Carol House Furniture — Local services in Valley Park

Edit After my review I was contacted to have this issue resolved. Despite extreme hesitance and resistance by me, Ashley was persistent in seeing that this issue was resolved.

I made it nearly impossible to get someone out here to look at the issues, but Ashley contacted myself and my husband until she found a time that was convenient to us and a quick turn around.

Once evaluated she worked with the mfg to get a resolution, but they were unwilling to meet what we considered to be a fair ask - they wanted to take the sectional back and have it repaired for 8-10 weeks, ha! She knew we weren’t going to be satisfied with this and worked it out to give us a credit less very reasonable depreciation. When my husband informed me of this, it was the first time I agreed to go in and consider working with them again.

We first went to the VP location and felt our experience still left something to be desired. the interaction did not feel genuine, despite them Not having any knowledge of the circumstance. After some discussion we decided to go to the Maryland Heights location, and boy am I glad we did.

immediately after being introduced to Ashley I was allowed to express my frustration without feeling bad. My concerns were acknowledged and she set us up with Chris to take care of the new sale.

Chris was the second awesome piece of this! Hes very personable and genuine sales associate that made us continue to feel valued. we finally decided on a great sectional that we’re extremely excited to get. Unfortunately this has a long lead time (most likely due to the many customizations I required 💁🏻‍♀️), which normally wouldn’t be a problem but I’m having another surgery in a few weeks and need to have a reliable piece of furniture on the main floor. We called Ashley and she jumped to it! She reached out to the mfg asking for any assistance possible, then when explained it couldn’t happen she offered us a selection of loaner pieces and early removal of our faulty piece.

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Bought a Southern Motion sectional from Carol House in May 2016, was delivered in June and was a huge pain. We were promised delivery at a certain time then told it wasn’t ever possible to do that when I brought it up. This was a huge problem because we had 12 house guests arriving in the afternoon to stay with us for our wedding.

Fast forward 9mo, the sectional that’s only used by myself, my husband (who travels 3-5 days a week), and 2 dogs who only lounge on it is falling apart. We have an arm rest (of a seat used 3x at most) pulling up exposing huge nails. Then we have all the cushioning deformed and not holding up in seats that are also rarely used. Also, all recliners are lopsided and falling apart. They will sometimes not come up bc the irregularities cause them to catch.

So... after weeks of calling customer Service and not getting through to a person or receiving a solid answer, I finally get through and have to argue my case bc it’s just now out of warranty... whose fault is that? So after some firm discussion they agree to come get it and fix the issue. It takes forever to get the items back, then we finally do an things are good for maybe 4 months. At this point my chaise is so caved in and deformed that I’m getting up with bruises from certain spots. I figured this was possibly attributed to use, but after discussions with many others realized the use was common but the defect was not.

I had several knee surgeries this year and finally got to calling them in early July. Customer Service apologized for their inability to help and assured me a manager would call. Well here I am, yet again, without proper follow up. No ones called and not a thing has been done.

Bottom line, don’t buy here. Despite years of good service and experiences this place is just not the same. Feel like they stole $2,500 from me. What a shame bc the money I used was a wedding gift from my deceased grandparents and I was so looking forward to having something around to remind me of them for years to come....

Was recommended here by my mom after we did a historic renovation of our home and wanted to update our furniture. We chose a couch - couch was nice and delivered within the time frame. That being said DO NOT finance from here. We never received any bills once the couch was delivered, so naturally I called their finance company and asked where they were. Got a run around the first phone call. 2nd phone call they said they had the wrong address (listed our address as in East St. Louis, we live in St. Louis, but also seemed sketchy since clearly they delivered to the right address). 3rd phone call a couple weeks later because we still had not received a bill. They said there were now late fees - again said could we please get a bill - I have never had to try this hard to pay a bill - it's like they want to screw you on late fees. At this point they said they'd send again and waive the late fee - never came still a couple weeks later. Out of desperation, I just decided to login online and pay the full balance (so was a pointless waste for us to finance this purchase with 0 APR and now I'm having to track down a reimbursement for something that was completely unnecessary. I go back to Carol House, calling them. I spoke to Hannah who "looked into the situation" - but was pretty much told oh we never have problems and this is a third party so there is nothing we can do. I'm writing this review as I call this finance company YET AGAIN - wasting my time - and am just on hold not being able to speak to any human being. This has left a poor taste in my mouth about Carol House - if you finance, once they pass you off to someone - it's clear they have no interest in correcting the situation themselves. I would love for this situation to be remedied by Carol House - but as of right now I was told I'm just out of luck. It's unfortunate that I have a brand new home to furnish - but it won't be from here now until they step up and correct the situation. Also can't wait to tell my friends all about it. -definitely written while on the now half hour of hold trying to get late charges reversed that should have never been there

