BUYER BEWARE!!!

DO NOT purchase from them
they dont stand by their products dont offer any kind of legit warranty customer service is nonexistent 4 months trying to get a bed fix and nothing but lies and waiting !

Supposedly outdoor terracotta pots similar to ax184 available at the stores now and item#ax187 Terra cotta bird wall tiles which I had purchased last year and used outdoors - as meant to be, have lost their top coat. They just pealed off after one season. For a company that boasts quality, this is intolerable.

Called customer service and spoke to furniture supervisor concerning mold damage due to condensation within framed art piece bought within about 2 years from crateandbarrel.com. She indicated that crate and barrel could not control the humidity within my home and that the lack of frame sealing was acceptable to their manufacturing standards. Since my central air conditioned, dehumidified house is no different from any other, my suggestion is that you do not buy any crate and barrel framed art unless you live in a vacuum as it appears their customer service agents do.

We went into the store (Raleigh NC) and noticed a floor sample desk & chair were reduced for clearance. While we (my wife and I) were standing in front of the desk looking it over another customer walked up and took a fast look, basically looking at the price tag and nothing more. She then walked away. We didn't give that much thought because obviously we were there looking at the deak. Meanwhile the same store clerk (Kathy) that was answering some questions about the desk 5 minutes earlier with us came up to us to say another customer wanted to buy the desk. Well as you can imagine things started to get ugly. The clerk (kathy) knew we were there looking at the desk...SHE was showing it to us. The customer that wanted to buy the desk got kinda nasty and said she was buying the desk! No where to be found was a store manager! Other clerks came up apparently witnessing what was going on or being told by the clerk originally (kathy) helping us that we could "work it out with the other customer". WHAT... kind of customer service is that! Asking 2 customers to basically duke it out! UNBELIEVABLE!!! I told my wife the desk and circumstances were not worth the rise in blood pressure. We took the high road and left the store. Hopefully Crate&Barrel will get a store manager and train the clerks on proper procedures rather than have customers standing in the store arguing over who should have the right to purchase some item. I always thought if you were looking at an item and have your hands all over it, that particular item was off limits to other customers until you have walked away or made the purchase. Crate&Barrel obviously does things differently.

Will Crate and Barrel be going the way of the Sears department store chain in terms of poor, poor, poor customer service ? Time will tell.

20 - 30 years ago Sears was a chain store that was admired by all in terms of their customer service and, in particular, their quality line of appliances. However, today Sears is at the bottom of the barrel in terms of customer service and sales...and this is clearly reflected in the dramatic decline in the price of their company stock. Following a very bad experience that I had in buying appliances from Sears two years ago I can see why current sales are suffering and Wall Street is marking the value of Sears stock down, way down...

Aside from not investing in upgrading their stores, Sears also has not invested in the quality of the staff that they hire. This applies to their floor sales people (many of whom can't even calculate in their head a 10% discount off of a list price without using a calculator) to their store managers. I will not go into the details of my HORRENDOUS experience with Sears appliances and customer service, other then to say I have shared my nightmare experience with friends and co-workers and they have taken note in where NOT to shop for appliances and good service !!!

Now... Crate and Barrel. I have been a customer at Crate and Barrel for a number of years. I have been drawn to the store not only because of their great style of merchandise, wide selection and attractive prices but also because of the service I received in the past. Granted the bulk of my employee interaction with Crate and Barrel has only been with people who processed my credit card purchases. That being said, all it takes is one bad experience... a really bad experience... and all that customer loyalty is thrown out the window.

The problem I encountered also occurred at the Paramus, NJ store where another contributor to this web site also lodged a complaint. Not many customers would take the time to write a compliment or complaint on a site like this...unless they felt very strongly, good or bad, about a service or product. The fact that there are two complaints about the personnel at the Paramus store makes me think that this is more than just a coincidence.

I had purchased a cabinet valued at a few hundred dollars from the Crate and Barrel store in Paramus. The cabinet that was purchased was a discontinued item and the last one in stock which should have made me a bit concerned . The cabinet came in a box since it had to be assembled and could not be inspected at the time of purchase.

Upon getting the box home and opening it, it was clear that the pieces of the cabinet in the box had been removed and repackaged. Some pieces were not properly wrapped and others just fell out of the box upon opening it.

The cabinet required two people to assemble it and a handyman was paid to help. During the assembly nicks in the cabinet's finish were noticed. But most concerning was when the cabinet was fully assembled (after an hour of work) it was discovered that the drawer did not roll in and out properly. Clearly, with the nicks in the finish and the defective drawer rollers this was not a new cabinet. Given that the cabinet was not properly wrapped in the box, the reasonable conclusion is that this item had been purchased by another customer, returned for whatever reason and resold to me.

The one positive experience regarding this incident was that when Crate and Barrel was initially contacted the sales person said that given the defects there would be no problem in returning the cabinet for a full refund. When asked if someone could pick the cabinet up (since it would require another hour of more of disassembly time to get it back into the car), they said yes...but the pick up charge would be $70-80. That was about 25% of the value of the cabinet !

Instead, the cabinet was disassembled, wrapped in a blanket and returned to Crate and Barrel. It was returned to the shipping/receiving area in the garage area of the store and was accepted but not inspected at that time.

After entering the sales area of the store to collect the refund, an assistant store manager who handled the request said there was additional damage to the cabinet, in the form of a scratch, and that a full refund could not be given.

Clearly the additional damage that was identified was either there already when the cabinet was originally purchased and not identified at the time of assembly or was done after the cabinet was returned to the store's pick up area in the garage.

When the Asst. Mgr was told that this scratch had to be present when the cabinet was originally purchased, but just not noticed, the comment the Asst. Mgr. made was that Crate and Barrel doesn't sell defective merchandise. Now think through this comment... on one hand this Asst. Mgr. is saying that Crate and Barrel doesn't sell defective merchandise and yet another manager, at the same store, said that a full refund would be given due to the nicks and defective drawer. If Crate and Barrel doesn't sometimes, unknowingly, sell defective merchandise then why were they initially willing to provide a full refund based on the defective drawer rollers and nicks in the finish of the cabinet ? It was clear that this Asst Store Manager never took a course in logic or she doesn't communicate well with her store colleagues.

Despite bringing to this Asst. Manager's attention previous loyalty to Crate and Barrel in making store purchases of almost $10, 000 in 2 years... the response given by this Asst. Store Manager was that she in fact had purchased twice as much from Crate and Barrel ...basically saying I don't care how good a customer you are ...YIKES !!! Sometimes you don't know if you want to scream or cry at the stupidity of some people's comment. I can't say if this Asst. Mgr. was having a bad day given she had to work Labor Day weekend, but regardless the comment was totally out of line.

As fair balance... this matter has not as yet been fully addressed with the senior store manager (who wasn't available) nor with the regional manager of the NJ store.

This web site was brought to my attention today and so before I missed an opportunity to provide comment, I decided to first write down the experiences to date with Crate and Barrel. Hopefully within the next week I can return to this site and comment on how Crate and Barrel resolved this issue to the satisfaction of a loyal customer.

Oh by the way... Crate and Barrel did take back the cabinet but kept about $50 to offset the cost of the scratch. Think about it... is it the $50 or so that is important to me...or is it the principle that customer loyalty must be honored and customer service must be preserved if a great chain like Crate and Barrel is not to go the way of Sears.