Tuesday, August 07, 2007

A comment worth posting.

This came to me as a comment on this blog and I thought it worth posting. Seems many many people have had similar experiences to mine. Again I ask "How did this company become the best selling furniture company in the world?" We must be stupid or something. here's a good one, enjoy:
i have an ikea story for ya...

so my girlfriend buys me a hopen (six drawer cabinet) from the aforementioned place of suckery. builds it for me as a christmas present. does a good job. no pieces missing and everything SEEMS sturdy. about three weeks later after barely loading the thing with nothing but socks and t-shirts the doors start to stick. then they just plain wont open. seems the crappy particle board wood is cracking and cant hold the screws in. so i call ikea up. they inform me that they have a replacement side panel. im in california so we have like 3 nearby. nearby being at least an hour and thirty minute drive. get in the car. load piece of crap hopen in the back. drive to "closest" ikea and then begin to wait. and wait. and wait. at least 40 minutes of respectful asking for service later do i finally get "served". and by served i mean ive gotten better help from people beating me up. apparently the guy i spoke to on the phone was on an extended meatball break and when he finally got done the part i had driven all that way for was given to somebody else. so of course im pissed off but dont want to burn any bridges. i respectfully leave after giving them my name and number and getting their full assurance that once the part i need comes in i will be called. 3 hours on the freeway. 1 hour at the store. keep these numbers handy we'll be adding them up later.

two weeks go by without a word so i finally decide to call them back. after waiting on hold for a 30 mins i am directed to voicemail. leave my message. over the course of the next two weeks i leave 5 more. usually only after having to wait through 20 minutes of automated diretories and empty promises that the person im looking for will be with me shortly. finally after three weeks of this crap i get ahold of the guy and low and behold they had my piece for a while but couldnt get in touch with me. yeah uh huh. i ask to speak to a manager. no luck must be eating meatballs. but before i give up hope and just set fire to my cardboard hopen my contact there tells me that he just happened to find another piece but i need to come down rightaway to pick it up. so on what was shaping up to be a wonderful sunday of picking my nose scratching my butt and sleeping in turned into another hour and a half drive to ikea. aka annoying people suckville. i get to the store wait twenty minutes to speak to my guy and am later told that he went home for the day. nobody knows anything about the piece im there for so im instructed to look around the store till it can be found. 30 minutes later OOPS! no luck! no side panel piece. however i was instructed that i can purchase another 250 dollar hopen and use the piece from that one... yeah im not kidding that was their "suggestion". so its manager time. im upset but still respectfully request to speak to a higher up... and im told thats gonna take some time. i guess everyone in ikea is busy at their other jobs or solving the cure for cancer cause nobody seems to be available EVER. im told its going to be about 40 minutes so i decide to walk around their store.

i walk around for about 20 mins and head to the check out line with some cd holders im pretty sure weren't made out of particle wood or need to be put together... though one can never be sure. im in line for around 15 minutes until its finally my turn. and when i get to the cashier i am told that the holders i am trying to purchase were display models and arent for sale. a 2 dollar item that is no longer in stock is not for sale??? after she makes about 5 calls, one im assuming is to the pentagon to make sure our national security and or economy wont negatively be affected by this sale, i am told that infact i will just have to come back another time when they are available. so i go to the front of the store ready to meet the manager when i find out that its going to be a little while longer. now at this point im sure any normal person would haver either got pissed in yelled or just left. but this is a mission now and i have no life. so i decide to stay. but im hungry. luckily ikea has a wonderful gormet cafe that serves old hotdogs and disgusting cinnamon rolls. so i wait in line for another 10 minutes. place my order when its my turn and am then told that i cannot use a credit card to make this purchase because the machine is down... yet we are only five feet away from the checkout lines that do accept credit cards. i ask if i can just be rung up at one of those and am looked at like i just asked for a mountain to be moved. i reach an agreement with the highschool dropout ive been so fortunate to have take my order that i will be able to take my food so long as i leave my credit card with her until the machines are up... which should be in five minutes.

