Company information:
Harlem Furniture
Merrillville, Indiana
United States
My wife and I purchased a high sitting dining room table and 8 chairs last fall when they had a sale for 600.00, which seemed like a good deal for what appeared to be good quality furniture. About 3 weeks ago, I noticed that the leaf of the table had a long crack from the start of the wood almost to the middle of the piece - further investigation showed that it had warped to an almost U when looking from ground angle.
Technician came out was great - very responsive and took pics and guaranteed it was a manufacturer's defect. Said Harlem would call in two days for replacement schedule. Oh Harlem called alright but replacement wasn't on their minds.
The distribution center out of Illinois called me and informed me that they no longer carried that particular set and that they could offer me a $ 30.00 "allowance" to keep the table. Taken aback, I asked her to repeat what she said - she said it again. I then asked her if I was hearing correctly; instead of replacing the damaged furniture that I still had UNDER WARRANTY, they wanted to give me 30.00 in store credit to keep their damaged furniture? Nevertheless, I declined their "gracious" offer and said that I then wanted store credit for the table and chairs. I was then told that since the table was the only damaged part, they would only give me 15% of the value of the table - seeing that this was a high sitting table, I explained to her that unless all was replaced, it was useless to only replace the table since it was purchased as a set and she said she would see what she could do. I didn't wait around to see what she could do, I was pissed at this point.
So my next call was to the corporate office where I was once again told that the only part that would be replaced would be the table and that it would only be a margin of the replacement value. I then told them the next call would be from my attorney and suddenly I was transferred to a manager. Amazingly enough, I was then given a 600.00 store credit to use to replace the table and chairs. Of course, there are no high sitting dining tables with 8 chairs for 600.00, so I have to come out of pocket 100.00 more for a table I don't like as much as the first one I bought.
To add insult to injury, I then had to endure a 10 minute lecture about the importance of scotchgarding all the chairs in the new set when I REPEATEDLY told the salesperson that I had the fabric conditioner from a previous person. I then told him that if he mentioned the word scotch gard again, I was going to request a different salesperson - scotchgarding by the way is 12.50 a chair for ANOTHER 100.00 - no thank you - we will use seat covers as we have with all dinette chairs.
Then the final straw for me was when another salesperson was brought over to try and change our minds - I explained to her the trouble that we have had with furniture purchased here in the past, specifically with the table that we were replacing and she then proceeded to tell me that she didn't understand why the technician authorized a replacement when it was clearly warping because of not being treated. Are you kidding me? So now, a salesperson without ever having examined our furniture and not knowing anything about the condition of it, basically accuses of us of mistreatment of our furniture, sight unseen? When I asked her how many years of experience she had as a furniture technician, she replied zero - I then replied that was the same amount of respect that I had for her opinion.
I have never been so insulted, disrespected or treated more poorly than I have by the employees, management and personnel of Harlem furniture. Harlem has a reputation for being cheap and selling less than high quality furniture and not backing it up - I can personally attest to this reputation now as it being well deserved.
I will never again make a purchase from Harlem furniture - they could be handing out free furniture at the door and I would decline. What's the point when if I accepted it, it would just break in 6 months and then I would be accused of mistreating it and trying to circumvent the warranty?
No class, no respect and no intelligence - they should put that in their fliers.
