Crate & Barrel / Euromarket Designs
Reviews and Complaints

Crate & Barrel had deadlines for delivery before Thanksgiving. I purchased an expensive rug on line. Item was listed as IN STOCK and would be delivered on time for the holiday per their website. Today, I find out the rug is back ordered and won't ship for several days.

Call customer service to cancel order and register complaint. She says they have rug IN STOCK right now but won't be able to get it to me in time. I suggested overnight since it was their mistake to which she replied, "Even with that, I don't think you'll get it in time". How's that? It's IN STOCK, supposedly, and you can overnight it but it won't make it?!

This is the second time this exact situation happened with C&B on different orders. Ended up canceling both. C&B DON'T LIST ITEMS AS "IN STOCK" AND PROMISE DELIVERY IF YOU CAN'T DO IT!

Called customer service and spoke to furniture supervisor concerning mold damage due to condensation within framed art piece bought within about 2 years from crateandbarrel.com. She indicated that crate and barrel could not control the humidity within my home and that the lack of frame sealing was acceptable to their manufacturing standards. Since my central air conditioned, dehumidified house is no different from any other, my suggestion is that you do not buy any crate and barrel framed art unless you live in a vacuum as it appears their customer service agents do.

Last November we ordered a wedding present from a registry list at Crate and Barrel. The gift was sent but not to the intended recipient. With in a month after shipping when we realized the gift had not arrived we started calling Crate and Barrel. They said no problem we will research it and get back to you. For weeks we heard nothing. Then they said the bride had to call not the person who placed the order. the bride is active duty Army and has had a very unconventional schedule since her wedding. She called twice but was never able to reach the right customer service agent. So, we called again and they again said well let us research it. We are now 9 months into this situation and still no resolution. Finally, today, they said a manager would resolve it next week. Unfortunately, when I questioned further the rude customer service agent more or less told me she was just trying to get me off the phone and I really didn't have a claim because they had already delivered something even if it went to the wrong person. I have over the last 50 years had disputes with other similar businesses such as Nordstroms and Restoration Hardware. They were always invariably polite and had the issue settle within a matter of days. I was appalled by the way I was treated by todays Crate and Barrel Customer service rep and further appalled that they have let this issue drag on for months. They have completely lost my respect and any confidence I may have had in them as a company.

We went into the store (Raleigh NC) and noticed a floor sample desk & chair were reduced for clearance. While we (my wife and I) were standing in front of the desk looking it over another customer walked up and took a fast look, basically looking at the price tag and nothing more. She then walked away. We didn't give that much thought because obviously we were there looking at the deak. Meanwhile the same store clerk (Kathy) that was answering some questions about the desk 5 minutes earlier with us came up to us to say another customer wanted to buy the desk. Well as you can imagine things started to get ugly. The clerk (kathy) knew we were there looking at the desk...SHE was showing it to us. The customer that wanted to buy the desk got kinda nasty and said she was buying the desk! No where to be found was a store manager! Other clerks came up apparently witnessing what was going on or being told by the clerk originally (kathy) helping us that we could "work it out with the other customer". WHAT... kind of customer service is that! Asking 2 customers to basically duke it out! UNBELIEVABLE! I told my wife the desk and circumstances were not worth the rise in blood pressure. We took the high road and left the store. Hopefully Crate&Barrel will get a store manager and train the clerks on proper procedures rather than have customers standing in the store arguing over who should have the right to purchase some item. I always thought if you were looking at an item and have your hands all over it, that particular item was off limits to other customers until you have walked away or made the purchase. Crate&Barrel obviously does things differently.

I ordered a desk online. It was on back order so it would be delivered a couple months later. They delivered it several weeks after they took payment. They scheduled a delivery time and arrived several hours early, then ran out the door. I opened the box and immediately saw that the desk was cracked in several places. I called the delivery guys, no answer. I called C&B and they would not ask the delivery guys, who had just left, to come back and pick it up. They would not accommodate my schedule at all to come pick it up and said a new delivery was many weeks away. They said they would call me back with a pick up and delivery date. That was two weeks ago. After the way they treated me on the phone and the runaround they gave me I will never buy from C&B again.

Will Crate and Barrel be going the way of the Sears department store chain in terms of poor, poor, poor customer service ? Time will tell.

