Ed Kellum & Son — Local services in Dallas

As new residents of Dallas, my wife and I went to the store on April 12th with a list of ten ranges recommended by Consumer Reports. The Kellum salesman, Mark, said they didn't stock any of them but that he had a range that would be much better for us. He was silver-tongued, funny, and persuasive.

He sold us a high-end brand we had never heard of, Bertazonni, but we trusted him and his stated long experience with Kellum. He had called what we believed to be their warehouse and he told us they had seven in stock. It was delivered and installed by an outside vendor for $200.

When we began to use the range, we discovered it had no temperature gauge to indicate when the oven reached a precise temperature. We also discovered that the range had no timer to set the length of cooking. Everything we tried to bake burned.

After a week of frustration we went to the store on April 19th and told Mark about these issues and that we wanted to return the range. He threw up his hands in a "Whoa" gesture and suggested that we may not be "educated enough" to use it properly. He then said the range was a "special order" and that he would have to check to see if it was returnable and he would get back to us in a couple of days. He did not say up front that it was a special order, although we noticed later that our receipt said "special order." A gotcha!

Long story short, Mark finally agreed to give us a partial refund to return the range. We paid $3,895.92 for it, and he only agreed to refund $3,047.56, keeping $848.36 as a "restocking fee." Given the built-in problems with the range, this was ridiculous. A rip-off.

Nineteen days after we told Mark we wanted to return the range for a refund, Kellum picked up the range on May 7th! It took until May 19th to get the partial refund--exactly a month after we said we wanted to return it.

I went to the Better Business Bureau to file a complaint, and learned that Ed Kellum & Son is not BBB accredited. That's in line with our experience.

Based on our experience, avoid Ed Kellum & Son as a place to...

While building a house in Dallas, the builder's designer recommended Ed Kellum to me for my appliance selections. I was the owner of SubZero/Wolf appliances at previous home but due to delays in getting the products I wanted, Kellum rep'd several high end brands. So, I bought $60,000 worth of appliances from them (Fulgor Milano refrigeration, wine storage, 48" range, FM Vent Hood, Scotsman Ice Maker, and Cove dishwasher). On delivery day, the wrong refrigerator and wrong ice maker had been ordered more than 10 weeks prior. We decided to make it easy and accept the stainless steel refrigerator that was delivered (rather than the paneled ready one that we selected) - otherwise, it would be 15-18 weeks to get a panel ready set. The refrigerator handle was damaged and that took them 5 weeks to replace and two tries...second one also came in damaged. It took a month to get the ice maker swapped out. After calls and emails to the sales rep at Kellum, we were met with excuses or no replies at all. Our builder was also calling them and trying to help us resolve the issues - they were non-responsive to the builder several times. After two months of using the range, we started getting error messages every time we turned on the ovens. I emailed and called Mark (sales rep) at Kellum several times and never got a reply. I needed to set up a service call. Finally, I called and spoke to someone else who said "we don't do the servicing"...well, I was simply seeking a phone to call for service. But again, rather than being out right helpful, they just continue to make excuses. PLEASE, be aware...you will spend a small fortune if you buy from them (when other businesses also carry the same products as Kellum) and get discount service or no service at all! I encourage you to buy from other vendors/retailers and not Ed Kellum. They do not get customer service and surely do not provide the kind of service you expect when dealing with high end retail. Give your money to someone who wants and will earn your...

“Extraordinary Service, No Excuses Since 1948.” So says their sign and so says their website but that’s where it stops. Beware of shopping there for your high end appliances, we learned it the hard way. They “gave” us great service when we went in their Dallas store in April 2022 to pick out our appliances for our new built that hasn’t started yet. But now, March 2023, we are at a point of scheduling an installation of appliances and came to find out that Mark ordered a wrong Wolf range (natural gas). His first reply was “it doesn’t make sense because you are in the zip code that has natural gas!” Well, that zip code was not where we are building a house, and that is not the service address on file! He obviously got it wrong by looking at our billing address and not the service address. We knew from the beginning that we needed a propane gas and because it was requested verbally (when we were in store physically) there is no paper trail to prove what we asked for. Mark accused us that we were supposed to cross reference the model number from spec sheet with Wolf website to make sure it was the right one. Just remember they offer “Extraordinary service” No where on the spec sheet does it say what type of gas range it is therefore we never caught that mistake ourselves. And now we are made to look like fools, by a high end store that advertises “extraordinary service”, we didn’t know what we were shopping for! AND they are charging us $870 plus tax to fix this issue by having a conversion kit installed! (he agreed to knock off $400 off for us). That is not a solution to a mistake that wasn’t done by us as a customer. Beware and don’t shop there, they will make you pay for their mistakes and you don’t get extraordinary service here. This is not the definition of...