the same thing as with me. They didn't listen, didn't really seem interested in helping. "we can get another mattress our there on Tuesday but there will be a delivery charge." My wife felt that unacceptable & felt that we shouldn't be responsible for a delivery charge for an damaged item.

They told her that "they'd look into it & they'd call back"

They did, a couple of hours later but all they did was move the delivery to Monday, but they'd only bring the delivery down to 50%.

I personally don't think we should be responsible for the mis-handling by their delivery people. I also felt that their delivery persons weren't professional. One spent most of his time on his cell phone arguing with someone & quite frankly didn't fill me with confidence in my purchase.

The customer service people were an entirely different story. They were more interested in getting off the phone than actually helping us. They wouldn't listen & had the habit of talking over and interrupting my wife. At one point told her to "calm down" when she started getting angry.

In the future, I think I'll spend the extra money on a company who actually appreciates their customers. I myself work in the services field & I'd be looking for a new job if I treated a customer like that.

We'll never shop Bobs ever again.

Domo
Central, Massachusetts
U.S.A.