20 - 30 years ago Sears was a chain store that was admired by all in terms of their customer service and, in particular, their quality line of appliances. However, today Sears is at the bottom of the barrel in terms of customer service and sales...and this is clearly reflected in the dramatic decline in the price of their company stock. Following a very bad experience that I had in buying appliances from Sears two years ago I can see why current sales are suffering and Wall Street is marking the value of Sears stock down, way down...

Aside from not investing in upgrading their stores, Sears also has not invested in the quality of the staff that they hire. This applies to their floor sales people (many of whom can't even calculate in their head a 10% discount off of a list price without using a calculator) to their store managers. I will not go into the details of my HORRENDOUS experience with Sears appliances and customer service, other then to say I have shared my nightmare experience with friends and co-workers and they have taken note in where NOT to shop for appliances and good service !

Now... Crate and Barrel. I have been a customer at Crate and Barrel for a number of years. I have been drawn to the store not only because of their great style of merchandise, wide selection and attractive prices but also because of the service I received in the past. Granted the bulk of my employee interaction with Crate and Barrel has only been with people who processed my credit card purchases. That being said, all it takes is one bad experience... a really bad experience... and all that customer loyalty is thrown out the window.

The problem I encountered also occurred at the Paramus, NJ store where another contributor to this web site also lodged a complaint. Not many customers would take the time to write a compliment or complaint on a site like this...unless they felt very strongly, good or bad, about a service or product. The fact that there are two complaints about the personnel at the Paramus store makes me think that this is more than just a coincidence.

I had purchased a cabinet valued at a few hundred dollars from the Crate and Barrel store in Paramus. The cabinet that was purchased was a discontinued item and the last one in stock which should have made me a bit concerned . The cabinet came in a box since it had to be assembled and could not be inspected at the time of purchase.

Upon getting the box home and opening it, it was clear that the pieces of the cabinet in the box had been removed and repackaged. Some pieces were not properly wrapped and others just fell out of the box upon opening it.

The cabinet required two people to assemble it and a handyman was paid to help. During the assembly nicks in the cabinet's finish were noticed. But most concerning was when the cabinet was fully assembled (after an hour of work) it was discovered that the drawer did not roll in and out properly. Clearly, with the nicks in the finish and the defective drawer rollers this was not a new cabinet. Given that the cabinet was not properly wrapped in the box, the reasonable conclusion is that this item had been purchased by another customer, returned for whatever reason and resold to me.

The one positive experience regarding this incident was that when Crate and Barrel was initially contacted the sales person said that given the defects there would be no problem in returning the cabinet for a full refund. When asked if someone could pick the cabinet up (since it would require another hour of more of disassembly time to get it back into the car), they said yes...but the pick up charge would be $70-80. That was about 25% of the value of the cabinet !

Instead, the cabinet was disassembled, wrapped in a blanket and returned to Crate and Barrel. It was returned to the shipping/receiving area in the garage area of the store and was accepted but not inspected at that time.

After entering the sales area of the store to collect the refund, an assistant store manager who handled the request said there was additional damage to the cabinet, in the form of a scratch, and that a full refund could not be given.

Clearly the additional damage that was identified was either there already when the cabinet was originally purchased and not identified at the time of assembly or was done after the cabinet was returned to the store's pick up area in the garage.

When the Asst. Mgr was told that this scratch had to be present when the cabinet was originally purchased, but just not noticed, the comment the Asst. Mgr. made was that Crate and Barrel doesn't sell defective merchandise. Now think through this comment... on one hand this Asst. Mgr. is saying that Crate and Barrel doesn't sell defective merchandise and yet another manager, at the same store, said that a full refund would be given due to the nicks and defective drawer. If Crate and Barrel doesn't sometimes, unknowingly, sell defective merchandise then why were they initially willing to provide a full refund based on the defective drawer rollers and nicks in the finish of the cabinet ? It was clear that this Asst Store Manager never took a course in logic or she doesn't communicate well with her store colleagues.

Despite bringing to this Asst. Manager's attention previous loyalty to Crate and Barrel in making store purchases of almost $10, 000 in 2 years... the response given by this Asst. Store Manager was that she in fact had purchased twice as much from Crate and Barrel ...basically saying I don't care how good a customer you are ...YIKES ! Sometimes you don't know if you want to scream or cry at the stupidity of some people's comment. I can't say if this Asst. Mgr. was having a bad day given she had to work Labor Day weekend, but regardless the comment was totally out of line.