UPDATED REVIEW PORTION I am changing this review from one stars to three - but not removing this. After multiple calls (6+ with never any resolution until I called again and again and again) to Carol House on my end I was FINALLY refunded late fees which I should have never been charged in the first place. I can't with good faith remove my review, because this was not an easy process - nor was I met with good faith in the beginning by this company. Through multiple conversations with management staff here I was gaslighted multiple times by them saying, well we work with this credit company every day so not sure why you're having problems. Additionally, we are able to get the credit company on the phone, don't know why you can't. I'd note that if they have such good communication with this company, why couldn't they reach management there and help resolve the situation if they were not willing to take responsibility? This continually minimized the problem I was having. On top of that - I'd made clear that the situation would not be resolved until I received a refund of late fees, only to be sent a gift card in the mail. What exactly would I do with a gift card of $120 to a furniture store - buy a pillow? So I had to call again and repeat myself for yet another time. It was really really important for them to get me to remove my review - not remedy the situation. Everyone in my orbit I've spoken to couldn't believe I had to go to such lengths on my end to remedy this situation. The only time I received a call back (not prompted by my continued phone calls) was today when they called to make sure I received my refund so I could remove my review. If I'd been met with an immediate satisfactory resolution on my end - I would remove this review - but I only was made to do extra work with...

It’s almost impossible to give Carol House a single rating, there are so many different aspects to the experience that score completely different. A 3 out of 5 might be a touch on the harsh side, but in my opinion, it’s not a 4 out of 5 as you’ll see below:

First, the good:

The size of the facility is quite surprising, it is big, filled with merchandise and appears to be well organized (5/5).

The sales reps are very nice, they seem to be working hard and want to make a sale without pushing you too hard (5/5).

Now, the bad:

Buying something on the other hand is way harder than it needs to be. The salespeople apparently have NO access to inventory information remotely. Every time you have a question about product availability they have to leave, go check a central computer (?) and then come back with handwritten notes about what they have and don’t have. Giving your salespeople real-time access to inventory on their phones seems like the only real solution for a space that big. We wanted to be in and out quickly in light of the pandemic and that I was there helping my 88-year-old mother make the purchase – what should have been a 15-minute transaction took 40 minutes. (2/5)

We were buying a bed (mattress and powered frame) and on 3 occasions the sales rep had to “go talk to his manager” – we’re not buying a car, it’s a mattress and a frame, how little power do you give to your salespeople to make simple, everyday decisions? Way too little decision-making ability for the salespeople, way too much power given to the manager. (2/5)

While this final note may not be a real category for rating Carol House, I had to include it. They’re apparently using the same technology that they did in the 1980s. While waiting to check out (which feels like you’re at the bank), I thought I heard the sound of a dot matrix printer, and thought “wouldn’t that be hysterical if they were still using old school printers.” In fact, I DID hear a dot matrix printer, and witnessed my sales rep, pull the forms off the printer that were IN TRIPLICATE… are you kidding me? I haven’t seen forms in triplicate since the early ’90s. My rep literally had to tear off the perforated edges of the paper – you know the ones with the holes in them to feed the roll of triplicate paper into the machine. If you’re under the age of 45, I’m guessing you have no clue what I’m talking about. Trust me, it would be like asking someone for their phone number and they give you their pager number. Probably a bad example, you don’t know what a pager is either do you? My guess is that they still use them at Carol House, so swing by a store and ask a salesperson to see theirs. Then to top it off, my mom had to initial a form so that the cashier could “show her manager” she explained something – her words not mine. This manager person has way too much power. I have no clue what Carol House is spending their profits on, but it’s not...