Buying Do-It-Yourself Furniture Part III

by Jaime Egan | More from this Blogger

22 Feb 2006 09:29 PM

Note: This is a many-part series. Please also see Part I, Part II, and Part IV.

Readers, you know that my husband and I purchased a buffet and hutch that required our own assembly. Not only did we open the box to find no assembly instructions, but my husband discovered that there was some hardware missing. Read on for the conclusion to this mess!

Since I lost my patience with the company's website last night, I decided to try it again this morning. I noticed at the bottom of the page where the company's information is listed that the company is based in China. Wait a minute! The assembly instruction booklet that I have says that it is based in Bentonville, Arkansas. Interesting! So I tried the website without the ".cn" at the end, and lo and behold! I saw a different website for the same company. When I clicked "Enter," I received a message saying that a program had to be loaded onto my computer because the page was encoded. Encoded with what, it didn't say, and I couldn't imagine that it was a language issue since the company's main website was in English anyway. Well, I wasn't about to install anything onto my computer when I didn't even know how to get in touch with this company yet.

So, I tried the phone number again around 11:00 a.m. It rang! I got a message saying that there was either no one at the desk or that person was on another call. I left a message with my name, telephone number, the item number, and that I was calling because there was hardware missing. I sat and waited for a return call. Around 12:30 p.m. I received a call from a customer service representative named Josh. He reconfirmed the product information and asked what hardware I needed. He asked me whether there were any other parts missing. I mentioned the part about the assembly instructions, but I told him that the store where we bought the item had fixed the problem. He laughed when I told him what they did. He then took my name and address and said that we would have the part in one to two weeks. Well, that sounded good to me! So I thanked him and we ended the call.

Now let us see how long it actually takes to get the part! In the meantime, I guess I will have to do without a knob on the bottom cabinet door.

Check back with us soon for the spellbinding conclusion to this journey!

Learn more about Jaime Egan

Bio has been removed by administrator

View Full Profile | More from this Blogger