As fair balance... this matter has not as yet been fully addressed with the senior store manager (who wasn't available) nor with the regional manager of the NJ store.

This web site was brought to my attention today and so before I missed an opportunity to provide comment, I decided to first write down the experiences to date with Crate and Barrel. Hopefully within the next week I can return to this site and comment on how Crate and Barrel resolved this issue to the satisfaction of a loyal customer.

Oh by the way... Crate and Barrel did take back the cabinet but kept about $50 to offset the cost of the scratch. Think about it... is it the $50 or so that is important to me...or is it the principle that customer loyalty must be honored and customer service must be preserved if a great chain like Crate and Barrel is not to go the way of Sears.

I placed an order online several weeks ago, and unfortunately there was an error regarding the address that I hadn't noted till the order had been submitted. There was no way for me to check this order or edit it myself, so I have sent several emails requesting that the error be addressed (i will call later this week). I received the order number shortly after, but that is the last I have heard about it. Nothing about processing or shipping and absolutely nothing back from customer service (aside from automatic responses). I am really pissed off at this level of unprofessionalism. Have they let go a gigantic chunk of staff and as a result have to ignore customer inquiries and have seriously delayed processing times?

An item was delivered that was defective. At first it looked like that the company would be cooperative but then they sent another item that was ten times worse so that the quality was poor for a very hight price. Customer service also said that that the product was supposed to be like that so I went back to the store to check the floor model to make sure it wasn't me and in fact, that was not true. They often did not return calls. The night before the third possiible delivery customer service called and cancelled at 7PM. On the forth attempt, which was scheduled again after many calls, the delivery men (who were nice) came with two items which each also had some damage to the doors. Unbelievable.
When corporate was contacted they intitially seemed responsive but then the regional customer service manager became punitive and said that because we involved coporate that we would have to either keep our damaged merchandise or return it. Unfortunately, we paid by debit card so we couldn't put a hold on the payment.
So, in short, defective merchandise, rude customer service, much time wasted waiting and anticipating a quality product which never came through and a lot of covering up.

Ordered a bookcase from Crate & Barel and went it arrived it was damaged. I called them and advised them and they came and picked it up, but charged me for delivery. What type of customer focus is that...charging a customer for delivery on a damaged piece of furniture!Unreal!

Just purchased 4 GE Profile appliances from Crate & Home. Well designed website, competivive prices on all items and much better pricing on 3 of the 4 versus home depot or lowes, plus free shipping. Order was confirmed right away and a representative from Crate & Home called me to say when shipment would take place and that the driver would call me the day before with delivery time, which they did. Everything came through brand new, very well packaged and no damage. I have recommended this site to several of my friends and would absolutely buy from them again.

I recently made a purchase for a Media Stand (Bunglow) from Crate and Barrel - along with 2 small book cases. After 4 attempts CB was unable to mail me a product without damage. Every single time the corner was chipped. Even after repeated calls and assurances that the same will be addressed. After being patient with all these attempts, i offered to pick this up from the store myself but they could not give me an ETA on it. (i had already spent 4 weeks on this process by now)

I finally had my order canceled and requested a refund on the media stand and the shipping (because the whole reason i paid the shipping was for the media stand) - i could have carried the small book cases from Crate and Barrel store to my place (3 miles away) in a cab. I was assured the same will be done.

After waiting for 4 weeks i finally got a refund on my Credit card for the Media stand only. I called the customer service rep who said that because the book cases were delivered they cannot refund the shipping to me. I tried explaining to her that the whole reason i paid for shipping was for the media stand and could have gotten the book cases myself - which she said was not a valid argument as they did deliver something! I understand - they delivered 'something' - but that something did not need me to pay $80 in the first place...!

I am VERY VERY disappointed. I have spent over 2 months to unsuccessfully get a media stand from CB - and mind you they charged my Credit card the day it was ordered (So the store was sitting on my money for 10 weeks) and now i am not get a refund on shipping for the product that never arrived.

For a company that is known for its customer service i am thoroughly disappointed and feel cheated.

I purchased an expensive patio set that was manufactured with a flaw and failed prematurely. The store told me I should take the furniture into the house when it rains and when it gets cold. The tubular frame filled with water from rain, froze and burst. The customer service was non-responsive and finally called with the above inane response.

I am appealing with corporate and will take them to small claims court. Welcome help from anyone.