The Saga of the Chair

I've been thinking of buying a recliner for a while now. Eventually, just after christmas I went looking around, found one I liked at a reasonable price, but it was in some odd colour, I forget exactly what it was. This was at Tafelberg Furnishers, by the way, in case you ever consider buying anything from them (although, to be fair, I have bought stuff from them before with minimal problems). I asked them what other colours it came in ... after lots of waiting while they phoned their warehouse, they told me they had it in black. I had some other places I wanted to look at, who turned out not to have very much, so a few days later I came back and said I'd take one in black. "Black? I don't know if it comes in black, let me phone the warehouse". Eventually - "we have it in purple (purple!) and navy". Hmmm. You get navy, and navy. I was undecided, as my lounge suite is burgundy. Not a problem, though, they could get one from the warehouse for me to see the colour, and then I could decide. It should take about a week, but they'd phone me when they had it. About two weeks later, my parents happened to be going past, and they stopped in to see if they would be getting it soon - and there it was, in the showroom. Okay. So that Saturday I went down, they said they had left messages on my cellphone. Odd, because I hadn't got any voicemail, but maybe someone copied the number down wrong. Still, the chair looks nice, yes, I'll take it. Can they deliver in the afternoon? Sure, they'll deliver the Monday afternoon, and seeing as it's close by they'll waive the R60 delivery fee. Cool.



A little bit later Saturday morning, I see I have a missed call on my cellphone. Check my voicemail - I have two voicemail messages, both from Tafelberg, one from a few minutes before, one from a few days ago. Okay, obviously they did leave at least one message, but the voicemail thingy didn't send a message to my phone to tell me. Wonderful, but not their fault. The second voicemail was recent, though, so I phoned them back. Sorry, delivery for Monday is actually full, can they deliver on Tuesday. Fine, as long as it's in the afternoon, and they phone first (I'm at work, so my parents will go over to my house to open up for them, but my dad works during the morning).


So Tuesday they deliver the chair - but it doesn't work. You pull the little lever thing, and nothing happens. Luckily my mom tried it out while they were still there, so they could take it back with them. Phone the salesman; sorry about that, he can get me a new one and they'll deliver next Monday. Fine, but please make sure that you check that this one works. And only deliver in the afternoon.

Next Monday now (yesterday). They've had my money (in cash) for over a week, and I'm still waiting for the chair. At about 11 they phone - they're just about at my house. Sorry, no-one's there, you're supposed to deliver in the afternoon! Okay, they'll come back between 4 and 5. Phone the salesman to complain, and check that he has checked the chair this time. Thank you for reminding him, he'll go and check it now. So my parents go over to my place (again), and at about 4:30 phone the salesman to check what time they should be delivering. Oops, he's gone off sick, but the dispatch manager says the paperwork is on his desk and the chair isn't on the truck. By now we're all really pissed off, and we figure that the chair wasn't on the truck because he found that it's also broken. So I decide that this morning I'm just going to phone him and say cancel the whole thing, I just want my money back. Anyway, he was very apologetic, didn't know why the chair wasn't delivered, they'll deliver today. Umm, no you won't, I'll have to try to get someone to be there first! Seeing as how I work all day ... Anyway, phone my parents again, yes, they can be there (again!) but try to get them to give a fixed delivery time. So I phone the salesman again, fine, you can deliver today, but it must be between 2 and 2:30 otherwise no-one will be there. He was obviously tired of dealing with me and passed me on to the dispatch manager. He said he'd do what he could, and should he phone me if they could only deliver later? By now I'm even more pissed off, and say nope, it's between 2 and 2:30 or not at all, because I've just about had it with Tafelberg Furnishers. Okay, he'll say what he can do.

2:30, still no chair. No, the bakkie hasn't come back from town yet, but it should be here soon. Eventually they deliver at 3. Yay, it even works. So I get home, try it out, yes, it's comfortable, looks good, works fine. Start moving furniture around to find a place for it - and notice that the backing is torn away (where they staple the backing to the frame of the chair). This is the last straw. And of course, by now everyone's so fed up with this damn chair that all the fun of buying it has been sucked out of it.



It looks like I'll be able to fix it - glue the edge down, maybe put in some upholstery nails (the ones that look like studs, so it looks like it's meant to be there), and it should be okay. Not that I should have to fix my brand new chair, but at this point it's less hassle than sending it back again. I'm going to phone the salesman again today, to let him know. And I'm writing to the head office to let them know how seriously unimpressed I am. Oh, that was the other thing he said this morning - he was very apologetic that it wasn't delivered yesterday, and next time I buy from them he'd make a special plan for me - I told him that honestly, I very much doubted I would ever be buying from them again. And that's even more true now than it was this morning.