When you're spending over $6,000 on a custom sofa, you expect it to be perfect. Well, beware because Bixby & Ball is by far the worst company I have ever experienced. We have a beach house in Newport Beach and met the manager, Julie. She is super friendly and personable so I felt comfortable purchasing a sofa from a smaller "mom and pop" type store as opposed to the Restoration Hardware, Pottery Barn, Crate & Barrel type stores. Boy o boy, was that a mistake!
We purchased our custom white sofa on October 6, 2020. It's a 10 foot sofa with a chase, all white sunbrella material. Julie hand drew a mockup of the sofa and she confirmed that all 3 seat cushions (1 cushion for the chaise, 2 cushions for the connecting sofa) would be symmetrical. They promised delivery by January 15, 2021. I call B&B on January 15 to schedule delivery and the rep on the phone says in a matter-of-fact tone "Your sofa won't be ready for a few months." EXCUSE ME!? When we purchased the sofa in October, Julie had promised me a 3 month window for delivery. Mind you, by this point, we were moving and needed this sofa!
At no point in time did B&B call us between October and January to tell us our sofa manufacturing and delivery would be delayed. And not just a few days - they told me MARCH 15!! What should have been a 3 month wait became a 6 month wait with no fair warning and the rep I spoke to also had no remorse, offered no apology for B&B's shortcomings and lack of customer care and service.
So we endure a 3 month inconvenience and when the sofa arrived on March 15, we didn't even receive the correct custom sofa we had ordered! ARE YOU KIDDING ME!? The sofa that arrived was the correct model and fabric but we did NOT order a bench seat (bottom cushion) and all 3 back pillows were different sizes. I don't know how Julie interprets "symmetrical" but in the dictionary it means everything is the same. So I spent over $6,000 on a sofa, waited 6 months for it, and received THE WRONG SOFA! I complain to Julie, send photos, and she gives me 3 options:
1. Cisco is going to fix the bench seat and remake it so it would be 2 seat cushions as ordered.
2. Cisco informs Julie that unfortunately they cannot make the back cushions symmetrical. If I want the back cushions symmetrical, I need to pay more money to order a new sofa. To kick a man while they're down, B&B also states that if I choose this option, they're taking away the sofa immediately so they could resell it as new. OK - that's not really an option because what would we sit on for 6+ months because clearly manufacturing and delivery cannot be trusted at this point! And no, you will not take another penny of my money.
3. B&B can refund me my money and take the sofa away immediately.
Are you kidding me? I asked specifically, before purchasing the sofa, if the 3 seats would be symmetrical and Julie said yes, which was clearly a lie! Cisco can't make the sofa symmetrical so either Julie lied to me or a Cisco rep lied to her - I'll never know the truth.
So in the midst of this chaos and insanely poor customer service, I wait until July 12 (now 9 months after ordering the sofa, or 4 months after sofa delivery) to receive our replacement cushions. And guess what? THE CUSHION FABRIC IS NOT THE SAME! The replacement cushions they sent me were not color matched. They delivered sofa cushions that are slightly more YELLOW than my white sofa. Why in the world would a company do this? Where is the quality control?! So now I am emailing Julie with photos demonstrating that yellow replacement cushions are unacceptable - no one in their right mind would accept and purchase a custom made sofa that is half white and half yellow! At this point, I am up to my eyeballs in stress and disappointment and simply ask for 50% of my money back since we need to keep the sofa and it was not what I ordered and the inconvenience of them trying to fix it clearly was not working out.
Julie and B&B refuse my request of offering the sofa to me at a 50% discount for the inconvenience. It is now August 2021 (10 months after ordering the sofa, 5 months after sofa delivery) and the seat cushions are still not rectified.
Julie called me and explained that Cisco did not color match my fabric and it was their fault the replacement cushions were wrong/yellow. She specifically told me that Cisco has my order documented with the fabric dye lot and can color match my fabric if I ever needed to order a replacement cushion cover. Over a month after the yellow "replacement" cushions arrived, Julie's rep, Ben, is now asking me to approve a tiny square piece of fabric that they call "Cutting for Approval" in order for Cisco to make the second round of my replacement seat cushions, which conflicts with what Julie told me originally.
10 months of heartache (and counting!) and all I asked for was a 50% refund and they can't even do this for me!! WORST COMPANY. STAY AWAY! read more
