My boyfriend and I responded to an ad on Craigslist for low priced furniture. I called Colwell, Inc. And scheduled a time to view the furniture. The man who answered the phone said that he was holding this furniture in his warehouse for a friend who wanted to get rid of his overstock quickly. We later learned that this was a complete lie.
We arrived at the warehouse to look at the furniture and found out that the advertised furniture price was for a child sized couch and chair set, not something normal adults could use. But, we looked at what else Colwell had available. We were shown printouts from an online furniture store that listed the furniture we were looking at as being worth thousands of dollars, and were told by Charlie Colwell that the furniture was great quality, solid wood, no pressed wood, and that is was worth much more than he was selling it for. He said again that he just needed to get rid of it for a friend. He also claimed that all furniture came with a ten year warranty.
When we told him we were interested in a particular living room set as well as a dining room set (those that we later bought), he told us the prices for each set ($1000 total) and took us back to his office. When we got to his office, I told him that I would call him tomorrow to confirm whether we would buy the furniture or not. He acted surprised at this and said "Oh, I thought we told you on the phone, you have to buy the furniture today to get this special price I am giving you." At this point I was very irritated and told him that we would not be buying anything that very day. He said that if we did not, he would not offer us a discounted price the next day, only that day. He held up a stack of receipts and said that he had sold that much furniture that day, and that they items we wanted may be sold and gone by the next day.
I gave the purchase a bit more thought and discussed it with my boyfriend who would be halving the purchase price with me. We decided that we would only buy it that day if it was $850 instead of the $1000 we were quoted. He reluctantly agreed and said that we were lucky he had sold so much that day, or he would not let it go for that price.
He said that we were required to pay around half of the total purchase price that day for him to order one piece of furniture that he did not have in the warehouse. Also, he made me sign a statement that I agreed to take the furniture as it was when we got it at the warehouse even though we had not even seen the furniture that we would actually be taking home (I signed this again when I picked it up). The statement said that they were not responsible for any damages that incurred during shipping after the products left his warehouse. I was never given a copy of this statement, and was not allowed to look at or inspect the living room furniture before taking it home since it was all packed in boxes.
I kept asking him what brand and model number the pieces we chose were so that we could look them up on the internet. He said he did not know but gave us two web addresses to look around for the items. These were websites that were totally unrelated to his business, very overpriced, and one did not even have any of our furniture on it.
Charlie was completely unclear as to where he the furniture came from and how he came to have it. We know now that he lied about his friend trying to get rid of it, and that he just orders it from a ACME furniture company in California and resells it for huge profits.
When we put the furniture together at home, we noticed that the quality was horrible. All of the wood had dents and scratches that had simply been covered up by touch up stain, and not all of the furniture is real wood. Some parts are pressed particle board, which we were told was not present in the furniture at all. The stain on the living room set is very thin, sparse, and uneven and the wood is rough like is has no finish on it at all.
Colwell, Inc. Offers no refunds or exchanges.
0 comments