Day #6: Regional Manager of Dania Furniture Approves Western Avenue Store's "Cutting of Ties" (2/22)

This is the sixth installment in the dramatic series of my negative review of shopping at Dania Furniture.

Preceding Posts:

Chapter I. Day #1 Dania Furniture Debacle: Dania Fails to Deliver (2/16) Pt. 1

Chapter II. Day #1 Dania Furniture Debacle: Dania Fails to Deliver (2/16) Pt. 2

Chapter III. Day #2: I'll Show you What $75 Can Do (2/17)

Chapter IV. Day #3: The Birth of the Anti-Dania Furniture Revolution (2/18)

Chapter V. Day #6: Dania Furniture Store Manager Conversation. It Was Terrible. (2/21)

As the voicemail video clearly states, I was completely refunded my exorbitant $75 non-guaranteed delivery fee and had them agree with me to pick up the furniture on the day of my choosing.  Apparently this is a huge hit to them as well, considering the regional manager had to approve this gigantic refund.  What a tight ship they run. Do you think the employees of Dania furniture need to get permission from the regional manager for bathroom breaks?

Dania Furniture put up a good fight, but I won because I'm smarter and better than them. I hope they like apples.  It's also clear that they took their loss in the most bitter of fashions by killing our relationship completely by "cutting ties."

Don't worry, Dania, I won't be missing our interactions either. Because you're a loser and I hate losers. I win!

Day #1 Dania Furniture Debacle: Dania Fails to Deliver (2/16) Pt. 2

This is a continuation from this post.

The answer is/was NO, Dania Furniture did not have a reasonable solution to this gigantic problem.  In fact, when I called them to explain what had happened and discuss the necessary next steps, I was instantly rebuffed.  Yes, I was perturbed that I did not receive my couch when I thought I would, but as a reasonable man, I figured there should be an easy solution to this.  As per Dania's anti-customer focus, the sales associate immediately blamed me for not measuring every facet of my apartment building to prepare for the furniture.  Interestingly enough, this gentleman on the phone was the one that actually sold me the sofa, and didn't mention a syllable about measuring all the rabbit holes.  In fact, the residents that lived in the unit before I moved in had enormous sectionals half a football field in length, so I just assumed this sofa wouldn't be a problem.  He also told me that if I wanted to have it redelivered or pick out another couch, I have to pay $75 to have it "re-delivered."  (By the by, how can something be "redelivered" when it wasn't delivered in the first place?  You can't "re" anything until you do it at least once.  They brought the couch to the apartment building, but they didn't get it inside my unit.  Perhaps that's the way they define delivery - bringing it to the street address, minus the unit, guaranteed.)  He was unwilling to budge on this with me, because the delivery services are outsourced to Suntrax Logistics.  There was never any sort of apology, explanation or way to reason with him.  He was straightforward, and hurled all the responsibility on me, despite the fact that it was him and his godforesaken store that sold me the the largest couch in the universe and chair.  I basically ended up paying a company to bring an overpriced chair to my apartment for $75, and there was nothing he was willing to try to do for me, at this point.

Reasoning and/or my side of the story was not of his concern/interest; he shut me down immediately, so I said my goodbye and hung up.  With my heart beating outside of my chest and tears almost welling up in my eyes, I felt emotionally decimated.  Not only did I not have the couch I purchased and paid to have delivered to me, I had to eat $75 with in "delivery" expenses and face the idea of picking out another couch and paying for another delivery fee.

It's amazing how a lack of customer service can have a lasting affect on the consumer.  Isn't it wrong to instantly hurl blame onto me, the innocent, doe-eyed customer spending my discretionary income on overpriced metrosexual furniture? Within five minutes of hanging up the phone, I decided to completely nix the idea of giving into their faux-furniture delivery scheme and dialed up the store phone number again.

Within a couple of rings, it was that terrible sales associate who sold me the sofa he blamed me for picking, so I responded to his condescending phone greeting and immediately said, "Can I speak to anyone but you?"  I was then passed off onto another sales associate, who was self-proclaimed "lower on the totem pole" than the guy I was speaking to.  That was fine with me, I just wanted to understand if someone could see my point of view.  I explained to him how the movers were unable to bring the couch into my apartment.  I explained the issue with the couch's feet protruding and blocking the movers from being able to move the couch into the elevator to take to my unit.  I also explained that bringing the furniture up the stairs was also shot down by the movers and that only the chair was delivered.  I explained to him that my $75 covered the shipping of both the couch and chair and that not refunding me part of the delivery fee and/or redelivering the couch or picking out a new one should come at a $0 delivery fee.  After all, how can you charge me a delivery fee when it wasn't delivered?  It does not make any sense.  The delivery failed; I only received one of two items I had paid to have delivered.

Fortunately this gentlemen agreed with me, and I knew right away that I found my angle and opening to rectify this situation, singlehandedly.  Immediately, I asked to speak to the sales associate who picked up the phone/sold me the couch.  I ran him down the checklist of items and got him to agree with me that the fulfillment of my delivery was not satisfied.  He also agreed with me that charging me an additional delivery fee was exorbitant, but stated that store policy barred him from making any exceptions. When I asked him to see if there was a way around this, he instructed me that his store manager was unavailable until the upcoming Saturday (2/19).

What was most frustrating of all was the fact that he was unwilling to work with me on finding a solution that didn't cost me more money. He was unwilling to reach out to anyone above him, as I asked him to reach out to the district manager and/or corporate headquarters for any assistance for this problem. He stonewalled me when I asked him if this is the first time that this has ever happened to anyone, he stated "no, this is not" but that "most people just pay the $75 to have it resent, or pay $75 for another couch to be delivered."  Apparently Dania does not have any issues with adding more cost to an inherently expensive shopping experience.  When I pointed out how terrible of a customer service experience it is, he didn't have anything to respond to me with.

Now, I understand that he was most likely acting in the way that he was trained.  I can't fault him for perpetuating their terrible customer service, because that's how he was taught to react (I even expressed this to him in a later conversation you will soon read about).  This is clearly an issue for corporate to fix, but I still did not appreciate his refusal to provide any sort of solution to this problem.  To his credit, he kept his cool and at the very least did humor me by listening to my hysterical diatribe that included the following statements, as best as my traumatized mind can recall:

• "Don't you know how much this is ruining my life?  I have to pay an additional $75 to have something maybe delivered to me?  I am such a victim."
• "This is ruining my entire day.  I had such high hopes of going home today after work and sitting on my couch, where I would eventually pass out on.  It was going to be awesome, but now I can't do that.  Do you realize how terrible this makes me feel?"
• "Dania is ruining my life.  I hate Dania Furniture."

Most importantly of all, however, by the end of the conversation, I got him to agree with me that this was an unfortunate situation.  I asked him to confirm if my being upset by this is reasonable, and he agreed with me.  By the end of the conversation, whether it was to appease me, or not, he said he would "see what he could do to help me out."  Since I had maxed out my diatribe quota, I told him that I appreciated this gesture and would like to follow-up with him the next day...

Day #1 Dania Furniture Debacle: Dania Fails to Deliver (2/16) Pt. 1

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.