At least he was honest

[Kusanagi]

I'm back at work with restrictions now and I just dealt with a doozy of a call no more than 10 minutes ago.

Me: The brave adventurer
SC: Self Explanitory

Me: Thanks for calling [furniture store], this is Kusanagi, how can I help you?
SC: Yeah, I bought a sofa from you guys and had it delivered about a year ago. The wood along the bottom cracked and is separating from the frame and leg.
Me: Oh, that's not good. When did it happen?
SC: Well, it happened a few months ago, in March. The warranty expires in 3 days and I was wondering if you guys can fix it or get me a new one.
Me: Ooooooookay, if I can ask a question right now, because they're going to want to know, why did you wait so long to report this?
SC: I kept procrastinating and putting it off. I figured I might as well get it done now.
Me: Well, I'll enter it into the system so there's a record of it, and I'll see what I can do. I'll give you a call back when I hear from corporate.
SC: Can't you just say that it happened last week?
Me: I can't do that sir. When we send the technician out there, he will be able to tell the damage and he'll be able to tell that it happened when it did and not the week before. I'll do what I can to see if I can get a tech out there but our company is going to be really wary of sending someone out there for an issue that wasn't reported immediately.
SC: Well I paid good money for this sofa and I want it fixed!
Me: I'll do what I can for you, but I can't make any promises since you waited until 3 days before your warranty expires.

I swear. At least he was honest. I mean, we ALL put stuff off. Here's the issue. Corporate wont do anything till tommorrow, and his warranty expires on the weekend. So if we don't get it taken care of tommorrow, they won't fix it since nobody is in the corporate office on the weekend.

What do you think? Think I should "put it off" and "procrastinate" and "keep forgetting about it" until say, tommorrow night at 5PM?

[Enjis]

Nah...he was honest, and it DID break. I say do what you can for him, and leave him (and you) feeling good about the whole thing.
I really do like helping people, and if something honestly did break, and it was a defect, I do want to take care of it. He DID call when it was under warrenty...I hope you can help him.
I know how he feels about calling.
Sometimes, you hate to call to complain, because you build up this big arguement in your head about how you will have to fight to get something done, and it gets so big in your mind that you are afraid to call, and have to face the wrath of the company.
And the sad part is...most places really DO want to help you, and your 'big fight to get justice' is moot.

[marcus]

I don't understand. If the damage happened 3 months prior to the call why even start intimating there could or would be a problem if the warranty is still in place, that's nasty and it's one of the reasons people feel ill at ease calling for warranty support.

[Kusanagi]

I don't understand. If the damage happened 3 months prior to the call why even start intimating there could or would be a problem if the warranty is still in place, that's nasty and it's one of the reasons people feel ill at ease calling for warranty support.

The reason being is because we've had people try to scam us by "magically" find a WHOLE LOT of problems when there are only a few weeks or days left in their warranty, basically trying to return the furniture and get a refund or get a new one because THEY damaged it. It is 99% of the time damages that the customer causes because of negligence, for example, by moving. Negligence and consumer caused damage is not covered by our warranty.

Once in a while, our furniture does have defects, but they show up within the first two weeks, tops.

Seriously - if something THAT serious happened to the furniture (and he's claiming the front trim on the front of one of our sectionals fell apart, and that's a rather serious defect) - WHY would you wait at least three months to report something like that?

It has nothing to do with being nasty, it's a legitimate question.

[marcus]

That's cool and I realise people must try it on sometimes. Despite this though, if somebody calls in during warranty period, you are obliged to take the item in or have it inspected. It's just a waste of breath to make a big thing of it on the phone. They are covered, period.

Just thinking what a waste of your time it is to try to flush out a chancer during first contact is all

[RecoveringKinkoid]

Nah...he was honest, and it DID break. I say do what you can for him, and leave him (and you) feeling good about the whole thing.
I really do like helping people, and if something honestly did break, and it was a defect, I do want to take care of it. He DID call when it was under warrenty...I hope you can help him.
I know how he feels about calling.
Sometimes, you hate to call to complain, because you build up this big arguement in your head about how you will have to fight to get something done, and it gets so big in your mind that you are afraid to call, and have to face the wrath of the company.
And the sad part is...most places really DO want to help you, and your 'big fight to get justice' is moot.

