west elm — Local services in Seattle

I had a terrible experience with returning sheets to West Elm. It was the worst customer service of my life. I live in Alaska, and we don't have a local store, so I ordered some bed sheets online. They cost upwards of $300, but I was in the mood to splurge and they looked amazing in the pictures. I got them, and they were much less than amazing, more like a terrible 80's reject. So I returned them using UPS and their online return process. Then I waited for my refund, and I waited, and waited, and finally a month later I called and asked where my $360 was. The lady I spoke to on the phone said that the "package was on the dock", whatever that meant, but that she could process the refund through. I said, great, thanks, and then she told me that my refund would include the cost of the sheets, but not the shipping. I said ok, but that was a bummer since we didn't have a store up here, and so I said I was unlikely to shop there again since I would always have to pay for shipping, even if I didn't like what I got. She was really apologetic and said that she would refund the shipping for me as well, and I thought, cool! Well, two weeks later and I checked my credit card, and I had a refund of $16, but not $360. She had only refunded me for shipping, not the sheets. So I called again, and tried to explain the situation, and the lady this time said I needed the UPS receipt with the tracking number because they had no record of my return! I panicked, but luckily I had kept it, so I called back and gave it to them, and they still told me that the couldn't find my return. I insisted that the first lady told me "it was on the dock" but no one would believe me. I literally called six times, SIX TIMES! The agents kept telling me that they were going to "email so and so" and take care of it. And I asked to speak to a manager repeatedly, and was told someone would call me back, and guess what, that NEVER happened. This was over the span of a few months. I really thought I was going to lose $360 for nothing. I called for the seventh time, and I lucked out and got some guy who was willing to process the refund, but NOT for the actual amount I paid for the sheets! In the whole time this was happening, they went on sale, and he would only refund me the sale price. I argued with him and he basically said "you're lucky to even get this". I couldn't believe it--this company is owned by Williams and Sonoma, which I thought was a high-end classy store--but I have never, ever, ever been treated in such a way. I even had the UPS tracking number! And they acted like I stole the sheets or something. I ended up losing $30 and a whole lot of patience for my trouble. I am still shocked by the way they treated me. NEVER...

I'd like to share the experience I had with West Elm so other people could have full knowledge of how this company operates and stay away from them as I'm sure I will.

My husband and I purchased a sleeper sofa in September 2018. It had to be made to order so we waited for it for 2 full months. I won't even begin to describe that stage of dealing with West Elm, let me just tell you that it was equally frustrating. However we were happy the couch finally made it to us.

Upon delivery, the delivery team didn't pull it out and when I did it later myself I realized that the couch looked misaligned inside. The metal rod that was attached to it fell out and I wasn't able to figure out how to place it back. The whole thing just looks crooked when you take the cushions out! And that's all after waiting for 2 months and paying a lot of money for it!

I first contacted the Customer Support team on November 14. They got back to me asking for pictures and promising a response within 2-3 business days. After a week of silence I contacted them again (Nov 21) - this time I got a response saying that the Delivery Quality team still hasn't been sent out to investigate and asking me to wait another week. After 2 more weeks of total silence, I sent them another message (Dec 3) and the response was that they sent out an immediate request to the Delivery Quality team and I would definitely hear back in 24 hours. That day I did receive an email from a different email address requesting to see the pictures. Wanna guess what happened after I responded with another round of pictures? That's right! Absolutely nothing! No follow up, no response, nothing! After yet another message to the Customer Team on Dec 19 with sincere holiday wishes, I got yet another promise to follow up. This time the person who desperatly needed to see the pictures of my couch was named Rebecca! And she vanished just as fast as she saw them.

Well, after all that I figured I should just leave the pictures here for the whole of West Elm to be able to refer to should yet another person need to look at them.

Farewell West Elm, I will be looking forward to never having to send you another...

I am shocked at appalled at my experience with west elm. I am convinced it's a total scam. I decided to invest in a couch, bed, ottoman and media console for my new place and spent over $6000. Literally none of these items panned out: My couch came with no bolts to connect the legs to the couch (I had to go to the hardware store and get the bolts so I could build the couch myself, even though west elm forced me to pay for a "white glove" service to build it, which obviously they did not do) (I was told by two different "supervisors" on the phone that I would receive a partial refund for the couch but never received it) A bed that I ordered in MARCH arrived completely the wrong size months ago. They then took it back to "fix" it and it got lost in a factory (?). Eventually they decided to just sent me a different one. I had a confirmation email that it would arrive today, but just called to ask for a status update and after being on hold for 40 min and then hung up on, then calling again, I find out that west elm has canceled the bed (?). Nobody from West Elm or Ryder last mile knows what is going on. They of course notified me that the media console (originally estimated to arrive in June) is now not coming until the end of this year. I called to cancel it and still haven't gotten my refund. Ottoman has not arrived - I don't have hope that it will.

Note - when I moved into my new place I also invested in furniture from places such as Article, Wayfair, Urban Outfitters & Anthropologie. I have not had ANY issues with furniture from any of these other places. West Elm keeps blaming it on the supply chain, but there is something much more deeply wrong with the way that business is being done. I have learned my lesson and will never again buy...