Mattress Forum

Brad,

First off, I still do not have a refund on the $728…so perhaps you could start there, as I have requested multiple times.

Secondly, as a founder of a $200MM company, I can tell you that I feel your pain.  Which is why I take it personally when I am the customer, and I get bad customer service.  If I treated my customers the way you guys treated me, I’d have been out of business by now, because all of our customers are recurring customers.  I get the feeling that in your business, people buy a few mattresses and then they are out of the market for a while.  And, since you sell worldwide (or nationwide), word of mouth does not kill you like it would if you were selling into a local marketplace. 

Since I hope that you will take this feedback and work on your business practices, I will take my time to give you the unabridged facts:

1. On Monday, November 1^st, I called your sales number to order two full-size mattresses.  I was told that you only had one available, but that you could make another one by cutting down a queen size mattress, but that that could be done on Monday, and the order would go out on Tuesday for a Thursday delivery.  I specifically said that I needed the mattresses by Friday (or I was not going to place the order).  Also, the rep gave me a choice of “Memory Foam” or “All M Foam” stating that the “All M Foam” would be more firm.  I said that I was indifferent, but since the “All M Foam” was $30 cheaper, I opted for one of those and one “Memory Foam”
2. Then, a sales rep called on Tuesday and said that the “All M Foam” was out of stock, which I thought was strange, since I was told that you were going to be cutting down a queen size mattress anyway, and I was told that you had many of those in stock.  Regardless, the order was changed to two “Memory Foam” mattresses.  I again stressed that I needed the mattresses by Friday, and that I was willing to pay for overnight delivery rather than have to waste my time shopping around.  I was told that the mattresses would go out on Tuesday and be delivered on Friday.
3. On Wednesday night, I received Notification from Fedex that the mattresses had been picked up from your warehouse, and that Fedex had been notified at 610pm EDST of the shipment, more than 30 hours after I had spoken to sales rep the second time.  Fedex had a scheduled delivery date of Saturday.
4. Your sales support line was not available at that time, so I sent an e-mail that said please contact me so we can work out a solution to the problem.  Then I started calling around Denver to find a mattress, but it was too late in the day, so I took Thursday off to go shopping (given my intense work schedule, I did not have the luxury of doing that, but you guys forced this…and what really upset me—had you guys just told me that you would not fulfill my order, I could have found another online vendor who could have sold me something without having to take time off).   
5. While shopping, I received an e-mail on my iPhone, “we cannot change the order, we will contact Fedex to cancel the order, and then refund your credit card (which still has not been refunded).  What anyone who was on the ball would have done was say, “we will ship out two other mattresses overnight at our costs so you will have the mattresses by Friday, and cancel the initial order.”  Also, your sales rep blamed the timing error on me “changing the order”, and I did not change the order—you guys told me that you had something in stock which you did not have (twice), and then waited 30 hours to schedule the Fedex pickup.   I called back, but got voicemail. 
6. On Thursday, I sent an e-mail at 143pm that said, “I need one of the mattresses for sure by Friday, and I found one here in Denver for $529.00 plus tax (I have pasted the quote below from Urban Mattress in Denver).  Here’s what I would suggest and hope that you will do, since this has been such a fiasco:  1)  Have them both delivered, and I will return one of them (just let me know what process you would like me to follow to return that item);  2)  You pay for return shipping and credit me the difference between the cost of the one that I need to buy and the one that I should have received from you ($150.00 plus the return shipping).  Please let me know as soon as possible.”
7. On Thursday night, I received an e-mail that said, “all we can do is let you know that we are sorry the mattresses were not delivered as we had hoped.  We have requested that FedEx return them to our factory.  Should they be delivered, you will need to refuse delivery.  If they are delivered and accepted, the sale will stand.  As you stated, you will be away for the weekend and the first delivery attempt would be Saturday, if FedEx does not get the stop order.  When we are notified of their return, we will immediately refund your purchase.  This return process is  the only option we are prepared to offer.   ONM”
8. Let me count the things wrong with that response:

• “All we can do” implies his hands were tied, and there were no solutions…there were solutions, and I pointed them out to him and provided a solution that would make me happy
• “As we had hoped” implies that it was an act of God or something out of the control of your company—it was mismanaged on multiple levels by multiple indifferent employees at multiple times, none of which took any responsibility
• “If they are delivered and accepted, the sale will stand.”  Talk about throwing fuel on the fire—screw up and then threaten your customer
• “When we are notified of their return, we will immediately refund your purchase.”  You should have refunded my money on the spot, not after you were notified of their return.  And…you still have not returned my money!
• “This return process is  the only option we are prepared to offer.”  Your inflexibility is what caused me to contact the Better Business Bureau in Knoxville about your company using their name to promote your brand, given how customer unfriendly you are.  And make all the other postings on complaint sites. 

So, Brad, besides all the time waste, the fact that I spent 2X what it would have cost if I had just gone to Overstock.com and not your misnamed and misleading Overnight Mattress site, the day off that I was forced to take to shop when I was swamped preparing for a week off with my family—you only decide to engage when there is something that you now want—me to take the complaints off the various sites.  Tell me why I should spend even more time doing that, when your company treats consumer like this?  This IS who your company is, Brad.  You should take this to heart and make some changes—customer service, customer support, operations, fulfillment…nobody seems to care over there.  I could not even get anyone to tell me the name of a manager or executive to contact.  If my company acted like this, my Board would have already replaced me. 

Regards,

Steve