I agree wholeheartedly with this.

[NightWolf]

^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Sorry, I don't agree with that.

Yes, it is under warranty and it should be covered. What I don't understand is why it's so hard to call it in when it happens? I mean, if you're doing business with a good place, it shouldn't be a hassle. Anyone should know, the longer you wait, the more suspicious the incident is going to seem. I bought a new DVD-RW from an online store, had it 1 day and it broke. I contacted Customer Service the next day and I had an RMA, credit on my account to take care of shipping back to the company, and a new one to me within a week.

I understand people may not want to go through a hassle of an argument, but if it's a really good business, you shouldn't have that at all.

[Banrion]

When I bought my bedroom set (my first 'adult' purchase, after getting my real job [by real I mean official full-time status]) I purchased the extended warranty, mostly because it covered the finish, which the manufacturer warranty did not ( i.e. water marks, scratches, chips) I read the warranty before signing, and not only does it stipulate that all claims must be made within 30 days of damage, but that improper care will also void the warranty. The only approved way to clean the furniture is with the cleaning solution that comes with the warranty, but on the upside the warranty co will send you more cleaner for a $5.00 s/h charge, and it works well makes the wood shine like new.

[Kusanagi]

That's cool and I realise people must try it on sometimes. Despite this though, if somebody calls in during warranty period, you are obliged to take the item in or have it inspected. It's just a waste of breath to make a big thing of it on the phone. They are covered, period.

Just thinking what a waste of your time it is to try to flush out a chancer during first contact is all

Think of the waste of time it could end up being if we didn't flush out a scammer on that first call

I wasn't seriously considering putting it off - I gave him the number for customer claims and made a notation of it in the computer, so there's a record of him reporting the issue. It's up to them to determine what to do with it.

The questions we ask are to determine wether it is indeed a warranty issue or not. If it IS a warranty issue, as far as it being covered, period, this is not quite true. The warranty has limitations as it covers agains defects but doesn't cover against negligence. If a customer sits on the couch and the frame fails, that's a warranty issue. If the customer is moving and drops the couch down a flight of stairs, or it flies out the back of his truck at 80MPH on the freeway because he didn't tie it down (both of these have happened), that ISN'T a warranty issue. We ask about the type of damage and when it occured for our records. The way I see it, and the way the company sees it, is that it is a perfectly legitimate question to ask why it wasn't reported when it first happened. I can understand a week, if something that serious is going on with the furniture, but four months? Come on. Wouldn't you want to ask the reason why to determine if it was legit?

Perhaps he was out of town on business, or perhaps he was deployed and just got back? It's happened that way before, and we just want to know the circumstances because reporting a defect four months after it becomes noticable isn't really normal, you know?

Another issue related to this came up one time where a woman recieved her furniture but didn't take it out of the packaging until three months later when her house was done being remodelled. The furniture was damaged when she opened the package. Yes, we did fix it under warranty for her but we did needed to take steps to make sure it was a warranty issue and not something like damaging it while moving it around or forcing it through a doorjamb.

I've personally handled about a dozen calls and customers where in order to try to get a refund or an exchange, a customer will purposely try to cause a warranty issue or claim there is one, when a) None exists or b) They purposely caused it. One woman who was a doozy called in and claimed that the sofa completely failed, one week before her warranty expired. She said the frame failed, the seat cushion seam was coming undone, and the foot was broken. She said it happened a week before she called. The tech got there and determined:

1) The foot was busted and the seams were ripping because she had moved to another house and the drivers who moved her dropped it off of the back end of the truck;

2) The frame failed because her three preteen kids were jumping on it. The tech took pictures, which we have as an example. You could see the shoeprints all over it.

We gladly handle all of our customers concerns, we're just a little more careful about it. From alot of people on this board, managers and supervisors cave when it's a few dollar item, but when the items in question cost hundreds if not thousands of dollars? Darn right we check everything out