Complaint Review: Marlo furniture - Rockville Maryland

On September 30, 2015 I visited the sales floor at Marlo Furniture of Rockville. The horrible experience and unprofessionalism started the moment I walked in the door. When I arrived no one wanted to help. I proceeded to pick out the items that I was interested in ordering and finally tracked down a sales associate through the customer service/checkout desk. I escorted the sales associate through the showroom floor showing him the items I was interested in. After writing down the item numbers of the pieces I was interested in the sales associate stated he would put together an invoice for me that we could review. He proceeded to write up an invoice by hand using a calculator on his cellphone and a small piece of paper he pulled out of his pocket. I asked the sales associate if he could print an official invoice from Marlo Furniture for my review.

A few minutes later the sales associate returned with a printed invoice from Marlo Furniture. After printing out the invoice it was noted that the prices did not reflect the advertised discounted prices. When asked about the prices I was told that the discount applied to the msrp and not the Marlo price. I told him that I saw that as being deceptive being that I was shopping at Marlo Furniture and not shopping at the manufacture. The sales associate then began to pressure me into the sale stating that the store was closing and if I did not buy the furniture now that I would not be able to get the sale. I ended up purchasing the furniture and paying for it in full. The furniture ended up being 40 percent off the msrp price, not the advertised 60 percent off as listed by Marlo Furniture in their sales ad.

On the way out of the store I saw another set of furniture that I wanted. I returned to the customer service/checkout desk only to be told that the sales rep had left the store. The woman at the desk proceeded to call her supervisor over stating that he would be able to assist me with the sale of the additional pieces of furniture. After pointing out the furniture I was interested in I was told that I would not be able to purchase the furniture because the gentleman assisting me was not a sales representative.

The next day I called Marlo Furniture to inquire about the set of furniture I was told I could not purchase. After calling Marlo Furniture I came to find out the gentleman assisting me was in fact the sales manager of the store. Additionally, I was told that there was no record of me paying in their system and that I had a full balance outstanding. I explained that I had a receipt in hand showing that I had in fact paid my balance in full. The customer service department stated they would speak with the Rockville store on the phone and attempt to come to a resolution. Later that day I was contacted by the store manager of the Rockville location by the name of Moe. He stated that he was the store manager and would resolve any issues that had occurred. He proceeded to lookup my invoice and saw that I had in fact paid for the items in full and claimed he did not know how there had been any confusion and apologized for the incident. I then explained to Moe the poor experience I had in his store and that I was unable to purchase a set of furniture I was interested in. He offered for me to come into the store when he was available and he would sell me whatever I wanted so I went back to the store to purchase the set of furniture I was interested in. I was informed by Moe on my arrival that he had fired the gentleman who refused to sell me the set of furniture because it was unacceptable to have his sales manager claim he was unable to sell items in the store. I purchased the furniture set I was interested in as well as several more items I spotted on my walk through the store with Moe. Moe stated that he had added my new purchases to the original invoice and that all the items should be delivered within 2-3 weeks and certainly no later than 4 weeks.

After waiting for several weeks for Marlo to call and schedule delivery of the furniture I decided to initiative and call Marlo to find out what the status of my order was. I was told that order was still being processed and I should hear back from Marlo in a couple days . Several days went by without any communication from Marlo so I finally called again and was told that I could schedule delivery of my furniture but it would not come with one of the tables as they were still waiting on the table to arrive at the warehouse. I decided to schedule the delivery without the table with the understanding it would be delivered at a later date. Marlo Furniture arrived on the scheduled delivery date to deliver and assemble the furniture. After assembly was complete, I was told to inspect all the furniture before signing because once the assembly crew left Marlo Furniture was no longer responsible for damages to the furniture. I walked through the house with the representatives of Marlo Furniture and found multiple issues. The coffee table was not completely put together and was missing screws. The headboard of the queen bed was also damaged and the bed felt unstable as if it was not put together properly. The representatives of Marlo who delivered and assembled the furniture agreed that there was in fact damage to the items.

On the day of the delivery one of the deliverymen called the offices at Marlo Furniture and advised them of the damaged items. At that time I was  placed on the phone with a Marlo Representative who advised me to keep the furniture for the time being and make a notation on the paperwork that the deliveryman would take back to the offices with him. The Marlo Representative also stated that someone would be in contact in a few days to coordinate replacing the damaged furniture. I was never contacted. After about a week I contacted the Rockville store and spoke with a customer service representative by the name of Lonetta. She informed me that I was lied to and deceived by Marlo Furniture and I should have never accepted the furniture even with the notation that it was damaged because now I am stuck with the furniture and it will not be replaced by Marlo. I was told that she would have someone contact me to resolve the issue but I have not been contacted by anyone from Marlo Furniture.

Several months have gone by and still there has been no resolution to my issue. Every time Marlo is contacted there is never anyone at the store or corporate office that can assist me in handling and rectifying the issue. No matter when I call whoever is supposedly dealing with the issue or has the capacity to deal with such an issue is never there. An email is always sent from one Marlo employee to a supposed other employee of the store but nothing is ever done. I have continued to call the Rockville store as well as the corporate offices that operate under the name Regency Furniture to no result. I have also attempted to send a certified letter via USPS to Marlo Furniture of Rockville explaining my grievances and requesting Marlo Furniture contact me but that has also not worked. Marlo furniture is ignoring the situation and refusing to address the issues. At this time with confidence I can firmly state that I believe Marlo Furniture has used deceptive sales tactics and is in breach of contract. As stated Marlo Furniture has lied to me multiple times and is essentially a fraud of a company that continues to operate without responsibility, accountability, nor ethics.