My wife and I wanted to buy top of the line baby furniture for our first child. We chose Lil Angels on Steeles Ave near Keele, because they were one of the few places we looked at that told us they sell Canadian and American made furniture. This company is also known as Kids and Baby Furniture Warehouse. So, we took the plunge and spent over $4000 on a complete set: crib, chest, dresser, hutch, mobile, rug and bedding. It took approx 6 weeks for the delivey to be made. Upon opening the boxes, my wife and I discovered to our dismay that each and every piece that was delivered was damaged.
There was a really bad gauge on the lip of one of the drawers, there were two scratches on the dresser about 6 inches in lengh each, there was a chip the size of a dime on the leg of the dresser, another scratch about five inces long on the top of the chest, a crack about eight inches long on the back of the crib headboard(on which I cut my finger from a splinter when I was examining it) and the veneer was flaking off at the top of the hutch.
While we also purchased a conversion kit to convert the crib to a bed once the baby becomes older, I wasn't intending on opening the kit until I needed it....easier to store that way. But I thought better of it seeing what we had found when we opended the other boxes, so we opened the kit as well to inspect it. Sure enough, there was an eight inch long scratch on one of the rails.
Now, the company offers no installation, so I was intending on putting the crib together myslef. But once I informed the store about the damage, they indicated that I should not assemble the crib in case any of the pieces needed to be replaced. The company did not want to spend the time to disassemble it when they would arrive to replace the damaged piece. The reamining pieces, dresser, hutch and chest came with no assembly required.
But before they would determine whether replacement of the damaged pieces would occur, we were told that we had to take pictures and send them to the company. If the damage was bad enough they would send a repair man out to fix the damage first and only if it wasn't repairable would any of the pieces be replaced.
To cut a long story short, it took two visits by two different repair guys, and six weeks for some of the repairs to be made. In the interim I was in contact with the owner (only by email, he would not talk to me on the phone) and he would not initiate any eamils to give me a status update. I had to do that following weeks of silence. After each of the repair guys visited the house, I had to initiate an email to ask what was going on. I had not heard from him for one week following each of the visits.
Finally, when some of the repairs were done and I complained that a few were still outstaning, the owner took it upon himslef to visit the house to inspect the furniture himself. At first, my wife and I thought that this was a nice gesture......until we met the man. He came with a female sidekick and it quickly became apparent during their visit, that they were not there not to help, but to make a point that the defects (both the damage that was already repaired and the damage that was still remaining) was not in fact damage, but superficial things that we should be willing to live with. When I stated that I did not pay for refurbihsed furniture but rather I paid for new furniture, the owner stated, and I quote, "It is your perception that this is damage". Imagine our outrage, having spent so much money on the furniture, only having the owner tell you that its ok to settle for anything less than furniture that is in good condition.
Further, when I questioned him about why the boxes containing the furniture pieces were labelled "Made in Vietnam", even though I was told by the sales people that they were made in the U.S, the female chided me and told me that I did not know what I was talking about.
When I asked the owner for a rebate of some sort to compensate me for receiving damaged furniture, he inidicated that this was not an option. When I mentioned that the crib set is now on sale at his store and asked if he could honour the new price for me given the state of the furniture delivered to me, he stated that this set is not and has never been on sale. I have never understood why he said that. After he left i logged onto his website and sure enough, there was the exact same model, on sale.
Here I have to note that before the infamous "visit", and after waiting for several weeks for this to be resolved without results, a friend and I proceeded to assemble the crib because we could not wait any longer. My wife had the baby and our crib was still in pieces. In additon, my wife and I had bought a mobile the same day we bought the crib with the intention of mounting the mobile on the headboard of the crib so that it sits above the baby...as is the norm with these things. Well, weren't we surprised when we realized that the mobile did not fit onto the crib. The headboard rail, and all the other rails for that matter, were too thick for the mobile mount. When I told the owner this story during his visit, he again was rude and stated that I did not know what I was talking about. By the way, the sales folks had told me that all sales were final and that I could not return the mobile. As an aside here, either the sales people did not know that the mobile would not fit onto this particular crib, or they did know and sold it to me anyway. I'm not sure which one is worse.
Upon completing his "visit", the owner indicated to me that he considered the case closed. He would not proceed to complete the repairs or replace the damaged pieces which included the headboard and flaking veneer on the hutch (even though I have an earlier email from him that stated that he had ordered the headboard replacement).
My wife and I have never met anyone so unprofessional. At one point during his visit, my wife got so scared she started trembling. It was obvious to us that this guy came to our home to intimidate us.
And not only was he patronzing, offensive and rude, throughout all of this experience, no one offered an apology, not the sales folks, and certainly not the owner. This was the worst experience of our lives at a time when we should have been experiencing the most exciting and beautiful time of our lives.