so i dont have any cash on me and am hungry from my long drive my long wait and just plain frustration i make the deal. and then things start to really get bad. i finish my slop about 20 minutes later but the manager is still not ready to meet with me so i mosey on down to the cafe to get my card back. wouldnt ya know it the machine is still down. im then told by someone at the front that the manager wont be able to meet me at all today... for absolutely no reason. they couldnt even think to make up an excuse they just said he cant do it. then i am told by dropout number one that the cash register is going to be down for an unknown amount of time... and i just lose it... at least on the inside. i calmy go back to the dining area and wait another 20 minutes for somebody figured out that it needed to be plugged in to work. i pay for my meal and then i walk out. i walk to my car. get in. but i decide not to leave. i back up to the front of the store and open the trunk. i begin to take out all the side panels all the front and top ones and all the drawers and put them in a pile behind my car about 10 feet away from the main pretentious glass enclosed entrance. and of course people are looking at me like "what a nut" and admittedly after a while it starts to get to me. i start to feel bad and like said nut. but then i think "screw that" and decide to build something out of all the broken cardboard pieces. i stack them as high as i can, one on top of the other, reaching to the heavens so that God can maybe notice and see all the wrong being done to people at this store. i stack everything a good ten feet on top of each other making a nice little ikea statue. i drive off and smile. revenge was mine. i laugh to myself as i think of how the high school dropouts having to wear ugly blue and yellow uniforms are being ordered by meatball eating managers to pick up my modern art garbage masterpiece right now. i smiled and i laughed and then im reminded that 250 dollars, one month of hassles fake promises and phone tag, around 60 dollars worth of gas, and a disgusting hot dog were all still dumped in my lap for the sole reason that i got something from IKEA. I HATE YOU IKEA AND I WISH YOU WERE DEAD YOU SWEDISH EURO TRASH PIECE OF CRAP. YOU SUCK!

27 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wow. What an effin nightmare. And I thought I was the only one who hated the overcrowded hamster-maze of particle-board allen-wrenched hell that is Ikea.

There are several great myths about Ikea that keep the Ikea-lovers coming back for more. First, that Ikea is cheap. WRONG. Second, that the furniture is quality. WRONG AGAIN. Thanks for shining a light on the real Ikea.

* * *

Found myself there (against my will) last weekend because my wife thought we could pick up an inexpensive baby gate. The place was PACKED, and when we got to the kids department (by going against the flow of hamsters), there were no baby gates visible. When we finally found an Ikea employee, she informed us she was unable to help in our search because (a) this wasn't her department, and when that failed to deter us, (b) that she was about to go on break. So, I suggested, pick up the little phone and get someone who CAN help us. You'd have thought from her expression t hat we'd ask her to drag a bag of kittens behind her car. She actually refused to get on the house phone that was literally inches away. So we released her and found another "helpful associate"...unfortunately he didn't know what a baby gate was. A third worker informed us that they didn't carry any baby gates. Well, that was a cozy half hour of BS.

We burned rubber outa there.

Never goin' back.

Anonymous said...

Hello! After searching for "Ikea sucks" in google I was most pleased to find this blog, and this story. Not only did it make me laugh MY ASS OFF, but it made my day (which the ungodly store previously ruined) a little better. Although I definately think that the above poster's story is way better than mine, I'm still willing to share. :)

I am a college student from LONG Island (feel free to make fun of my accent all you want) and I go to school about 7 hours away upstate. Due to the fact that I decided to rent an apartment with some friends this year, this meant that I needed FURNITURE and had to figure out a way to get it there (don't have a van). After attending an IKEA college seminar, I decided to sell my soul to satan and purchase some of the furniture from the shithole online...which led to much hair pulling, cursing, etc.

First of all, upon placing my order online I received an email saying that there was a problem with my order and that a sales representative would be in contact with me sometime during the next 24 hours. Over the next 2 days, I waited anxiously for someone to contact me...but I guess they were too busy looking at porn or whatever it is they do all day. I then contacted the store only to wait FORTY FIVE minutes to speak with "Chereda" who told me that there was no trace of my order in her "records". Wonderful. So then I went through the aggravation of placing my entire order through the phone. I was then told that a delivery company would contact me NO LATER than august 20th, and that "CherEDA" was going to put my order in front of everyone else's to make SURE that I got it the date I wanted. Well, after I hung up the phone...evidently Chereda just went right back to that porn or something else of no importance...because my order was not placed in front of everyone else's. Mind you, while this is going on my father also is searching for a storage company who IKEA can send my shit to. After he finds one an hour later, my poor mother had to wait for FIFTY minutes just to talk to a sales rep and get my shipping address changed since I had to go to work.

