Stanley Furniture Young America

We purchased a Young America Crib and were told we would have a 8 week wait. After the 8 weeks, we were told there was a problem with Young America's production line and that we may have to wait until late September or October, which was 5 months after we ordered. With this estimated time of furniture arrival, we were looking months after our daughter was born. Well, at this time, we were frustrated that there was no furniture and poor communication between Young America and Georgia Baby (the distributor), so Georgia Baby gave me the email of the president of Young America, a [redacted]. He could only comment: "I am truly sorry to have failed you and your wife and Georgia Baby so miserably." He offered no remedy or restitution, not even to pay for the shipping, much less a legitimate reparation for bad service. In sum, just a "We got your money, we screwed up, and we hope you like your crib if you ever get it." We finally got our furniture more than 5 weeks after our daughter was due.

The service provided by [redacted] and company is best noted as his closing in his response: "{Our failure" caused what should have been a joyous and celebrated purchase into something less than that in your household." Don't allow [redacted] the opportunity to attempt to ruin what is a blessing.

Review: I noticed deep scratches on my 1 year 2 month old Stanley dining chairs (6 chairs). The chairs were used for 4 meals by adults during that time period. The chairs are black painted (Wayfarer collection), and although my furniture company touched up the scratches, I am concerned that the chairs will continue to have fragility issues when used. Unfortunately, by the time I noticed the scratches, the chairs were 2 months out of warranty. However, my ongoing issue is that the chairs do not appear to have a protective coating, which is a feature that I would expect quality chairs to possess. After 4 phone calls to customer service, where I was assured that someone would email me, I never heard from anyone. At the 5th phone call I was finally put through to [redacted], a "supervisor" with Stanley Furniture. She said the chairs were out or warranty and I should deal only with the retailer where the chairs were purchased. She then said she would take my concerns to a company representative and someone would call me. My issue, as I stressed to the customer service people and then to [redacted], is with how the chairs were made, and no one was answering my question about whether a protective coating was applied (this is a question for the manufacturer, not the retailer!). [redacted] left me a message last night that nothing could be done. I called again today, asking the customer service person if I could speak to [redacted] to obtain an answer about the presence of the coating, but she refused to take my call, and my question is still unanswered.Desired Settlement: If no coating was ever applied to protect the paint, or if the coating is too thin to protect, I would like Stanley Furniture to pay a professional refinisher to apply a coating to the chairs. Stanley Furniture should also answer my question about the presence of a sealant. I do not expect a sealant to completely prevent all damage, but I do expect reasonable protection from normal use.

Business

Response:

The response from the Manager at the retailer, Mr. [redacted], and Mr. [redacted], our Product Development Engineer.Mr. . [redacted] responded to her concerns by discussing this with our field representative and by then sending a repair tech to her home, at the expense of the retailer. The repairs were made.Mr. [redacted] provided documentation of the finishes and coatings we use and of their performance as a whole on these pieces. We have had no widespread claims issues on these items and our coatings are widely used by many competitors.The consumer stated her concern was for the durability of the items going forward. There is no reason the believe her items will perform any less than the same pieces purchased by other consumers. There was no coating “omitted” or left out of the finish process on these items. Due to the style and design of these pieces in this collection, the topical coatings are purposely of a low sheen. This is a seaside, more casual collection. High gloss is inappropriate.While we cannot speak to the conditions and situation her chairs may have to endure, this collection has performed very well and continues to be one of our top selling. We can pay for another repair and have the retailer facilitate, but we do not feel that solves the consumer's issue, as they want furniture that does not wear. This is not a warranty issue. It is a general wear issue. Regards,[redacted]Stanley FurnitureCustomer Care Manager

