I went in on a mission which was to spend my money on the Bedford Corner Desk, however, the service that I received was not up to par. I wanted to get in and take my desk home on the same day. The words "take me home today" were also printed on the ticket. As I browsed in the store for 10 minutes, I was not greeted and proceeded towards the desk where I told the associate that I would like to purchase the desk. He informed me that their on site warehouse was contaminated (there was a flood in the basement due to a pipe that burst the prior evening) and that the item was unavailable. He offered to buy it online, waive shipping fees, and have it shipped to my home within 2 weeks, however, UPS would only ship on weekdays and PB couldn't guarantee that it could be shipped after work. In other words, I would have to take time off of work to make sure that there was someone home during delivery. Now why would I use a sick day when I was prepared to take it home today? I asked him if he could check another store, and found out that Rancho Cucamonga had one in stock. I also asked if their same day delivery service could deliver it to my home and since he was willing to waive the online delivery fee, I didn't think that I would be charged, however, once it was bought at Rancho and not in Pasadena, he informed me that I would have to pay for shipping fees if the Rancho store did not. It didn't make sense. He was eating the delivery fee for the online purchase but not the in-store purchase? It cost pretty much the same ($150). His service was fine but his manager in the shadows was not helpful at all. She added her two cents and didn't seem to want to accommodate a customer who has spent thousands of dollars in the store. For god's sake, my house looks like a PB catalogue. When he saw that I was not happy, he asked if I wanted to speak to the GM. That's the last thing that associates or store managers want customers to do so I suspect that the GM is on very friendly terms with his/her staff. Before leaving, the manager (she was older and had grey hair in a ponytail) looked at her associate and gave him a look. Do they NOT want my money? Wow.
As a former employee, I know that shipping costs could have been waived under certain circumstances (through no fault of the customer) and the management team could have had the desk delivered on the same day or in the late afternoon. When I worked there, we waived fees for reasons such as the one above but especially when it was a large purchase. the total came out to $1284. Because I really wanted the desk, I drove 35 miles to Victoria Gardens to purchase the desk. The service was much better, especially from the stock guy who loaded it into my car.
The transaction was rather unpleasant at Pasadena, needless to say, I will not be shopping there again. read more