My heart-wrenching story begins on a beautiful, crisp Friday afternoon, February 11th, in Seattle, Washington...
I walked into Dania, a (terribly dreadful) furniture store with a few friends during the lunch hour, with huge hopes of finding the right chair and sofa combo to furnish my new apartment with. More than anything, I felt that purchasing new furniture for the first time in my life would result in complete self-realization. Being new to the "furniture game," I was shocked to learn that purchasing new furniture can easily be thousands of American dollars. With this in mind, I aimed "low" in price and was riding high on optimism to find an affordable set of furnishings that would actually be in my home.
After finding what I thought was The One, I made my purchase after thinking it over for the weekend. I arrived to a bill of $955 on Sunday, February 13th, for the cost of a sofa, chair, and shipping. All that for something to just sit on. Jesus. I really must be superficial.
I was informed by my friends that I had just gotten a great deal, despite having to pay $75 to a company to carry the $875 worth of stuff I bought. Despite this, I felt good about the purchase and awaited my new, fancy, Scandinavian furniture not made by IKEA. I was informed by Suntrax Logistics (please note their terrribly ugly website. Who steals Public Storage's color scheme?), the company that Dania outsources its delivery to, that my shipment would arrive between 1:10 to 3:10PM on Wednesday, the 18th. In addition to that, I would be given a phone call when the drivers would be 30 minutes away from my apartment.
All Wednesday, I was rapt in excitement and could barely sit still at work. I was excited about the opportunity to sit like an adult in my apartment for extended periods of time. Sure, I had sitting options, but they consisted of sitting on the floor or at my dining table. To mix things up, I could also sit in my bed and/or lay down on it. Clearly, this was an unsustainable activity and for the week+ I had been living in this twisted routine, I grew tired of it.
Around 2:47PM, I called Dania to let them know I had not yet received my 30 minute phone call warning me delivery was on the way, and was concerned that this shrinking window of opportunity was foreshadowing terrible, terrible things to come. About 5 to 10 minutes later, Dania called me back and informed me that the moving company was on its way and would be at my residence in 15 minutes.
Fortunately, I live close to where I work, so I was able to meet the furniture movers quickly. For about 20 to 30 minutes, I worked with them to load the sofa into the elevator and when it failed, helped them carry it up a few flights of stairs, until one of the movers called it off due to a low ceiling. The chair was carried into my apartment without much resistance, but the key component, the sofa, was impossible to bring into my apartment, according to the movers. They attributed it to the fact that the "feet" of the couch protruded just enough to make it too wide to carry into the elevator. One of the two men pointed out to me that the feet are usually off when they deliver furniture. Never once did they offer to remove them, as I imagine they would have if they knew how to and/or had the proper tools to dismantle the feet. The movers informed me that he would bring the sofa back to the Dania warehouse, and advised me to call the store I purchased it from to see what next steps were to be taken.
I was perturbed, because I had such high hopes of sitting on a sofa for once, and my dreams had been dashed away...only to become a fantasy once again. Despite this, I didn't argue with the movers about this, although I did express optimism in that I thought if the three of us tried, we could get it through. They decided to cut their losses, however, so the point became moot. After all, what's the point of giving presumably underpaid physical laborers a bunch of shit over a sofa. It's entirely reasonable and logical to assume Dania Furniture would have a solution to this problem, since they have 26 years of experience in the furniture biz. Right?
The story continues here.
Why would you buy a sofa from dania? That was your first mistake, you are better off buying just accent tables and dining tables from there with chairs....everyone knows that sofas and such should come from Macy's, Carson's etc....
ReplyDeleteMaybe if you did your research first you wouldn't have had a shity experience...that's what happens when you impulse buy and get something within 2 days of seeing something you like!
You are correct in questioning our original purchase at Dania, Jamie. Well, quite frankly, we were naive and relying upon the advice of "so-called" friends when we made the decision to purchase the sofa and chair from Dania. You'd be quite surprised to know that we did spend a fair amount of research in deciding where to purchase. Apparently it wasn't enough.
ReplyDeleteThank you for posing he question "why would you buy a sofa from Dania?" That's a terrific question that everyone should know the answer to - NO. We, however, disagree with your prescription of buying other types of furniture. Our experience was so sour that the thought of soliciting them in any capacity was nauseating.
