Roy's Furniture — Local services in Lake View Township

January 30, 2021: I ordered a couch The sales associate, Mark, was friendly and helpful. The couch was a custom order and would take longer than usual due to COVID-related delays. I was told it would be delivered right after the Fourth of July, which I said was fine.

July 3: I emailed Mark for a status update as I had not yet heard anything about scheduling the delivery.

July 7: Mark emailed me and said the factory was experiencing a foam shortage and the delivery window had been pushed to mid-August. He promised to email me in early August with an update.

August 20: I emailed Mark for an update as I had not heard back from him or from anyone else at Roy's.

August 24: Mark emailed me back and said the delivery was now expected in mid-September. He promised to email the factory the following week and get back to me with an update.

October 2: I emailed Mark again, as he never got back to me in early September, or at any time in September, for that matter. Mark never emailed me back after several additional attempts to contact him.

October 11: I emailed Roy's general customer service address asking for an update and letting them know Mark had stopped replying to my emails.

October 12: I received an email from another Roy's employee, Jillian. Quoting the email directly, she said, "I confirmed your order is on our next truck which is scheduled as of today to arrive around the end of this month."

November 10: I emailed Jillian again as I had yet to hear anything about my couch. She emailed back, and I quote: "Looks like your sofa is on our next truck, should be here within a couple weeks." I emailed back, frustrated because that was what she said a month ago. I would include her reply here, but it was complete BS.

November 11: Angry and still couchless for nearly 10 months, I wrote a negative Yelp review. Literally 10 minutes after I posted the review, Jillian called and emailed me. She was very nice and apologetic. She also told me my couch should arrive the following week, and that she would call me on Tuesday to arrange delivery.

November 15: A day earlier than expected, Jillian called to tell me my couch was in and to schedule the delivery.

November 16: The couch arrived and was lovely. The two men who delivered it were fast, professional, and nice. (They also gave me a coupon for 10% off my next order that expired in August 2021. Oh, the irony.) I also received a follow-up call from another manager at Roy's to make sure all my concerns had been addressed, which I appreciated.

November 19: Less than 72 hours after receiving the couch, I noticed both main cushions were warping. There was a strange line visible on the fabric in certain places, and the cushions felt uneven (see photos). I unzipped the cushions and saw that it was caused by a fabric insert on top of the foam that doesn't fully extend across the cushions. I emailed Jillian, who got back to me right away and said she would order two new cushions for me at no charge. She said she'd get back to me the following week with delivery information.

November 23: I received a call from someone at Roy's I’d never spoken to before claiming to be from the accounting department who was EXTREMELY rude and said they would not replace the cushions as they promised to do last week because I had been "Yelping about my experience and bullying them on the Internet." She said they would come to my house and "retrieve their order" and THEN issue me a full refund. Like I would trust these people to give me my money back AFTER taking the couch or even let them into my house after all this?! Also, I already got rid of my old couch, so I'm screwed. I once again asked for the new cushions I had been promised by Jillian and was told no. What?!

November 24: Stuck with a defective couch, I am now looking up new foam to order online, at my own expense. I am also posting this review on Google so others will hopefully learn from my experience and take their...

I'm afraid that Roy's is on the decline. We bought furniture from Roy's years ago and the experience was fine. This time, not so much.

Most importantly, we ordered a sectional sofa on September 2, 2014. At the time, Roy’s told us it could take up to 12 weeks to arrive (November 11). However, the sofa was not delivered until February 3, 2015 -- 22 WEEKS LATER. We embarrassingly had nowhere to seat our family and guests on Thanksgiving, and we likewise had to ask everyone to sit on the floor through Christmas and New Year’s. This may have been acceptable if Roy's had any good explanation for the delay, but it had NO explanation. In fact, it steadfastly refused to provide any explanation or accommodation at all (except waiving the delivery fee, which it offered to do in December, 2 months before the couch arrived). We will never do business with Roy’s again.

