I am very happy with the quality my new Bassett furniture. I was only slightly frustrated when an upholstered chair was broken during transport and when my dining room table and chairs were ordered incorrectly. What angered me the most was the horrible customer service I received afterwards. The sales person would never call me back and then claimed she tried but didn't reach my voicemail. Didn't even have the brains to call me and tell me that my replacement furniture was ordered. I had to find out that on my own. Then when I finally got ahold of my sales person I explained how frustrated I was and wanted a partial refund for my troubles, she promised to call me back in 30 minutes and never called me again. I'm now dealing with corporate customer service.

I purchased a dining room table and chairs at Bassett Furniture in Ft. Lauderdale in February 2009. After about 2 months of shopping for the furniture, I was so happy that my wife and I found something that we both loved. We took advantage of the 6 months same as cash and made the purchase.

We were told by the salesperson that it would take about 2-3 weeks to take delivery of the furniture. The furniture did not arrive at the Bassett Furniture warehouse in West Palm Beach until about 5 weeks after we made the purchase. It then took one week to have the furniture delivered from the West Palm Beach warehouse to Hollywood (2/18/09). When the furniture arrived, I noticed several problems as the delivery men were moving the furniture into my dining room:

• One of chairs had a fractured leg.
• One end of the table top had deep dents running along the entire edge.
• There were brush hairs dried into the varnish on one of the chairs.
• The finish on the table top was extremely blotchy on one side of the table.
• There were many extremely sharp burred edges on the table…some edges were smooth while the same edges on the opposite side of the table were very sharp. One of the reasons that we liked this table so much in the showroom was because the table was kid friendly, as all of the edges were rounded and smooth.

The delivery men encouraged me to take delivery of the furniture and said that Bassett would send out a technician to make the repairs. The technician was scheduled to come to my house 9 days after delivery. When I inquired as to scheduling an earlier date, Bassett said that it was not possible. I was told that the technician would call the day before in order to schedule a time window (technician should have called me on Thursday 2/26/09). Well I was at my son’s school for a holiday performance on Friday, 2/27/09, when I received the call from the technician. He was standing on my front door step waiting for me to answer the door and I told him that I was not currently available. I asked if he could stop by later in the day. He said that he would have to reschedule for the following week.

The way I saw this playing out was that the technician would show up the following week, he would determine that 2 of the chairs and the table top would have to re-fabricated (4 weeks), the new parts would have to be shipped to the WPB warehouse, one week for delivery from WPB to Hollywood, and then one week to schedule a visit from the technician. I was not willing to wait the additional 7 weeks to resolve the problem.

I finally called Bassett Furniture to request a full return and refund. Bassett informed me that there would be a 30% restocking fee. After debating this issue, they finally agreed to waive the restocking fee but they insisted on still charging me for delivery. I disputed the delivery charge of $136.74 and the credit company sided with Bassett Furniture. I do not understand why I have to pay the delivery charge if I did not buy anything from Bassett Furniture.

Don't do business with these guys. I have been waiting 15 weeks to get my furniture. They DO NOT answer their phones; they DO NOT return calls. The Better Business Bureau listed them as an F. I only wish I had checked first.

I purchased a credenza and cocktail ottomon over memorial day weekend (today is August 18th). I called 3 times to check on the status of my order to be told that one piece was still missing at the factory. The last time I called & complained someone finally called me back to schedule delivery for tomorrow the 19th between 2 & 6pm.
This morning, I get a call from Lara? saying that my credenza is damaged and they have to try to repair it or order a new one. They also stated that the upper portion of my cocktail table had not arrived at their facility. I had been reading lots of negative posts on sites like this about bassett so I was not going to mess around with them. I told them I was just going to cancel the order.
So, i called bassett & spoke to the woman, Tanya, who sold me my furniture. She informs me that any furniture ordered from the factory is NON-REFUNDABLE!!! what? I paid in full! what a crock of crap!

After expressing my frustration, Tanya offered to let me "borrow" her credenza and cocktail ottoman off of her floor, she would deliver it today. I asked her to double check to make sure they were in good condition...she just called back to inform me that the factory DID in fact have the entire cocktail table and it will be here tomorrow. The credenza will be delivered today...we'll see what kind of condition they are in when they get here...who knows what will come on the truck tomorrow...or when I will get my actual furniture...

[My letter to the Executive VP of Operations, Keith Sanders is attached below for ease - our complaints are clearly marked. We purchased this furniture New Years' weekend, 2006.]

Dear Mr. Sanders:

On or about August 31st we mailed the attached letter to your CEO Robert Spilman, Jr. in which we outlined several complaints which arose through the extraordinarily poor service we have received from the Polaris Basset location. These complaints, clearly stated in that letter, included the following:

1) Our order was not complete over eight months after placing and paying for it (a custom two piece sectional sofa, chair, three end tables and a credenza).

2) We were not notified of the status of our order despite repeated phone calls inquiring into why our delivery was far past the outer limits of the delivery range promised to us.

3) 1 ½ months after our furniture was promised to us, we received a damaged credenza.

4) We were not contacted in regard to how the credenza would be replaced. Only after numerous calls was a repairman sent out – despite our pleas that repair would not be possible.

5) After the repairman’s instantaneous declaration that the damage could not be replaced, we again received no contact from Bassett. Again, we had to waste our time to simply get non-damaged furniture. Again, we had to wait six more weeks, and again, we were not notified of the status of our order.

6) We feel that the “pilling” of the chaise fabric is excessive, and it took numerous calls and trips to the Polaris location to get a replacement.

7) The rear pillow of the chaise is crushed.

8) We received the wrong replacement materials from customer service manager Carmen Griffin at the Polaris store, indicating her lack of attention and concern for our complaints, and requiring yet another trip to the Polaris location.

9) Upon my wife’s final trip to Polaris to pick up the replacement chaise cover, she was rudely ignored by salesperson Alicia Kuhn, and Carmen flat-out lied and said she had never heard of our complaint about the chaise pillows.

10) We still do not have a replacement chaise pillow, we fully expect our furniture to fall apart further, and our experience with Bassett has been a nightmare all around.

In your letter of September 20th, 2007 you asked us to “advise if you are not completely satisfied with the results”. It would be obvious to you if you had read our original letter that simply receiving a replacement chaise cover would not make us “completely satisfied”. We have received poor service all around, and still do not have quality furniture.

We have sent a copy of this correspondence to all parties involved. We are tired of working harder than Bassett does in order to receive what we have paid for. We have not received anywhere near what we have paid for, and we deserve financial compensation for receiving poor product and being put through this ordeal. If Bassett cares about the level of service provided to customers, we expect that this letter will be read thoroughly this time, and a thoughtful response and offer will be forthcoming within two weeks of this date.

[Several weeks later we received a letter from Mr. Sanders stating that he understood the problems to be resolved because new pillows were ordered for us. None of our other complaints or dissatisfaction was addressed in any fashion by anyone from Bassett, and over 1 year after the purchase, we still do not have a satisfactory set of furniture. Proceed with caution.]