The Great Indoors review: Customer Service 6

On 12.19.09 I ordered a queen Charisma flat sheet, fitted sheet and pillowcases on line. The total cost was $62.15 for a flat sheet, fitted sheet and pillow cases. I have the e-mail receipt.

The flat sheet and pillow cases were received the first week in January 2010, but there was no fitted sheet. Although the customer service representative did not appear to believe me when I called to say that the fitted sheet was not in the order, she later said the queen fitted sheets sold out. I told her I did not need an incomplete queen sheet set and that they should not have sent the flat sheet and pillow cases if they didn't have the fitted sheet. She finally agreed to pick up the order at their cost, but it was clear that she was not happy. The order was picked up by UPS on 1.12.10. I was charged $62.15 on my 1.17.10 Mastercard bill. I was not credited $62.15 on my 1.17.10 or 2.17.10 Mastercard bills. I called 2.25.10, was not allowed to speak with a supervisor, but after a very long conversation was advised that $62.15 would be credited to my account within three days, but it was not. I have a credit of $21.04 on my 3.10 Mastercard bill, which means that theystill owe me $41.11. I completed the on line customer service form with a full explanation last week. How can they be permitted to conduct business in this manner? Basically they just stole $41.11 from me.

The Great Indoors, Gaithersburg-Rockville, MD I bought 4 ceiling fans out of the lighting department of The Great Indoors at the Gaithersburg-Rockville store on Shady Grove Road. It was an easy sale for them since I had to track down someone who would take the time to write a sales order. It was chaotic so I overlooked their lack of interest. At first, after completing the sale, I was told they could only find three units but they would look further. That did seem odd to me but I waited while they looked. About 15 minutes later they suddenly found another unit. When it was brought to the delivery dock, I noticed that the box was opened and in bad shape. I insisted that we look through to make sure the part on top where the box damage was, wasn't damaged as well. Everything looked OK since the packing material wasn't noticeably damaged and I accepted all four. I hired an Electrician which cost me around $1600 to install everything since I didn't have any overhead power supply in the rooms where the units were to be installed. The first three went up without any difficulty and the damaged box unit was last. After it was installed, it was discovered that the fan would not turn but the light fixture would come on, although the glass was cracked which was not really evident until the light was on. The Electrician had to bring the unit down and there wasn't anything else he could do. I had to pay him and he left. I contacted The Great Indoors and they, of course, didn't have any replacements. It seems, given the circumstances of the delivery and subsequent finding, that If was sold something that had already been set aside as substandard, broken, returned, or for some reason no one at the store is willing to tell me. I finally managed to get a salesperson to call someone and get one delivered to me direct from the factory. I wanted to speak to the department manager (Ken) but he was unavailable and of course no one could speak on his behalf. One wonders how these stores operate when no one is seemingly in charge when things go amiss. The salesman told me he would make sure Ken, department manager, would contact me. Ten days later my replacement unit arrived and the manager had not yet called so I try again to contact him. I called the store and no one seemed to know the store managers name, saying he was new so they finally asked what the problem was and forwarded me to Ken, the guy who was supposed to have returned my call ten days prior. He did manage to tell me the store's general manager's name, Randy Householder. But he was still unapologetic and when I asked who they had to install my fan, since I had already paid to have someone do it and it was their fault I had been delivered faulty goods. In fact I believe they pulled the damaged unit from previously returned inventory so they should arrange for the new installation. Ken became belligerent at this time and told me that he wasn't going to listen to someone telling him what he should do and he was going to hang up the phone if I didn't change my attitude.

This was a bit confusing since his attitude was the only one that was evident at the time. I did get a little upset at his response and told him that it really was in his best interest to take care of the matter because I was pretty sure that small claims court would see it my way. In his defensive posturing, he told me "don't threaten me!" and again I didn't have a clue where he was coming from because I didn't see how the conversation could have been taken as a threat. I was beginning to wonder just who this store hired and put in management roles. They sure weren't customer friendly unless they were taking your money. It's too bad I didn't check out the complaints.com website first since I find out now that this sort of attitude is persistent in the Gaithersburg store in any case. I'm not in the process of following Ken's suggestion of taking it to Small Claims Court. I suppose his frustration of dealing with yet another dissatisfied customer and without an internal mechanism to show him how to deal with it, his defensiveness, insecurity or whatever directed him to get rid of me in what ever way he could.

I haven't yet contacted the general manager Randy, but it really seems to me that Ken's action is company policy and it is seeming perceived by the store that they have little to loose by ignoring me. Actually, it seems that this is the way of larger businesses after reading through the complaint file of complaints.com. It is really a sad situation that our economy is standing on such a shallow foundation.

Purchased lighting on 4/3 and filed online for the rebate on 4/5. To date, no rebate check has been received. Each call to the Rebate Center has resulted in the representative telling me that they would escalate my inquiry to special services and I should wait 14 more days. This has been going on since April, 2009. After 16 weeks, I don't know if I'll ever see a rebate.

You are NOT alone! It's happened to me too!

First they lost my rebate, then they denied it because they said rebate applied only to online purchases, and I made purchase in store. (rebate IS for store purchases.) Now they are denying it because they claim rebate was over, however, my rebate form clearly shows it doesn't expire until the day AFTER I made my purchase!

Rebates from The Great Indoors are a Great Big Same! AVOID at all costs!

I saw them at my local TGI over the summer, and they were on clearance. It seems that they could have given you a raincheck until they had them in. Actually, do you have a local store, as if you had called them, they could have actually checked on their computer to see which store would have them if still in stock. Don't give up, or I hope it was resolved after all this time.

I have had the EXACT same issue. Purchased qualifying product at TGI April 28th and submitted rebate online the very next day. August 9th and still NOTHING after many phone calls, emails, and even calling the Great Indoors store where I purchased.

The CEO needs to know about this - it's not helping sales any!