Here’s a little more detail. When we ordered the sofa we were told in writing -- by a sales person who left the room to "talk to the manager" about the sofa price on 2 occasions, as if we were at a used car lot -- that the sofa could take up to 12 weeks. That was a long estimate, we were told, just to be safe -- they really expected it within 8 weeks. We made a 50% down payment (which turned out to be a 5-month interest-free loan).

Based on the 12 week estimate, we took an opportunity to have our old sofa taken away for free after about 10 weeks. Then, after not hearing from Roy's, we began calling to check on the status of the sofa when 12 weeks had passed. That's when the runaround began.

We were never given a reason that the sofa didn't arrive in 12 weeks (or 14 or 16, etc...). Instead, we were asked to leave messages for the "person who handles this." That person was a moving target and never in the store when we called. We never got a call back without calling the store at least 2 times. The arrival date for the sofa also was a moving target -- in retrospect, it seems clear that Roy's never knew when it might arrive, just gave us a date so that we would stop calling (which we did until that date passed, repeatedly).

Truly, in these circumstances, anyone would expect a store that was holding your money for almost 6 months -- while your family lived without a sofa for almost 4 of those months -- to offer a sincere apology. Roy's did not apologize, did not explain, did not offer a discount off the sofa or anything else one might expect. Perhaps because this is now business as usual for them?

The final insult was when our sofa finally arrived after 22 weeks of waiting, it arrived with a black smudge (grease? dirt?) on the back of the sofa (which faces our kitchen). The delivery men tried but could not remove the stain. We are still waiting for someone to let us know how Roy's will remedy this. But, of course, only one week has passed so far...sigh.

We will never do business with...

DO NOT go into this store. 10 years ago I would have referred anyone to Roy’s, but times have changed. We ordered our furniture (a couch, chair, and ottoman) on February 27, 2015. Our experience was great to start, as we had just missed a President’s Sale and the salesperson still gave us 10% off. We were told it would take 8 to 12 weeks for delivery. After 14 weeks, I called and a sales person told me there was a manufacturing delay and it would be another 2 weeks. After 16 weeks, same story. After 20 weeks, I talked to the general manager (Johanna) who told me the same thing. At this time she offered 10% off and free shipping for the “inconvenience.” I eventually called the manufacturer who was able to tell me that there was an issue between Roy’s and the manufacturer and it was on Roy’s to resolve. I called Johanna who denied this and assured me it was a manufacturing delay. I called two weeks later (mid July) and Johanna had told me that our order was going to be shipping the following Monday and it would be one to two weeks until it was in the warehouse. Two weeks passed and it was not shipped. At this time Johanna said she needed to look into the situation and she would call me back before the store closed. I never received a call. The next day, she had told that they read the order wrong and my order had not shipped. I was upset, but polite. Johanna had told me I should just cancel my order and hung up on me. My wife, who often will agree that I can get upset, said that I was calm and couldn’t believe I was hung up on. My wife tried calling back and what happened….well the first time a salesperson answered and put my wife on hold for 15 minutes. The next three times my wife called the phone was answered and then hung up on her. Needless to say, I was angry, so I called all the Chicago local news investigation teams. That week, one of the local news reporters had found out that there was $480,000 federal lien against Roy’s and that they had owed money to the manufacturer we ordered our furniture from. The local news reported talked to Roy’s who said we would have our furniture in two weeks and that they will be giving us 10% off and free delivery. Well we received our furniture (delivery was supposed to happen between 3 and 7pm and it finally arrived at 8:30pm). The next day I called to verify how we were getting our 10% off and free delivery. Johanna had said she never said that to us and that she was giving us 15% off (an additional 5% off from the original 10% we received) and free delivery.

Overall, there were lies and lies. The customer service was rude, often with a tone of voice, not picking up the phone, hanging up on us, or answering and then hanging up. It is really sad to see once a great store...