BTW, thanks again for making hilariously false assumptions and remarks. You've written the most entertaining content on this site to date! When you're not busy selling iPhones, do you work for the Romney campaign?
No I should thank you for making me laugh at this hilarious site you made in honor of Dania. How old are you? That doesn't matter...what matters is how dumb you look making something like this, but hey get back to what makes you happy hahahaha....go outside in the real world and get a job or make some new friends. It's bad for your health to sit inside all day and update a blog hahahaha. Trust me the only false assumptions come from you and I'm sure the 2 people who have actually read this blog agree with me :)
ReplyDeleteKeep fighting the fight against Dania, you really are doing something good with your life! :)
Oh, my guess is there are A LOT more people than you think reading this site. And those of us who are considering purchasing relatively big ticket items like furniture are well-advised to heed the warnings of customers like this who are conscientious enough to want to warn us.
DeleteAnd regarding your admonishments about how this blogger is spending their time, maybe you should be outside, too, instead of inside reading and commenting on other people's blogs....
Gaius, thank you for your eloquent contribution, explaining how this site is valuable to visitors who *aren't* immediately enraged and inarticulate over a terrible furniture chain. It never ceases to amaze us how polarizing and emotionally-stirring this blog has become.
DeleteBeyond the hyperbole and satire, is a true experience of a frustrated shopper who was mistreated because they just didn't care about us beyond the sale. And we aren't the only ones to make this claim. We just have built ourselves a platform to voice them.
This is a great site and you are a great writer!
ReplyDeleteThe only thing is, we did not have the same experience at Dania in Reno. They have a wearhouse here. We went to their main store, picked out what we wanted and it was then delivered to our home a couple of days later. One of the chairs we ordered shifted slightly and the guys who brought it took it back and two days later we had a new one in good condition.
Everything we purchased is in good condition and we are happy with it. That includes a black leather reclining sofa and matching recliner, both electric.
I do mean it when I say this is a great site and you write well. I wish you the best. No company should get away with bad service and if they have losers working for them in Kirkland, WA, then shame on them!
Cheers!
Thanks for your comments, Urula. The truth is a thing of beauty, so we were very excited and flattered by your kind ords about our high quality, life-changingly-amazing content (to paraphrase). Let's just say...this shit writes itself.
DeleteWe are ecstatic to hear that you are in the minoritiest of minorities when it comes to those that have had positive experiences at Dania. That lucky rabbit's foot is really paying off!
Lord only knows what's going at that these Dania stores, but let's hope that they can stop terrorizing the innocent residents of Kirkland. Enough is enough, already.
Wow I read this with interest and still can't figure out why you're pissed at Dania - first off if the sofa won't fit into your elevator and or stairway why are they to blame - you really need a job and a life
ReplyDeleteIf you read on, Tunafish, you will realize there was an alternate stair route, which actually would have worked fine. It accommodated for the larger couch we ended up purchasing elsewhere. No need to read all the content before arriving to a conclusion or judgment.
DeleteIt's really bizarre how much anger this blog can arise out of folks. If this is how you react to a satirical blog about a chain of furniture stores, then you must freak the fuck out when you read about ISIS. We suppose we would be pretty upset in life if we had nothing better to do than to read a dumb blog and criticize the dumb blogger for how dumb we thought their dumb content is. That said, blogging about how much Dania sucks is a close second, in the spirit of objective truth.
With summer just around the corner, you should nevermind dumb us, our presumed unemployment, and lack of friends and personal character. Go out and bask in some natural light. Step away from the internets for a moment and enjoy your life - engage in what it has to offer you. Don't let your Dania-hater hate swallow you up, because it's even more moot than this blog.
We suggest hitting the park with friends, seeing a ballgame, going out for delicious meals with loved ones and other social opportunities to break you out of your mental grind and stress of hating on us haters. Life is begging you to come out and play.
But we won't lecture you any further. Do what you need to, Tunafish, whether it's to continue stewing over this blog, rounding up your friends for a bbq, or even creating your own Dania hater hate blog. Best of luck to you, in whichever avenue(s) you choose.