After that, my mother and I went to the IKEA store to look for little accessories for my room. While we were there, NO ONE would help us (we tried to talk to someone and they MADE us go to the bedroom apartment because they couldn't be assed to help us) and by the time I finally managed to navigate my way through that SHIT HOLE of a store we were both hungry so we went to the food line. We ordered two coffees and some frozen yogurt...and when I took the two cups to go pour coffee in them I was forced to almost VOMIT. There was a swarm of about FIFTY flies around the coffee machine and it was ABSOLUTELY disgusting. We then demanded our money back (which took another fifteen minutes because those assholes didn't graduate and have no idea how to do returns).

Now fast forward 3 more weeks. On August 14th, I called IKEA to ask them why the delivery company had not called me yet...to be told by "SHANIQUA" that the delivery company would contact me on August 16th. Wait 2 days, no call. So I call on the afternoon of the 16th...only to be told that they will contact me on the 17th. WELL TODAY I CALL and I get "JUDY" who tells me that my order is still in the warehouse and it is being picked up by the delivery company TOMORROW. I go to school on the 24th, and I NEED it to be delivered before that. I placed this order a month in advance JUST to have it early...so you can imagine how pissed off I was. However, I kept my cool and asked to speak with a manager. After ten more minutes of pointless questions I am then FORKED over to a man with a very bad lispe who can hardly understand what I am saying. It is clear that he is not even from my country and has recently been picking his ass. He then tells me that my ESTIMATED delivery date is august 23rd and that it could be later than that. After keeping my cool for so long, I finally told him where he could stick his employees, got the phone number of the delivery company who would be giving me my order, and then hung up on him. By now I know IKEA's whole delivery system by heart which by the way, is VERY complicated because it would be too logical to just use UPS or one company.

Ready to kill myself from these people, I then get my father to call them..which basically means Satan himself because my Dad has a temper and he has been known to curse out the best of them...and LOW AND BEHOLD when he finally gets a manager an hour later...it is CHEREDA!!! Chereda then says that she made no such promise to me (I guess she was on crack last time I called) and that the delivery company could contact me anytime next week. (NOTE THE NON SPECIFIC DATE) She also is very rude to my father before he can even get rude with her and is constantly interrupting him and defending herself when he hadn't even said anything bad yet. I guess it makes you pretty self conscious and defensive when your IQ is borderline retarded. Finally from her we get the number of corporate (because we are clearly going to complain about all these retard employees), another number of the people who are in charge of deliveries, and peace of mind when we tell her what she can go do with herself. (It had to be said)

We finally called Corporate an hour ago and we spoke with a very nice lady who was actually HELPFUL (that's right, I really did say it). So, my real question to IKEA is...if you have helpful, intelligent people in your corporate office...WHY OH WHY do you have such retards working for you? They must get hundreds of complaints a DAY!!!!

So, now I am hoping that the ungodly store sends out my furniture tomorrow, and I am now reduced to pestering the delivery company to send it to me...once it gets in their system (which could take years). BY the way I noticed that in one of your previous entries someone said that you were probably rude to the IKEA people, blahblah etc. etc.. WELL ASSHOLE, IKEA SUCKS and you HAVE to be nasty to them just to get them to send you your shit. It's basically become a fact of life.

Anonymous said...

BY THE WAY,
I forgot to add this in and it is worth mentioning. While I was at the IKEA store with my mother, I also witnessed a couple backing their truck out of the parking lot. While they were doing this, they managed to accidentally back it into an IKEA shopping cart, and break one of their back lights in the process. Now, who do you think NUDGED that shopping cart right in back of their van!? OH YEAH, the IKEA employee's who are supposed to help you unload things into your car. Do you think this couple got their money back? HIGHLY doubt it.

K-Med said...

OMG! I found your blog b/c I was giving a friend of mine a hard time about driving 2 hours away to shop at crappy ikea. Why? Granted, we have entirely different tastes in home furnishing, but I still don't get the whole modern thing. Anyway, love the blog. I'm going to add a link to it on mine b/c I think its hysterical and sadly true! I wish I could have seen the modern art stretching to the heavens!

Brandon said...

