Joanna M. from Toronto

We purchased a box spring and mattress, on sale, as displayed on the floor, at Sleep Country in Leaside. What we received was an inferior quality base/box spring that had rips and tears all along the bottom and side and no tags. The mattress was not the one they had on display (I had taken a photo of it before we paid) and both products clearly look "used" or at least had been returned by someone else. Four calls to customer service, after forwarding photos of the condition of the items, have proven futile. Each person has given me the run around. None of them knew if my email was received because emails are received "elsewhere" and they couldn't help me without my email. Each time they suggest that I call them back. One person even said that I should sleep on the mattress...... rendering it even more used. So BUYER BEWARE with this company. Do not think that because you buy a certain product displayed in the showroom, that you will actually receive that product. Do not trust that you will receive a new item. Do not think that you will have any sort of rapid recourse when you have a problem with their products.

Alliance Floor Source was recommended to us after a broken water pipe damaged the floors in our rental unit. Our initial experience with Mike, who measured, quoted, offered product advise and prepared the contract was perfectly fine. The demolition crew, headed by Rudi, came on time, were polite and respectful, and did a nice job of demo and levelling the floor. I spoke to Zolton, the installation guy, when he called to arrange for his crew to be let into the apartment on the day of installation. He was pleasant and polite. When I showed up at the end of the day to inspect the work and sign the Work Order, (as per the contract) I was told by the installers that they still had some work to finish and "clean up", so I left. The Work Order clearly states that the crew was to not only protect all areas not worked in with plastic, but to "vacuum ALL areas where dust may have settled during your work" in particular "top of shelves, doors, window frames and sills and baseboards". I had no reason to feel that would not happen. However, when I returned the next morning (to let in the movers with the furniture) I found the whole apartment covered in job related debris…floors, counters, baseboards, - all the areas that they were supposed to vacuum or "protect" were totally covered in thick dust. The bedroom door, which they had removed, was left leaning against the fridge, and the plastic, put up in an effort (which failed) to protect the kitchen cupboards, counters and stove from dust, had been left partially hanging. There was also sawdust over the bathroom floor (an area they did not work in, but obviously did not protect, sweep up or vacuum) I immediately contacted Mike at Alliance to inform him of the situation. He asked for photographs, which I sent. Zolton called to defend his guys, saying they DID "sweep", and that he trusted them... despite having seen the pictures. (I felt he was insinuating I was untruthful) He also said he wasn't given any instructions to re hang the door!! It took us several hours of work to clean up the dust in the apartment, and we still could not get remnants of glue off the floor. The disappointing part was that not only did Alliance not acknowledged responsibility for their failure to clean up (despite it being clearly specified in their own Work Order) "Tina" actually blamed me because I wasn't at the apartment to inspect the job when the crew was finished. While Zolton had called before the crew arrived on of the job, no one called to let me know when they were leaving. Did they expect me to keep coming back or to wait around for them to finish up?? To sum it up, Alliance took all our money (as we were asked to sign a Visa slip for balance due BEFORE the job was completed - "just in case you skip town"), they faulted me for not supervising their sub contractors - who left our tenant's home in a mess - and they accepted no responsibility. I would suggest that no one sign Alliance's Visa slip for the balance due, but hold back a percentage. My experience is that they immediately put it through, even before I was satisfied with the full job. I take responsibility for being stupid on that one. We did ask for a "fair and reasonable" compensation (perhaps the portion that was allocated for clean-up). What they offered was a cleaning kit….after we had already done the cleaning ourselves. P.S. It turns out that Alliance did NOT "immediately" put through my credit card. My bank had simply approved it - and informed me that they were unable to cancel the charge until the situation had been resolved, and it would have to go to arbitration. Only after reading my review here did Timea (not "Tina") contact me again. She basically debated with me about the quality of their company's work, never taking any responsibility that possibly, just this once, things did not go as planned. She asked what I would take as compensation to change my review here, then offered us $50.00. I ignored the offer of $50.00…. and she emailed me that my card has now been fully charged. This is obviously a good company, but their customer service was, in this case, terrible…..

We went to Elte specifically to look for lighting. Marilyn was very helpful, and prepared some written information on the particular fixture we were interested in. We then went off to do some price comparisons. We found a lot of similar lighting fixtures that were a lot cheaper, but nothing of the same quality. And none of the other stores offered as pleasant a shopping experience as Elte does. We returned to Elte and this time we met with Jonathan, who also was very helpful. As there were only two of the fixtures we wanted in stock, and we need three, he spent quite a bit of time showing us other products that he though we might like. In the end we went with the original lights and have one on order, which has yet to be delivered.