I filed a BBB complaint in December against Manhattan Loft Furniture located in Salt Lake City, Utah. It is my opinion that Manhattan Loft uses deceptive selling practices, will not permit you to speak to a manager when a problem arises, lies about everything, and does not stand behind their product.
After my initial complaint with the BBB and several rebuttals by myself and Manhattan Loft, I received an email from the BBB offering binding arbitration at a cost of about $100. I was not opposed to this, but wanted to ask the BBB if my expectations of Manhattan Loft were too high. I did this in an email and specifically said it was not my official response. I understand they cannot take sides, but I thought if my questions were out of line I would have received an email stating they could not comment.
I waited for a response for several weeks checking both my email and the complaint website. Finally, what appeared on my complaint website was that the case was closed. The reliability report for Manhattan Loft said, among other things, "... And the customer verified that the complaint has been resolved satisfactorily". I was totally in shock.
The complaint website now offered a link for me to respond and it stated it would not be considered a part of the official response. Of course I responded stating that I was uncertain why my case was closed or why the statement, "... And the customer verified that the complaint has been resolved satisfactorily. I also attached the original email requesting their assistance.
On 4/29/05 the BBB posted all of the information I had said was not my official response as, my official response. I was outraged, humiliated, and lost all trust in the BBB. That is how I stumbled on consumer complaintss.
With no faith in the BBB, I felt I had no choice but to close my case. The last paragraph of my closing response (5/19/05) contained the following note to the BBB. "To the BBB, you can show this complaint as closed. If you choose to show that ML has had no complaint since December that will be fine. However, this customer is NOT verifying that the complaint was closed satisfactorily".
The case is now closed. The reliability report as well as the automated recording for Manhattan Loft at the BBB both contain the information that the customer verified that the case has been resolved satisfactorily. I repeat, I have NOT! If that is not fraud, I don't know what is!
Don't believe it? I invite you to view my complaint website:
Http://69.2.253.251/complaint/view/22008970/c/18b2d5#
Also, be sure to check the reliability report for Manhattan Loft.
ML is not a member of the BBB, but I am certain they made a nice contribution for this one.
If you view my complaint website, I would very much appreciate that you post a rebuttal note here verifying that you saw what I wrote in my rebuttals and viewed the fraudulant statement that I did not authorize on the BBB website. (I hope to somehow have that fraudulant statement removed, but would like others to know that I spoke the truth when I posted this.) Also, tell everyone you know not to waste their time with the BBB. It's a rip-off. No pun intended. I spent 5 months with the BBB for nothing.
I plan to file a complaint with the Attorney General of Utah. If anyone knows of any additional contacts, please pass them along.
One other interesting item.in January I found a website:
Http://utah. Citysearch.com/
On that website I checked for ML and found they had another complaint similar in nature to mine. I tried to file my own complaint on 1/21/05. When I filed the complaint the site said I would hear whether or not they would post it in 48 hours. On 1/25/05 I sent a follow up email because my complaint had not been posted, nor had it been denied and it was past the 48 hour timeframe. No response. I tried several more times. Nothing. On 6/17/05 I received the following email from Citysearch:
Hello nnyl,
Thank you for submitting a review of Manhattan Loft on Citysearch.in order to assure that reviews are as helpful as possible to the community, we've established content guidelines for all submissions.
Unfortunately, your review violates these guidelines and cannot be posted.
Your participation is important to the Citysearch community. We invite you to return
to http://national. Citysearch.com/review/11466044/add? Login_message=1 and resubmit your review.
If you have any further questions about reviews, please feel free to contact us at [email protected]. We look forward to
posting your revised review.
Sincerely,
Citysearch Ratings Team
Let me say, I checked their guidelines at the time I wrote the complaint and felt I was well within their boundries. Obviously ML had something to do with this too. It's ironic that i did not hear from Citysearch in 48 hours, nor 48 days. I heard from them over 4 months later, and only after my case was closed with the BBB. Do they think I am stupid or what???
The reason I added this bit on Citysearch is to let consumers know they are similar to the BBB in that they collect a fee from the business. Just take a look at the reviews and their dates.
Two positive reviews dated 8/19/02. (Most likely when ML subscribed to Citysearch.) The next positive is 11 days later on 8/30/02.
Then there is nothing for almost 2 years when they received a negative review on 5/10/04. To knock this negative down off the screen they now receive two more positive. One 8 days after the negative and one 10 days after. It's is now over a year from the last review. Would you like to guess who wrote all those positives? My guess is employees, friends and family of ML!
In conclusion, I would like to offer this advise to all consumers. Be extremely cautious if you choose to deal with ML, the BBB, or Citysearch.
Sally
Dyer, Indiana
U.S.A.
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