We bought 4 closets costing in the region of $1200. They took our money but when they delivered the consignment at the Delivery Point they only supplied 4 out of 7 doors.
I told them that if they were not restocking the doors, we didn't want the entire order, we would go elsewhere. They promised that the doors would be in stock within 2 weeks and we should call first rather than waste a journey. They were quite emphatic that the doors were not being discontinued.
At Customer Service they force you to accept a credit back to your credit card for the undelivered items as a matter of store policy. It's also intended to relieve them of breach / failure to perform the contract despite the fact that they are already in breach of the contract by failing to deliver the goods they have taken money for.
Many phone calls and other visits produce the same result; the product is not being discontinued but is not in stock and there is nothing in the computer to say when it is being delivered.
Other Ikea stores in different states have many of the doors in stock and they are also available on line. If we travel to other stores, not only do we incur considerable transportation costs but there is no guarantee that they will have the doors in stock. Ordering on the internet costs "S&H" which we would not have incurred had we placed the whole order via the net. The simple solution to the problem is for Ikea Hicksville to ask one of the other stores to ship the goods to us freight free or to ask another store to send them to Hicksville where we can collect them; despite the inconvenience.
Ikea is a franchise operation which in their eyes means that the stores do not communicate with each other and it is stated to be Ikea policy not to ship products between stores.
At weekends in particular, Ikea stores do not answer their phones, based on experience of Hicksville. Even their central / national customer service center can't get anyone to pick up the phone. The central / national customer service center personnel agree with us that Hicksville should get our items for us from another store but as they can't get Hicksville to pick up the phone, there is nothing they can do. However, central / national customer service center computer linked to the Ikea servers, which one must assume is the same as the ones used in the stores, clearly shows the doors are to be discontinued.
It is evident that many other people have problems with Ikea because there are many already assembled items for sale at prices reduced by up to 50% in "as is condition". It is obvious that many people assemble the flat pack merchandise to find it unsuitable / incomplete and seek refunds. Undoubtedly there are many, many others who have the same problem we do but give up.
We have no intention of giving up. It is however obvious that the man behind Ikea must have made his millions leaving a battlefield of discontent whereever Ikea opens stores.
0 comments