American Furniture Warehouse — Attraction in Phoenix

I hate to say it, but I came by on Sunday to get a look at a few pieces I’ve had my eyes on to set up purchase and delivery. I actually specifically came to the store in hopes to make a sale with a real person, as I’m sure there is some type of team incentive for sales instead of simply ordering through my computer at home. Walked around for about 45 minutes and not a single associate greeted me or even looked my way. Not even the person stationed at the entry when I walked in or left subsequently. The store was not busy at all and the sense of urgency was very different than the 99th Ave. location, which I usually frequent. It was nice seeing some of the pieces I’ve been milling over in person as I got to look at the quality and how much wear and tear they had received as demo furniture to influence my purchase. Personally, in sales, I was trained according to the G.U.E.S.T. system. Greet, urgently assess, evaluate the customers needs, sale, thank you come again. It is such a simple system it’s actually made me notice when retail institutions have no training system established. Not sure if maybe the Sunday on Memorial Day weekend had influenced the incentive of workers possibly going through the motions to simply get their hours in and go home and party as nobody cared. I’ve also seen in my community that Home Depot has placed an application with the city to move into this space and knock down a wall. So I’m wondering if maybe the writing is on the wall for this branch of the franchise given the lack of effort. Wouldn’t be super surprised. In the meantime, I decided I’m just gonna order from the website since everything ships from 99th Ave. anyways and Christown is technically simply a showroom unless you plan on purchasing the floor models. I will give it more than one star as the pieces are quite nice.

OK, so here’s an update. Lowered my rating to one star as today I set up an online order for $1,354.18 and five minutes after receiving confirmation, I received an email saying my order had been canceled by myself or due to failed payment. I didn’t cancel and I hadn’t received any holds or alerts on my bank account from Chase as the money was processed through my balance. I contacted AFW’s customer support and they claim something went wrong in the payment process, and the order stayed processing and payment did not get applied to the order by the automatic payment system. Hence, claiming there is no refund to give of any sort since the payment failed. Spent the next hour talking to Chase Bank filing a claim as they confirm the money was processed despite AFW‘s claims of payment failure. After completing my claim, I then called AFW’s customer service center as they encouraged with the honest question of how customers are supposed to buy furniture since in store and online have both been difficult. The customer service agent explained that AFW has hit a rough patch in it’s online department with this failed payment actually being run of the mill, even citing that they are unable to send customers website links to items anymore. At this point there is nothing left to do but wait for my bank to dispute these charges since AFW simultaneously took my money while claiming payment failed. The customer service representative made it clear that the best way to purchase furniture is in store as a result of how common this online payment system fails. American Furniture Warehouse is way too big of a company to be doing things like this as all of my bank representatives were really shocked to hear the situation. This is the kind of stuff you expect from a grifter, not a corporation or large scale company...

I’m not a fan of leaving long winded reviews, but there’s a lot to tell here, so I’ll be as brief as possible. Keep in mind, we’ve had the furniture we bought for months now, and I finally feel ready to give a thorough and honest review. We went and carefully selected several pieces of furniture: a recliner, side table, bed for our pre-teen, and mattress for my husband and I.

The mattress I have no complaints on so far, the salesman was really helpful and we love it! However, we were told they would take our old mattress away for about $30, never added that to the order for the driver to pick up who was surprised when we said we requested it, and then told us they wouldn’t haul our mattress away anyway because it had one stain (a 10 year old mattress that my toddler at the time spilled juice on). That was greatly upsetting, as we had to pay a lot more to get the mattress hauled away later, after we had just paid someone that morning to take our old furniture away, and could have had them take it then (instead of paying an additional fee to have them drive out a second time).

The reclining couch is already creaking and seems like it’s breaking when you recline back far enough (it pops and jolts). The only warranty we were offered was on the fabric. Sadly, that won’t do us much good for this issue. The side table is great so far, no issues or complaints on that one. Delivery was great on those 3 pieces of furniture, everything arrived in perfect shape, except the delivery guys hit our tree branches and we spent an ample amount of time picking out twigs and little bugs from the recliner after they left…

Lastly… our kiddo’s bed. Upon delivery, they assembled it halfway, stripped a screw (forgetting another), cracked the wood, while not attaching vital parts that ultimately caused the bed to sway back and forth dangerously. We had the room completely empty for them to work, and were left with a partially assembled bed that was missing hardware. After calling to ask for help, we jumped through numerous hoops (send a video, send an email, they don’t accept videos, send pictures instead, etc.) only to be told we’d have to wait as the bed parts needed to fix it were out of stock. We supported the frame ourselves (another cost we didn’t plan on) so our kiddo could sleep safely, and waited over a month with no call from AFW. I called when I saw the bed back in stock on their website and they hardly seemed to know what we were talking about. Once we did get someone to come out, he didn’t have the right pieces to fix it. We asked him to use whatever he had, as he said it would take weeks to get the correct hardware, because we were done at that point. Now, we have a bed that creaks and is put together weirdly… definitely not the kind of furniture you’ll want to keep around.

We saved for a long time to get new furniture and trusted AFW. I will never shop there again, but wanted to provide my feedback so others could make an informed decision. I’m sure not everyone has had our kind of experience, but for those that are weary - this happened to us. And unfortunately we can’t afford to pay to return the fee to ship the recliner couch and bed back, or we would have in a heartbeat. No one offered us an apology or kind word during this entire ordeal. We were so very...

WORST EXPERIENCE EVER!

I ordered an Ashley Sofa from them by the end of July. It was a special order, and they told me it should arrive within a month. This way is a lie. I called by mid-August to ask for updates; they had nothing and told me to wait till the end of the month and that it might be delivered by the first week of September.

I called on September 1st, and they are still waiting for updates. I visit the store myself and ask politely to have them take a look at the order and do something about it. They told me they would call me a few days after checking what was happening.

I got a call the week after telling me they received the sofa and were willing to deliver it the next day. I asked them if they could provide it the following weekend, and they said they would. I have the delivery scheduled today (Saturday). I received a call 40 minutes before the scheduled time, letting me know they should arrive between 9 and 10 a.m.

I waited, and no one arrived by 10 a.m. I called the number that called this morning only to be told that my delivery was canceled because they found out that the sofa was damaged in transit to their warehouse. That same warehouse where they allegedly received it last week. It has been a week, and they did not inspect the item, or at least that's what they want me to believe.

Now, I am asked to wait 4 to 8 weeks again for them to ask the manufacturer to make a new one; there is nothing they can do about it. They need help to expedite the process. Add to that the customer service behavior. First, they don't notify me about the cancelation, have me wake up early on weekends, and only tell me when I call. They act like this was not their fault and that this is on the manufacturer. YOU HAD IT FOR ONE WEEK IN THE WAREHOUSE, AND NO ONE BOTHERED TO MAKE SURE THE ITEM WAS IN GOOD SHAPE?! I politely and calmly asked to be transferred to a manager, and they hung...