I am in the midst of learning a most unpleasant and expensive lesson after purchasing a dining room pub style table and chairs from Goldberg Furniture in Syracuse, NY. Several of the stores were going out of business (I was told due to the recession, but now I believe it is because they sell a shoddy product and do not service the product or accept responsibility for the defects in the product), but I was assured that the North Syracuse Store would continue to service their products. I put this out as a warning to anyone who might be thinking of doing business with them at their remaining North Syracuse location. My unpleasant experience was with their Dewitt Store Manager, Mark, who still works for them and is, in my humble opinion, a jerk.

I purchased my table and leather covered bench style chairs more than one month before they were finally delivered (so I think it is too late to lodge a complaint with my credit card company). Within 24 hours of delivery, the finish on the table started flaking off in a couple of spots on the table. This from normal wear, eating dinner at the table with placemats. I had already called service to report that one of the benches was loose, so when they finally called back a few days later, I also complained about the fact that the finish was flaking off. The service person that finally came to my house tightened the bench, saying that they frequently have assembly issues with the chairs. He also examined the table and said "that's not supposed to happen" and I stupidly opined that maybe it was from my wedding ring. He looked at my ring hand and told me, "Well, your rings shouldn't do that" and I concurred that it shouldn't be causing the finish to flake off. He told me to contact the store manager after a few days to figure out what could be done, and HE suggested that "maybe they can replace the table top, or take it in to be serviced and refinished."

In the week that followed, I was very careful not to touch the table area with my ring hand. The table continued to flake. Every edge of the table has flaked. It is a flaky table.

After almost one week of not hearing back from the manager, I called, and eventually got in touch with Mark. I asked him "So, what are we going to do about my table, " which seemed like a reasonable introduction to the topic at hand. He responded "We're not going to do anything ... you are the one who caused the damage with your rings."

My rings couldn't have caused the damage to each and every edge of that table. They haven't even touched each and every edge of that table. I told him as much, and he responded: "Well, my technician of thirty years says otherwise. You've abused the table. You should have used placemats." I lost my temper, telling him: "I use placemats. And as far as my rings go, I have not abused the table. We are talking about normal wear here. If I had known I was purchasing a work of art and not a dinning room table to be used as such, I would have donated this thing to the Everson Museum so that it could be kept behind a freaking velvet rope."

He hung up on me. It was probably my use of the word "freaking, " which some people find offensive and confuse with another word that I didn't use. I know I shouldn't have lost my temper, but if you could have heard the sarcastic and mean spirited tone in his voice you would understand why I had the urge to climb through the phone line and beat him with the receiver. Meanwhile, I am out over $800, and have a table that continues to flake even as we speak. I’m resisting the urge to take it down to the North Syracuse Store and torch it on their front lawn. The Goldberg family should be ashamed of themselves for letting their employees abuse their (former) customers, taking their hard earned cash and leaving them with low quality merchandise that they refuse to properly service.