Do Not Buy Baby Furniture from JCPenny's

[jraemcclure]

I was searching for baby furniture and found a beautiful armoire and chest of drawers on jcpenny.com. I checked with Baby Bargains and it stated that JC Penny was a great place to buy furniture. I need to let you know my experience. I ordered the furniture and was told I would be called when it came in, to schedule a delivery date. The delivery charge by the way was $199.00. I had to call them only for them to say, oh it's being delivered today. Meanwhile I was at work an hour away. So, I had a neighbor go to my house and wait. They never showed. They finally called and told me that they couldn't find my house. We realized that they were in the wrong zip code. I had to reschedule the delivery. The next time, I stayed home from work and waited, and when they didn't show up, I called and again they were in the wrong zip code. They never updated the file. The third shipping attempt, they called me 3 different times with different delivery times. They came the day before the scheduled delivery day with only one out of two pieces. They told me the other piece was lost in the warehouse. The next day, the other piece arrived. Part of the deal that I had with them because of all of the problems was that they would put the furniture together for me, which they don't normally do, well, they didn't. They delivered it in a box. When I opened it to put it together, a drawer was broken and the door of the armoire was cracked. They agreed to pick it up and refund my money, but not without about 10 phone calls and several supervisors. In the end, the supervisor told me that they have a lot of problems with both their furniture as well as their delivery company.

[american_mama]

I am very glad you got some compensation for your trouble! I purchased a coffee table from a JCPenneys Home Store, and had some troubles with the quality. No problems with delivery; I just kept getting defective tables, and they never instituted a simple process to check for problems.

Anyway, after about 5 months and three or four delivery attempts, I finally got an acceptable table. I then called customer service to complain, and asked for a token $25 check for my inconvenience, which they willingly did. I then wrote a long letter to both JCPenney headquarters and their furniture delivery warehouse. There was nothing more to do be done, but I really wanted them to know about these simple screw-ups that could have been avoided. I got a personal thank you call from someone at the furniture warehouse, but no response from corporate.

This isn't enough to swear me off JC Penney's furniture, but enough to make me think that they won't be in that business for much longer. I was pretty happy with how Penney's solved my problem, though.

[JennyLynn]

I had a better experience with JCP - but not much. I placed an order for a crib last Wednesday and it was delivered to the store within a week (for $40 shipping). However, I did have a few concerns. First of all, the catalog doesn't say who manufactures the cribs... I thought I was purchasing a Child Craft but I ended up with a Million Dollar Baby. The CSR I placed the order with had no way to know who the manufacturer was. Then when I called the store to get the dimensions of the package to see if it would fit in my car, I was told it was 5" by 77". Despite my attempts to explain that there are THREE numbers when giving dimensions, I never did get the right measurements of the shipping carton. *Luckily* it fit in my car! When we got it home and put it together, it was fine - no damage. However, the dimensions given in the catalog were WAY off and the crib didn't fit where I had expected it to. Overall I would rate JCP a "C" and they won't be my first choice to order any furniture pieces from again. Like BB says, choose JCP only if you have no other options!

Jenny