Dufresne Furniture & Appliances Store — Attraction in Ottawa

I responded to you 2 weeks ago Dufresne - why haven't you answered? In Jul/20 I purchased seven appliances, sofa, chair, king bed from Dufresne on Hunt Club Rd (Ottawa). I advised the sales woman that I would not need the items for a while. She assured me that Dufresne had a warehouse in Ottawa and could store my purchases up to two years. As such, I made the purchase that day. I paid for white glove delivery as well as extended warranties.. Six months later, the sales woman called me to I had a balance owing of $530 as there was an error made. I was completely dumbfounded. I asked why on earth I would pay for the store’s error? But she insisted I pay. I then received a call from a manager advising he would “eat the cost” based on the amount I had spent. In Sep/21, I received another call from Dufresne advising the dishwasher I purchased was no longer in stock. I questioned why this was as my purchases supposed to be stored in a warehouse. I ended up agreeing on an alternate dishwasher, which I was promised was in stock in Ottawa. However, on Oct 3/21, I received another e-mail advising that my refrigerator and alternate dishwasher were no longer in stock and could not be shipped. This is now closing in on 30 days of my shipping date. I tried to explain my frustration to the manager but she continually interrupted me mid-sentence and would not let me speak. I ultimately agreed to have a loaner fridge until my fridge arrived, which she advised would be approximately January 2022. I asked whether the alternate dishwasher, which I was told was in stock, was going to be delivered but she told me she had no idea. I tried on multiple occasions to confirm whether the loaner refrigerator would be delivered along with the remainder of my purchases. I left three voice mails, which no one responded to and four e-mails, again, to which no one responded. I was finally able to get through to someone over the phone by choosing the delivery option. They confirmed it would be delivered the same day. Unfortunately, the refrigerator arrived in a filthy condition. It had not be cleaned following the last loan-out and was quite dirty. I called to talk to someone about this but was unable to get through to anyone for two days. They agreed to send a second loaner fridge; however, they shipped it to my old address, which of course was vacant. Two more days passed before I finally decided I would don rubber gloves and clean it myself. Sadly, I had to throw away much of my groceries as four days had now passed and the weather was too mild to keep my groceries cold. Throughout the months of December 2021, January/February 2022, I left numerous voice messages and e-mails to several people within customer service, sales, and management, to try to obtain information on the status of my dishwasher and refrigerator but no one responded. As I was no longer living in the city, a friend of mind attended the Hunt Club Rd location to enquire on the status of my order. He was guaranteed he would receive a call from the manager the following Monday; however, no one called him. He attended the store again the following weekend advising he would not leave this time until he was able to speak with a manager to determine the status of my order. Again, he was promised a manager would call him the following Monday. The following Monday he finally received a call back from a store manager who confirmed the two items would be shipped the following week, which they were. My question is, if they were in stock, why were they not shipped to me? Why did it take someone attending the store and demanding assistance for my items to be shipped? I am completely speeches as the lack of customer service this store provided over the 1.5 years since my original purchase. Not only did it take me over 1.5 years to receive my purchase but it was almost impossible to talk to anyone within Dufresne about the status of my order. I am utterly disappointed -- not one person seemed to care. I responded to your response 2 weeks ago - not surprise no one got back to me. So...

My first time ever posting a google review and I truly hope potential customers read these words and tread lightly if dealing with this store.

My real name is Tim, this Google profile I have was set up years ago and doesn't reflect the brevity of this post.

Fraudulent Sales Tactics & Terrible Service

I will not in my lifetime ever again deal with Dufresne or recommend them to any of my friends or network. I sell lighting and design services and have in the past referred many many customers to Dufresne. A decision I regret and will do my best to remedy.

Always read their fine print. because when it's time to reckon, it is nowhere near as good for the customer as it is sold to them on the sales floor.

