I had purchased furniture set in 2014 and at the time it was very important for them to sell you the Guardsman protection plan. They even discount the furniture price if you don`t want to buy the protection plan initially. The representative from the store told me that a lot of people are not happy with Guardsman and think they are a scam because of the fact that there are certain criteria they follow such as not approving claims if the incident had occurred a certain amount of days prior to reporting it. And he pointed out that we always need to say it occurred not more than 3 days prior. I remembered that. I had so far used the protection plan twice and my claims were approved without a problem, so I don`t think Guardsman protection is bad at all. However, knowing they are very particular about these things I sensed there may be something I was missing about the requirements and wanted to double check with Ashley before calling Guardsman. I called the store in Niles. The lady on the phone (did not get her name) listened to the explanation of the incident and to my question "would there be anything in this story that Guardsman could potentially deny my claim for? ", she replied that if I describe the way I did I should be fine and my claim approved. Apparently she was wrong because it turns out that one of Guardsman`s many conditions is that damages, which happen during moving are not covered. I wish I knew this earlier. This claim was denied and Ashley are the ones at fault for not telling me that. They were pretty aggressive when trying to make me buy the protection plan and very openly advising me about "say it happened no more than 3 days ago even if it was more than that" situation. And now after having the plan and asking them for advise as to what else could there be that Guardsman are not covering they don`t seem to care nor take responsibility. Luckily I had the conversation recorded on my phone and went to the store and played it to Brenda, the manager. She took notes and said Jacob(some other manager) will call me on the next day. Apparently Jacob had gone on vacation right then and I had to find out by calling 2 days after to inquire about the awaited phone call, which I never received. Brenda was on the phone and I at least could talk to her, she said they cannot simply send a technician to fix the set because of that model not being carried anymore and their system not being able to process the "free" repair if my furniture is not within the 1 year manufacturer`s warranty. Option 2 was to accept the offer of half off furniture set if I wanted a new one. Well, this doesn`t work for me either, because I am not going to spend any more money because of other people`s mistakes. She then told me she will "pull some strings if she can" with corporate and call me back. As usual no phone call followed and I had to call yesterday to ask for an update. She was surprised that I was asking her for an update because she had left a note for someone to call me and explain that there is nothing they could do for me. Well, that someone never called. Anyway, at the end she advised me to call corporate and gave me a phone number. Which turned out to be just Ashley`s customer service line. The lady on the phone was trying to understand what was happening(because of no notes in my account, even though they were supposed to be there) and I had to explain the whole situation from the beginning, she called the store and after she came back on the line told me that she will inform Ashley`s claim department and I will supposedly receive a phone call soon. Not to mention that I`m not hoping for that, I will have to chase them as usual. But in the end she tried to blame me for everything like they did not advise me at all. I only needed them to say "Guardsman DO NOT cover moving damages" and this was enough for me to know how to word my claim request to them. She played it like It was my fault and plainly accused me of wanting to not say that it happened during moving. Well, they did not seem to have a problem with that when back in 2014 at the time of purchase the representative was emphasizing on "if you report the damage too late, always say that it happened yesterday and you should be fine". This is a story in development still, I am not going to stop here, I just hope Ashley takes responsibility and takes care of the damages, that could have very well been taken care of already by Guardsman. read more
