Bad Ikea Experience

The delivery was really awful. Ikea promised that our furniture would be delivered up to the second floor. When the delivery company arrived the said they wouldn’t do it. Despite our contract saying in writing that this service was offered. I made sure to show the delivery person. He didn’t care. He said his company did not contract with Ikea to carry stuff to the second floor.

After my wife called the head of delivery at Ikea and he spoke with the delivery person they still refused. Then the delivery person hung up on the Ikea staff member.

Then the delivery people couldn’t get the box springs down our stairs and out the front door. It got in somehow. All this pandemonium while our 8 week old child cried… We’re new tired parents. We paid Ikea to help us.

We where finally able to convince the delivery people to carry up our heavy new furniture. (After a LOT of begging.) In the end the mattress was only carried up to a landing on our stairs. I hauled it the rest of the way.

I finally took over the duty of removing the mattress box. I got out a hack saw and cut it in half. It took me a while and made a big mess. But I was finally able to carry out my wooden box springs in two big pieces and dispose of it myself. (properly in my landfill) This wasn’t what I wanted to do. Not because of the labor but Ikea marketed the ability to dispose of our old bed in a environmentally friendly way. How does Ikea’s contractors dispose of old beds?

This isn’t the end of the story. After spending many hours assembling our big bed we ended up short 10 screws to finish the job. The final piece was un-assembled in our bedroom for over a week. I finally got someone at Ikea to mail us the screws. But not until I spoke to three different people about it. I thought the first person had it under control. They said they would send them to me. Then two other people left messages on my answering machine asking if they could help. What? This confused me even more. Don’t Ikea employees talk to each other?

I really appreciate Ikea refunding our shipping fee. But it was really the least of what I expected. I was excited about purchasing more furniture from Ikea Charlotte. We live about three hours away in Chapel Hill. $99 shipping for anything we could buy WAS a deal. If I have to go through this again I’ll think twice before wasting my time and energy.