Is it possible to get an item that isn't damaged in the warehouse? (Harveys)

Member Name: LindaMurphy

Product:	Harveys
Date:	24/06/04 (1033 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: None that I can thin of

Disadvantages: Damaged goods, Long delivery times, Unhelpfull staff that don't call back

Where do I begin? Oh yes, the January sales at the beginning of this year (2204). We decided to buy a lot of new furniture, one of these items being a dining table with chairs. We want all our new furniture to be good quality, expensive if needs be, furniture, so when better than the January sales we thought. We made our way to the furniture shops in Poole and had a look around various shops, one of the being Harvey's.

We found a dining table and chairs that we liked, a bit on the expensive side, so we tried to get them down on price, as it only came with 4 chairs. They were not interested in doing any kind of deals, or even waiving the delivery charge, they obviously were not interested in our customer whatsoever, so we walked out and returned the next day. The next salesman was only too happy to waive the delivery charge this time, yet no discount on extra chairs (yet we had bought a £2000 leather suite from another retailer the day before who knocked off 10% for us no problem).

This is where our problems began. We were told the table would be delivered in 8-10 weeks. I called after 8 weeks to track our order, and trying to get information was like the proverbial blood out of a stone. No-one knew. In the end my partner had to tell the manager that if he didn't get a call back telling him what was going on, we would have to go to the store one busy Saturday afternoon and have it out with them. It then transpired that the table had apparently "been damaged in transit" from their Germany suppliers to their warehouse here (believe that if you will). We were not happy and were told the table would be delivered in another 4 weeks time. This was the case - the deliered it beginning of April 2003.

But, wait a minute. Once the delivery guys had left, we unpacked it. There was a number of huge impace dents along the edges of the table, and we even took out the middle panel for the table, which was packed underneat
h the table (it was the middle panel for an extendable table), which actually had a huge gauge out of it (this must have happened in the factory.) Then, after I thought it couldn't get any worse, we unpacked the chairs. They were supposed to be dark brown leather chairs with light wooden legs. We got grey metal flimsy chairs with grey unpadded backs. I hit the roof. They had not got one part of our order correct.

They sent someone round from their insurance company to assess the damage. The chap that came round not only said it was totally unacceptable, but that the actual quality of the wood was unacceptable also, that the individual piece of wood did not match in colour, and that there were scratches all over the table legs. He said we would hear about a new order to replace everything. But of course, we didn't, hence the tirrade of phone calls to chase once again.

You may be fed up reading this so far, but it's only half the story. It gets worse.

I then contacted Harveys, the knew nothing about the new orders, they then told me that their service manager would contact me, of course he didn't, so when I chased him up, the other staff in the store told me he works about 2 days a week - what good is that?! When I finally spoke to him, he didn't have a clue what was going on. Finally, after a couple of weeks, I was told that the chairs would be delivered in 4 weeks time, but they had no idea about the table.

We got the chairs 4 weeks later, again having to take valuable holidays off work (which is rubbish in itself to make up for their mistakes). The quality of them was shocking. They had bits of glue sticking to the leather, bubbled up leather where it didn't not meet the chair properly, and the staples were sticking out of the bottom where the material had been stapled to the chair. We decided they weren't great, but we would live with them, lets see if we get the table.

We
ll,

I chased the table about 2 weeks ago, I was told it would be in on the 8th of June. I called on the 8th of June, it wasn't there. I called on the 9th of June, it wasn't there (of course no one called me back - don't assume they actually care about their customers!) Finally, I called on the 10th of June and was told it was there for delivery to us. I was told to call the warehouse, because they are so bad that you are sent round the houses trying to get them to deliver the item to you! They told me they couldn't do Saturday morning, they told us that we should cancel whatever we are doing that afternoon, I told them that they had caused us so much hassle, it's them that should be going out of their way to make us happy! I spoke to the manager, gave him some verbal diarrohea and he agreed to deliver it on Saturday morning - why was that so difficult?

Saturday morning came, the table was delivered as agreed, and before the delivery chaps left, or I signed, we checked the table. There was a huge dent in the edge of the table, it was pretty deep and totally horrible. My partner then said "is it actually possible to get an item delivered that isn't damaged?". They took both tables back, advised us to buy a table from an antiques shop, as all the time they said they are delivering tables that customers find on delivery are damaged.

I called the store manager in Poole, I asked for a refund, he said yes, we said we will bring the chairs back to the Poole store at the weekend and dump them back on their premises.

I am very much looking foward to dumping them in the middle of their sales floor on a busy Saturday afternoon and proving to all what a rubbish service we received. Roll on Saturday!

There are probably lots of details I've forgotton to write, but I think you get the gist.

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