Review: We ordered Stanley Young America Isabella bedroom set (two twin beds, one dresser with mirror, one night stand, and one desk) on 12/23/2012 for our 6 year old daughter from [redacted] store located at Hartsdale, NY. We paid $3,644.30 in total ($1,844.30 on 12/23/2012 and $1,800 on 4/7/2013). The set was delivered to us on 4/9/2013. Unfortunately it has such strong disturbing odor that we cannot stay in the room. We opened all windows in the room to air out the odor and took all the drawers outside in sunshine, but the odor remained the same after one week. Our daughter has refused to stay in her bedroom since the furniture arrived. We do not think any child should live with such bedroom set. We contacted the seller and the manufacturer for return by email, phone and in person. We asked them to pick up the bedroom set as soon as possible since the odor is so strong we are afraid our health might be compromised, especially our two lovely young children. But [redacted] said it all depends on Stanley Young America. Then Stanley Young America refused our request and claimed that the odor must be from our house so they were not responsible for it.We had past relationship with [redacted] City as well as Stanley Young America. In 2009 we bought a Stanley Young America All Seasons bedroom set for our son from [redacted] City. The furniture was delivered to us in the fall of 2009 and the day it arrived my son started to use it. The furniture did not have any abnormal odor and was in good quality. We were very pleased and impressed by Stanley at that time. When it's time for us to buy bedroom set for our daughter in the winter of 2011, we never hesitated to go back to [redacted] city and got another Stanley Young America bedroom set named Isabella. Unfortunately the Isabella delivered to us in November 2011 was so smelly that we could not stay in the bedroom at all. We contacted [redacted] City for the problem and they exchanged with another set in December 2011. The exchanged set was not better at all in terms of smell. But we kept our patience with it, opened all windows all day long in the cold winter, used salt water and activated carbon, burned candles in the room, took out all drawers and put them outside for sunshine, etc. After several months of all the efforts we could think of, the odor was still the same and our daughter still refused to live in the room and we would not let her either. That was the time we felt so hopeless. We contacted [redacted] again in March 2012. Mr. [redacted] from Stanley Young America visited our home in March 2012. He agreed that he was 100% sure that the furniture had strong odor. He also checked the closet in the room, and our son's room which had Stanley All Seasons bedroom set. Finally he admitted that none of them could be the source of the strong odor and the odor was from the new Isabella set. Then in April 2012 Stanley notified [redacted] city to take away the furniture and gave us full refund.Eight months later, we started to shop around again for our daughter's bedroom. At Crib & Teen City, although there were other brand names, the sales person told us Stanley was still the leader in the industry and had made lots of improvement in their products. As a satisfied customer with our son's Stanley bedroom set, happy with Stanley's customer service and trusting their ability to resolve the latest odor problem, we finally put another order to buy another Stanley Young America Isabella set, which is described in the beginning of our complaint. To our disappointment, this set still has the same odor problem. Given our past almost 6 months struggling experience with Isabella odor, we decided not to wait and request to return right away after airing out the bedroom for a week without any improvement. But this time Crib & Teen City customer service representative never replied our email or phone call. We had to write and call Stanley Young America directly. Mr. Dave Pianezza from Stanley hanged up on the phone and wrote email back to me later claiming that they could not do anything to help us because the odor was from our house. It is so irony that in March 2012 Mr. [redacted] himself came to our house, checked all the other possibilities he could think of then and concluded that the strong odor did not came from anything else but the very Young America Isabella furniture set we purchased.Desired Settlement: We cannot let this bedroom set release strong disturbing odor everyday in our house and threaten our health, especially that of our 6 year old daughter whom the furniture was bought for. We cannot accept the defective and unusable furniture that [redacted] City and Stanley Young America sold to us. We want them to take away the furniture as soon as possible and give us full refund as they did last time in April 2012. Our experience is Stanley Young America has not faced the odor problem in their products seriously and made any improvement in the past year. They took care of their defective product sold to us in the past but now they even refuse to take the same responsibility.

Business

Response:

Our customer, [redacted] City, has contacted our company, telling us they are en route to Mr. and Mrs. [redacted] home to pick up all the furniture in question. The [redacted] will be refunded the entire cost of these items.

Consumer

Response:

I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID [redacted], and find that this resolution would be satisfactory to me. I will wait for the business to perform this action and, if it does, will consider this complaint resolved. We greatly appreciated Revdex.com's help and Stanley's response and decision to resolve our issue. Regards, [redacted]