Start with Financing: They use Fairstone credit (or did) maybe they have a new financing company now. I decided on the long-term plan so i could keep my up-front costs down. You pay the $199.00 fee for 48 months equal payments. But! At the end of every calendar year if the full balance is not paid they charge another $26.00 in interest, the actual cost of the financing would have been over $320.00 if I didn't just pay the balance. I hated it because I paid the $199.00 for 48 months, but I did not want to be hit with further interest costs. This is not a $199.00 fee. They know it, but do not make it clear at point of sale. It's just a surprise at the end of the 1st year. This is not a Fairstone review so I will leave the rest of that debacle for the scrap heap of experience.

Now the Warranty/Stain Guard: For a $3,000.00 couch. It's pitched to the consumer as the gold standard for protecting your investment. $250.00 and for the first 5 years if by chance something does happen to stain your couch through the stain guard they treat your furniture with. Getting the stains removed will be as simple as calling the store and setting up an appointment. Well it took at least 5 calls (with each of my messages getting more and more assertive and frustrated) before they finally called back. Of course they need pictures, because even though I have the stain guard guarantee they need to see the stains. Then they send you an email with the Warranty and all of it's conditions and it's discovered they can determine what's considered normal wear and tear and that it is not covered by the warranty.

I called my salesperson and complained and had hoped for better treatment and service. He let me know that Management were sticking with their fine print in the contract. They sent the cleaning technician, I was not home so my daughter signed off on the service call. when I got home the worst part of the staining, the head-rest was untouched. He did a less then 10 minute job cleaning a coffee stain from the arm and spot cleaning some other small stains and left.

The couch looks terrible and I now have to have a professional cleaning service come and clean it.

I am planning on posting this same review on Yelp, Reddit, Facebook. Anywhere that I can that will prove to them that these sales and after service techniques can and will cost them a lot more in...

**update While the service to sell me the stove was amazing, the willingness of Dufresne to service it, despite my purchase of a 10 year warranty, has been abysmal.

At the time of purchase, I shared a picture with Tracy to demonstrate a potential challenge with installation. She said she’d have a team of 3 installers who would be able to work around it. I sent the same picture to the installer. At no point was I warned that there might be an issue, that there could be damage caused by the installation or that I would be on my own if that happened.

Less than a year in, the oven was having trouble holding its temperature. I thought it was my imagination but by early 2021 I contacted the shop and service because it was worse. Service technicians came out several times and over 2021-2023 they replaced the front board/pad 2 or 3 times. They didn’t seem to register that the heat retention was an issue. Finally, on the last visit, the tech acknowledged that the heat retention issue was something different and quite significant. He couldn’t fix it, though, because it was not possible to send out enough people to remove the unit and service it. In the end the company refunded my warranty. So now I’m on my own to try to solve any problems that arise.

And they keep arising. I recently had a tech come out to fix something on it and his view, taking the full story into account, is that the only thing that makes sense and explains the issues I’ve had since pretty much the start, is that something happened during installation. For example, the door doesn’t close properly, causing the oven to lose heat and melting the circuit board or something was pulled in the wiring causing the temperature sensors to malfunction.

The tech also said that the oven could have been fixed without the unit having to be removed, using the same approach as you would for a unit installed in a wall. He was surprised that the technicians previously didn’t propose this but just said they couldn’t fix it.

For a new unit that I bought only 5 years ago, I have spent a lot of time and effort trying to manage repairs. There has clearly been something significantly wrong with it from the start.

I’ve written to them time and time again, copying the head office but have receive NO response at all.

So yes service to sell is great but not to actually serve the customer at all.

Exceptional service! I went to 6 other appliance shops I n one day and there was no comparison. Tracy and Steve both went out of their way to help me replace a stove/oven quickly, working with their delivery crew to make sure the old oven could be removed and the new one installed around an impossibly tight space. Tracy did research for me, presented me with the best options and was very responsive. I can’t say enough good things about Dufresne. I will go back when I need to replace...