Our situation was unfortunate - The staff at Ashley's was mostly pleasant during the sales process. We purchased the guardsman plan at the recommendation of the salesman, who assured the ease of replacement of the product if damaged. A simple cursory search of Guardsman will tell you everything you need to know about that unethical and deplorable company, but it is not what this review is about. After reaching out to Ashley's for replacement, they NOW indicated how difficult it would be getting anything approved through Guardsman, and that we had to stay aggressive with them to get anything done. In the end, Guardsman made an offer to us - keep the damaged furniture and receive a payment of $800 or receive store credit in the amount of $2,800 to use towards comparable furniture replacement as the furniture we had purchased was unavailable. This process took months to achieve. We accepted the store credit and contacted Ashley's Furniture Homestore, in Plattsburgh, who assisted us with our replacement purchase and finalized the transaction - indicating to contact them in a few weeks to determine a better idea of delivery timeframe. A few days later, we received an email from Guardsman indicating they had made an error in our "adjustment" for our replacement furniture and had reduced our "available credit" by nearly $1,000. A game of pass the blame ensued and in the end Ashley's Furniture of Plattsburgh manager "Sam" contacted us advising there was "nothing he could do" to help us and that even though the transaction was completed already, they would have no choice but to cancel our order without us paying the difference ourselves and have us start over in the selection process. Yes, we were asking for concession / accommodation from Ashley's based on the circumstance, not in the full amount as that was unrealistic, but a good faith effort on their part perhaps - even a fraction of sincerity and effort would have sufficed, however, during the conversation there was little empathy over the situation, and although he did admit that our local Ashley's Furniture of Plattsburgh is a relatively small family business, he did not seem to care what we thought of the situation or the resolution, to the extent that he laughed as he hung up the phone over our indication that we would be presenting the facts of our encounter to our friends and family (not that it would make a difference anyway)... Another local business, that during a time when shopping local should mean something, makes the continued mistake of lacking candor, lacking customer service, and remaining unsympathetic to the customer, will ultimately come full circle to yet another local business closure. Because we couldn't afford to lose our entire investment (offered in store credit), we completed our purchase and paid out of pocket. Our recommendation, take your business elsewhere, where genuine customer service may still exist. read more
