Ennifer Convertibles - Manhattan review: Illegal business practices!

My roommate and I purchased a couch at Jennifer Convertibles in Manhattan on 5/29/07. We were told that the couch was in stock to be delivered the following Saturday, 6/2/07. We received a call on Wednesday that the couch was actually not in stock and would not be delivered for 30 days. We asked if there was any break on the delivery cost or anything b/c of the delay and were told that they do not give any delivery cost breaks for late deliveries. We were told that if we didn't want to wait, we could cancel the order.

We returned to the store Saturday 6/2/07, canceled the order and was promised a refund. We asked for the cancellation to be given to us in writing. We were given nothing in writing, only the word "canceled" handwritten on our original receipt. We were told by the manager, Sylvia that our refund would be in our accounts within 7 to 10 business days but to call her the next week if it hadn't shown up. The week went by with no refund, so we called Sylvia. We were told by Sylvia that the refund had not been approved yet. The next day, we called again and were told by another employee that the refund had already been processed. The day after that, we were told again that it hadn't yet been approved. I then received the number for Michael Gale, the general manager and left him a message. He never responded.

On Thursday 6/14/07, the 9th business day, we called the office to find out that Michael Gale was in the store. He guaranteed the money would be back in our accounts that Friday, 6/15/07, the 10th business day. At the end of Friday, no money was refunded to either of our accounts. We decided to give them another call. This time extremely rude, Michael told me to "dispute the charge with my bank instead of harassing them."

I decided to wait until Monday 6/18/07. Monday evening, still no refund, I went to Jennifer to speak with Sylvia. I was told that refund had been processed on 6/13/07 (which makes no sense since I called on 6/15 and no one mentioned that) and that my bank was holding the money for 5 business days. When Sylvia called the bank, SHE informed THEM that it would be an additional 5 business days, which the bank representative confirmed to me, telling me that "the transaction had not gone through and if it was to take 5 more days, it was per Jennifer Convertible's policy because the bank takes 1 business day to process any transaction." Sylvia proceeded to lie to me, telling me that the transaction was done and she had no idea why the money was not in my account. When I argued, she too told me to dispute the original charge with my bank. Now obviously if the transaction had been done, I wouldn't be told to dispute the charge with the bank. Their business practices are the opposite of professional. Their employees are extremely rude and have no regard for customer service. Frankly, I do not understand how they stay in business with their ILLEGAL business practices and MASSIVE amounts of complaints I've seen online.