I'm a former employee of Ikea. I worked at the one in East Pala Alto, CA USA. That is the shitty company to work for. They treat their employees like total slaves. The managers would talk to us like we were 5 years old or if we were retarded. I had 20 fucking people tell me to do the same thing over and over. I had to lift very heavy packages by myself and push their carts to waiting areas so the retarded, unthankful customers could use them to buy their shitty ass furniture. The security team at Ikea pays more attention on the employees than the customers. They would always try to get us fired. I got hurt on the job and they did nothing about it. So if want to work at this company, beware they really do hate their employees.

deb and jason said...

wow, we had a rough weekend at ikea also..... cant complain all that much, so far its been somewhat good to us... but totally see where you are coming from!!!!! if you are not a professional righter you SHOULD BE!!!!! wonderful piece!!

Tim said...

I'm with you on the customer service aspect of IKEA. http://without-warning.blogspot.com

cjcarter said...

Ross Dudley has entirely TOO MUCH on his hands

LA My Home said...

got a story for you: http://losangeles-myhome.blogspot.com/2007/12/bad-service-at-ikea-carson.html

Anonymous said...

i'm sorry, but this truly is just pitiful. i shop IKEA all the time ad not only do i get GREAT service when i'm in there, but if something breaks (which NEVER happens for no reason) i am always given a replacement piece. no problem. they probably were "rude" to you because they serve human beings, not arrogant pricks like you. all that "time" you wasted... you probably caused it. i'm sorry but this whole "saga" is disgusting, self- centered, and annoying. grow up. IKEA is great.

Anonymous said...

I bought a small dresser at Ikea about two years ago because it seemed like a good price, and was the right height for my window.

About a week and a half after I got it, it broke. Ikea refused to replace the broken rail because they didn't know that I bought it from them.

That's bad service.

Sean Glass said...

IKEA online UK is awful - I have never, ever had such awful customer service. Check out my blog -www.thoughtsintime.com for the full story - please help me spread the word how awful they are.

locomotive breath said...

I recently purchased an item from Ikea Paramus NJ and discovered a key panel missing from the box. I'm very experienced with Ikea assembly and I'm 100% certain the part was not in the box (it's a large wooden panel that's hard to miss). I called customer service at least 6 times during store hours and no one answers the phone. The best response to Ikea's deteriorating service is to make them PAY. I contacted AMEX and demanded a chargeback.

Anonymous said...

Go. see. a. psychiatrist. At once.

Unknown said...

Godforbid you ever fall for the hype like I unfortunatly did!

BE FORE WARNED: DO NOT, DO NOT, DO NOT BUY A KITCHEN OR ANY FORM OF CABINETRY FROM THIS HORIBLE PLACE>
Yes they are pretty to look at once peiced together. But God forbid you go home and lose your receipt and you have any missing parts.
I GOT SCREWED SIDWAYS NO LUBE!!!
An entire kitchen. Missing 4 $99 door fronts a pack of hinges and two $32 draw fronts, TOTAL almost $500! Now I have to pay for these parts cause they suggest that without the receipt how do they really know what I purchased.
I show my credit card receipt showing IKEA SUNRISE, FLORIDA $3,000.00
NOT PROOF ENOUGH. NEED TO SEE ITEMIZED ITEMS ON ORIG. RECEIPT!!!
I AM FORCED TO SPEND ANOTHER $500 bucks because of their fuck-up and they did it with a smile!!
Not only that; the cabinets are crap! Compressed wood trash! God forbid even a drop of water ever spill on this crap. It will fall apart like wet toilet paper.
ONLY DOOR FRONTS ARE WOOD!!
Let's see, service is shit, product is shit and it's expensive for what you get!
I don't normally use this word but it's only fitting to say; I HATE IKEA and heed our warnings. You will regret ever buying anything from this place.
If not today, you'll regret it tommarrow.

Anonymous said...

Where do I begin? I ordered flooring from IKEA, began to install it and had problems from the beginning. I called, complained, et cetera. They sent out a "consultant" to ensure that the product was not the problem. The consultant comes to my house, looks at the floor, quotes me an exorbitant fee for installation; I say, no...he then tries to charge me a trip charge...umm Ikea sent you out, make them pay you. Since then I have been on hold for over 2 hours spread out over 3 days trying to make sure that IKEA knows about their sketchy contractors and that I don't get billed for a service sent out by IKEA.
Do not use IKEA. Scandinavian efficiency my eye.

Unknown said...

