We purchased a leather sofa and recliner from West Side furniture in April 2008.
After shopping around we decided to make our purchase from this location, because we where very pleased with the service we received when we entered this little shop, we where pleasantly greeted when we entered, and the salesmen (I believe his name was Ray) spent time addressing our needs and made my wife and I feel like we mattered, unlike the big box furniture stores.
We selected a chocolate brown, leather sofa and recliner with bucket seats. We absolutely loved our purchase... for the first few months.. Then one day, will standing up from the recliner the left arm make a loud crack, and dropped down significantly, causing the chair to sag, and preventing the foot rest from operating.
At this point we where obviously a little worried about the quality of the set we had purchased, but we assumed once we had reported the problem to west side, someone would be out to take care of the problem right away, as we had been told the frame had a 5 year warranty! So we went back to west side, and informed them of the problem, at which point we where told we needed to report the issue to the service manager, who wouldn't be in until the following Monday.. no problem, we took a card, and left.. Monday came and we made the call, once we reached the service manager and explained the situation we where told it would be 2 months before we could schedule a service appointment!! We obviously thought this sounded a bit long, but ok we said.. if that's how long it takes, that's how long it takes.. and we waited. During the 2 months we waited, my wife and I ended up purchasing a new home.. we hadn't really planned it, but a deal came up, and things moved fairly quickly, so we moved. About 2 weeks after we moved, we got a call from the service manager who finally had an appointment available for us. We thanked him, and told him we had moved, and gave him the new address for the service call. On the day in question (September 10th 2008) the repair man arrived, had a look, and did what he could, but by the end of the visit we had determined he was unable to fix the chair. At this point, he returned to the shop and came back with the owner. (The real problem, and the reason we will not be shopping at West Side Furniture again) The Owner came in, took one look at the chair, and began to accuse me damaging it while we where moving. I explained to him that the chair was damaged long before we moved, we place out initial call for service over a month and a half before we moved, as he well knew.. he replied "No No No.. that's Bologna, there's no way this chair was like this, you broke it while you where moving" and he continued to blatantly accuse us of this with every breath. Despite the attitude he was giving us he did agree to replace the chair, but informed us that he had no more in stock, and we would have to wait a few weeks for a replacement. No problem we said, and we waited.. and we waited.. more then a month went by without so much as a call.. so we called.. and we where told it would still be a few weeks, they come from over seas (even though we know quite well the chair is manufactured in Toronto) but OK we said, and we waited, and we waited. January 27th! our replacement chair finally did arrive. (That's more then 4 months since out service call and more then 6 months since our original request from service and we had not been able to use the chair at all during this time)but ok we said, no problem, thanks for the new chair! However, as the repair man was dropping off the new chair, my wife noticed the the replacement chair had marks and small tears in the leather.. she pointed this out the repair man, who called the "wonderful" owner, and informed him of the defects in the new chair. Once off the phone, the repair man informed us that the owner had said "too bad, that's the only chair their getting." Apparently that's the level of service $1,500 dollars of hard earned money gets you at West Side Furniture in Barrie. I prefer to support a small local business, but next time I need furniture in Barrie, I'll be taking my business to The Brick or Lyons, the salesmen may not be as good, but at least I know if I do have a problem, there's a head office I can call, and people who will stand behind the issue in a timely fashion, without questioning my integrity, and accusing me of causing the damage myself!
