fluxrad's Profile

We actually bought this couch last October. Saw it online, went into the store to order it even though you could online at that time. We wanted to make sure the pieces were right because it wouldn't fit in our room if they weren't. An employee was really helpful with the ordering process... but....

The couch took six week to arrive, which was fine, except that the order was wrong. The delivery company isn't West Elm, it's another group, so they had no idea what we were looking at. They tried for an hour to convince us it was what we ordered, we knew it wasn't. We called customer service with the delivery guys still there, in case the right couch was still in a warehouse. It wasn't. They didn't take it back with them because they said they weren't sure if we were in the wrong. So we kept the ill-fitting beast of a couch in our room unused, piled in a corner and got back on the phone with customer service.

After two weeks of constant phone calls back and forth, West Elm finally admitted (or discovered) that the error was on their part. A SKU mistake on the pieces that had been made already had been identified, and everyone who ordered the couch online (whether in a store or not) had received the wrong pieces (unless they ordered the 'mistake' arrangement by accident). Anyone who ordered a version of the sectional other than what we got was disappointed ... so the customer service woman we worked with assured us that they'd begin to make the right version and get back to us as soon as she could with delivery dates.

We're not sure why, perhaps because a lot of people ordered the couch, it's taken this long to get a delivery date. We ordered the couch originally on Oct. 4, 2012. We are getting the right couch delivered this Saturday, Feb. 9, 2013. Apparently. Honestly I'll believe it when I see it. Though the customer service team has been very apologetic, it's been a HUGE inconvenience for our family. This happened over the holidays when we were supposed to have guests, and I also had a baby during this time. Not having a working living area has been a huge problem. We've had to spend the better part of four months dealing with this on almost a daily basis. The wait, apparently, was for them to figure out their warehouse / SKU errors, and then make the couch ... but I still can't understand how it could take so long, and despite apologies, my husband and I still don't really get why it took so long to right the wrong.

The best part is that we bought the couch with a gift card. Reason being is that we got cash as a wedding gift, and wanted to write a check for the couch. (Long story). They wouldn't accept a check so we were advised to buy gift cards with a check (not sure why you can use a check for that, but not the couch, but whatever), then purchase the couch with the gift card. We did that. Now that we are in a situation where we're asking West Elm for some compensation for our trouble and inconvenience, they're saying "Well, with these kinds of things we're required to do tender-for-tender" which means (you guessed it) they want to compensate us with a gift card. 1) Not really in the mood to spend more money with them, 2) how does that compensate me? by giving me value I can only return to them? 3) they are only offering (at this point, we're going to argue about it) to reimburse us for shipping at this point. And yeah, shipping was expensive but at this point it's insane to offer us something so faint.

And don't even get me started on the gift card thing. West Elm got a check from us, we are asking for a check back. The gift card is a symbol of the money we gave them via check, so this 'tender for tender' business has me about to lose my freaking mind.

We'll see how it turns out. And all of this to say that the reason there might not be any reviews is because no one has really received a legit version of the sectional yet? From what we can tell it's a beautiful couch and very soft (what I'm reading above re: pillows going flat is probably true). I'm sure we'll love it when we have the right arrangement, but since Oct of last year, we haven't been able to tell.

Good luck!