Yup, sitting here in NJ with $1200 worth of useless crap IKEA parts because the side panel to hold up the entire bookcase did not have the holes drilled in it. You can not get anyone on a phone. 30 minutes on hold. You leave messages and no one calls back. When they finally and reluctantly send the 7 foot replacement part it is broken. 8 days of calling and leaving messages and still no call back. Filled my Better Business Bureau complaint today! Mailed a enraged letter to the head quarters too. Damn store is a $50 trip away. If this is settled that's it for me and Ikea. God, Target took back a gazebo destroyed my a storm, no questions asked!

Anonymous said...

Just a tip for folks trying to get to IKEA's phone support line on Saturdays (they don't answer). After being put on hold and dumped into voicemail twice, I called their sales department, said that I was about to order $4000 on their website, but first wanted to see how easy it would be to talk to Customer Service. Got transferred in 2 seconds to a live agent, was able to get my problem addressed right away.

Sales answers their phones. Don't bother with customer service: call sales.

Anonymous said...

Fantastic.

Anonymous said...

ha ha ha some very nice comments, very nice blog great work

Anonymous said...

I googled IKEA sucks because I just knew I was not the only one who thought this store was crap! We shopped there several times and bought lots of things for our apartment--towel rack, dishes, book shelves, etc. It is ALL crap!
This blog made me laugh out loud. I think I might just pile all of the broken crap at the front entrance of the Canton, Michigan store.

Anonymous said...

i agree i hate ikea. ever since i was young and i saw their catalogue i hated it and still do today their furniture is total crap and the colours are horrid. Just seeing the stores makes me shudder. :/

Jon said...

i work at ikea and i can tell you that none of your story is true based on the policies i know from the inside out. you are a very poor story teller and an even worse liar. you know the saying you get what you pay for idiot. ikea buys their products from the cheapest suppliers on the PLANET, and whatever country will give them the cheapest price that is where they buy it from. the key word is cheap, yes ikea is cheap and yes it is crap, so if you don't like it, go somewhere else, we don't need to hear about your ridiculous story, dump your cheap assed gilfriend while you're at it. before i worked at ikea i rarely shopped there because it is a given that their stuff is cheap crap. get over it. if you don't like it, don't buy it. i happen to know that a manager would see you immediately. a brain dead monkey could do almost any job at ikea including manager. all you would have had to do is go to ikea with your broken hopen and return the damaged one and then go buy a new one with your refund card. is that too hard to do you brain dead ape?

Anonymous said...

Seems to me you're a pushover with no weight whatsoever. You deserve everything you get.

Oh, and buying particleboard furniture at ANY place is in itself EPIC FAIL worthy.

Get real wood furniture, everyone knows that particle board is good for nothing when you start using it.

cita said...

If you're a poor student struggling with study loan, what options do you really have??

Anonymous said...

As an IKEA employee:

Lets just say that the quality of customer service varies from store to store(some hire your high school dropout ex cons, some hire college students and master's grads to work the salesfloor--true, my store has many many undergrads and a few grads), and even from year to year depending on who the hiring managers are at any given date. Busier stores tend to have crappier customer service. If your problem is complex (and many people underestimate this issue due to IKEA policies and European cultural expectations) go on a weekday when its slow--you won't be waiting for hours competing with other customers.

Having said that, its true, IKEA treats its employees like slaves, making one employee do the job of two or three people and because its a European retail company, it's technology is miles behind that of U.S. retailers (I used to work for Target, so I know) which means that many processes aren't integrated. SOooo.....when a customer comes in on busy weekend--I mean hundreds of people, throngs, and they only hired one person to work an opening shift or closing shift in that department, they have to clean that department, put up banners, AND help customers (and you have to do everything, no question about it), well that's indicative of the level of customer service you'll get. You see IKEA's not just cheap with its furniture, it's also cheap with its hiring practices and tries to keep most employed part time so they don't have to pay out benefits. Also when a customer asks an employee who is not from that department a question--it doesn't usually take a few minutes, and if you're going on a break (which is 15 minutes), the clock starts ticking the moment you leave your department(on IKEA employee manual rules; enforced my managers and IKEA security cameras)--also employees are not always cross trained to know the products of another department, and calling another employee on the phone does not always yield help because they may be overwhelmed with customers for the aforementioned reasons.

Anonymous said...

It's not really the people behind the till, or over the phone that you have a problem with so think before you start having ago at that poor person. When you ate told a manager isn't available just remember the people telling you this would rather just get hold of one and get the issue sorted. I think instead of having a go at and abusing the staff you see in the store or speak to on the phone think of the 'Managers' sitting there not helping them to help you. Them poor members of staff can only do so much...