Bob’s Discount Furniture and Mattress Store — Local services in Columbia

I went in store shopping for a bedroom set, and fell in love with the Laurel Gray bedroom set. The set they had on the floor was a white color with built in storage and slats supporting the mattress. I love beds with slats because it allows you to remove the mattress, remove the slats, and store additional items under the bed. Though i didn't want the drawers because my room is not big enough to be able to open the drawers, and the closed drawers take up storage space under the mattress. So I opted for the panel foot of the bed.

My sister even asked the sales associate, Barry, if it was just the foot of the bed changing. He said yes and everything else about the bed would be the same as the floor model. To us, that meant the bed would come with slats and be high enough to allow for storage space under the mattress.

I took measurements, went back to my apartment, made sure everything would fit how I wanted, and a few days later returned to the store, spoke to Barry again, and ordered the bed and other furniture. I set a delivery date of Saturday, and this is where they headache began.

My building requires all furniture be delivered through the loading bay and the loading bay must be reserved. Bob's doesn't allow you to choose your delivery time up front and I was told by both Barry and by his manager that I would be provided a time 2 days before delivery, and if that time didn't meet building restrictions, I would just have to reschedule and hope.

Two days before delivery I get my time. I contact my front office and another resident already has that time frame reserved, which is exactly the worry I had expressed in store that 2 days would not be enough time!

I call customer support and they put in a request for a later time frame where the loading bay happened to be available. The next day, 1 day before delivery, I get another email, again saying my delivery time is 10am-1pm. I contact support again to find out what happened to my time request and was informed it hadn't been processed yet and now it was likely too late.

So I ask about rescheduling and am told that the soonest they could get my furniture to me is Wednesday (4 days after initial delivery was scheduled). I accept and request a new time for delivery due to building restrictions. I chose 10am-1pm on the new delivery day and the customer support lady assured me multiple times that because the time request is due to building restrictions and I have nothing to worry about.

Monday comes, and what time frame does the email say? 12:45pm - 3:45pm. Well outside of the requested time range.

I call support again trying to get them to change the time and figure out what happened. I was told the time request was submitted incorrectly by support.

So I quickly contact my building and thank god, that time frame was available and I reserved the loading bay.

Wednesday comes, the furniture is delivered, everything goes pretty smooth. But wait. The bed frame. Where are the slats I was promised? What are these rails just a couple inches off the floor? This is not what I wanted. This is not what I promised or intended to order when I was in the store.

I drove directly to the store to complain in person.

I talked to management there, showed them what I received compared to the bed on the floor, and what I was promised by the sales associate, who was too "busy" to be part of this discussion (he was sitting on a couch on the other side of the store when I left).

Management informed me that ALL panel beds in ALL stores do not include slats and require box springs, and ALL storage beds in ALL stores include slats to make room for drawers or shelving. The manager told me this is common knowledge and something that everyone knows and realizes when growing up. She did her best to try to make me feel like I'm stupid for not knowing this and this is my fault instead of offering any resolution or making any attempt to sell me a box spring, instead telling me to go to home depot and buy some plywood to support my mattress.

Unfriendly management, lying...

We arrived at BOB’S in Columbia, MD to buy either a rocking recliner or stationary recliner. We weren’t sure about color or actual size so we wanted to see the chairs in person before making a selection. We live in Frederick County, MD, and Columbia is a pickup location while Hagerstown, while closer, is not. So we drove over an hour to Columbia to try out the options.

We didn’t have an appointment, but it was a Tuesday night so we took our chances and were promptly greeted by Phyllis. On our way back to the chairs we wanted to see, we casually discussed other BOB’S products we’ve bought in the past and are very happy with. That was the first time Phyllis tried to sell us the Goof Proof extended warranty. We politely declined, as we know part of her job is selling the warranty and you can’t blame someone for doing their job.

We tried the chair I thought would be my favorite first. It didn’t rock, but it would fit most easily into our limited space. Then I tried the chair next to it that DID rock and was only slightly larger, but was over budget and I loved it. I asked Phyllis for a private moment to discuss the two chairs with my husband before we made a decision. She once again pitched the Goof Proof program and we, again declined. She stayed close enough that she could hear what we were discussing and continued to give her input, which made me feel like I was unable to have a frank and practical conversation with my husband about our space and budget concerns regarding potentially changing our plans and buying a more expensive chair than we initially wanted to.

I told Phyllis I wanted to see one other option I quickly found online while listening to her third Goof Proof pitch, which led to another pitch as we walked to the front of the store. We declined again. The third option ended up being way too large for our room so I once again asked for some space to discuss the options with my husband. She remained close.

When we picked the rocking recliner that was slightly more expensive than we budgeted for, but the only one that we found that evening that both rocked AND reclined for ease of feeding a baby in the middle of the night, she once again pitched the Goof Proof Program. At this point we’d been pitched a half a dozen times, so my husband declined more forcefully, acknowledging that we get she has a job to do but we have been very clear we were not interested. She responded “but it’s only $39.99!” I was, admittedly, a little upset, because we were already stretching our budget and we had made clear that we weren’t interested in the program, so I began to feel like she was more interested in meeting a quota than listening to the concerns of the customers standing before her, so I told my husband we should leave without the chair and find one somewhere else. She called the manager over to complete the sale of the chair, pitched Goof Proof one last time (for a total of 7 since we walked through the door). We did buy the chair for pickup at the store and left feeling upset and...

Much of the furniture is incredibly low quality. The sofa we purchased didn’t even last ONE year. It’s just my husband and I in the house, so no kids jumping on furniture or anything like that. The springs in all 3 seats of the sofa have completely broken and whenever anyone sits down, they sink so far down.

The “goof proof warranty” is the scam I have ever encountered. Purchased it with the furniture we purchased and not a single claim has been accepted or repaired.

Please learn from our mistake and do not purchase furniture from Bobs, and if you do, don’t expect any warranty to be honored for any reason, regardless of how valid your claim might be.

It’s very suspicious to see only high incredibly high ratings on all Bobs stores sites and all of their furniture on their website. This indicates that they remove low ratings, almost certain this review will get removed at some point.

EDIT: I wanted to provide 2 examples of what we experienced, based on the response from the company to show how non-transparent they are. I did submit claims within the 30 day limit. Also the store associate told us that the "goof proof" covers almost anything. Now, I want to add that I understand the terms & conditions are the responsibility of the customer, but I'm just highlighting how this adds to the level of non-transparency by Bobs. First example, I mentioned that the springs are all broken within a year of owning this couch. The claim was denied because this was considered "normal wear and tear." It's very concerning and telling of the quality of the furniture if it's normal if the springs break WITHIN 1 YEAR of owning the couch. I asked her directly "does this mean if I sat on the couch really hard or treated my furniture poorly and the springs broke, it would be considered an accident and it would be covered?" The representative said YES. So if I treated my furniture carelessly, I would've apparently been rewarded with coverage (though I'm sure it would've been denied for other reasons), but since I tried to take good care of my things but the springs broke anyway, it was not covered. Second example, we did get a rip on our sofa accidentally- a true accident. I went through the process to submit the claims in time, provided descriptions, photos, etc. It was denied. The reason? It's because the rip was in a seam on the sofa. Yes, that was the reason. Since the rip was in a seam, it wasn't covered.

PLEASE do not trust this company or any claims of transparency of the type of service and warranty...