Frontgate Ripoff with Frontgate Catalog West Chester Ohio

I purchased a teak shower rack years back (item#40855) came to us moldy (defective wood). I reached out to Charles Jacoby their head guro (past contact person who helped me before) and he offered to refund that rack back, as well as send a NEW replacement (very generous). We have had the new rack packed up in our climate controlled garage (Frontgate blames us for improper storage, RIGHT...) and recently about three months back pulled the new rack out and used it. The teak shelves were coming off after a few weeks (reaching for the shampoo bottle and it flung off) it was junky!

I called the company and they arranged a return label of the item, authorized this return (requested a gift card and or replace the product with another). I used their pre-paid label and dropped it off at the UPS. A few months have gone by (in 2017) and I called them to find out about the package and finally they were able to track the item/return. Why had it been sitting for 2 months like this! The shipping manager Elizabeth said she needed the invoice which was in the box I shipped back and I was unable to find the copy I had saved on my end.

I reached back out to Charles Jacoby in Feb. and he seemed willing to help but now he said I am out of luck on the item. I stated you won't stand behind your product warranty? FRONTGATE GUARANTEE: At Frontgate, our primary focus is quality. We guarantee that every product we sell will stand up to the supreme test-our customers satisfaction.

It does not sit well with us that they are keeping the product and no gift card and or replacement of the product (per our request, as well as arrangement we made with them before we mailed it back to them). We feel ripped off now! We reached out to their local BBB and after a few back and forth reports they basically dropped the complaint. If Frontgate had not agreed to take the item back in and not sent me a return label and not authorize to start that process it would be different. In our neck of the woods that's stealing and it does not sit well with us that they never sent the item back and they kept it (broken or not). Lousy ordeal!

They had a new manager contact us and she was called in to get the matter settled and all she did was go over the same details and was offering no solution! I told her to call me back when she has a proper resolution and hung up the phone...calling a customer to argue, who needs that!

The original founder Paul Tarvin of Frontgate was outstanding! Since Frontgate's inception, the focus has alwasy been on courteous, personalized attention, NOT ANYMORE. They are being run by whoever now and it's lousy with a higher end catalog company (image they want to be so prestine) to treat any customer this way. Sure if this happened to them they would feel ripped off too!