Art Van Furniture

We always make a joke out of it when entering the place and try to "run" from the approaching sales person. The sales personnel stands in line to catch the next incoming customer. Well they get their commission so I guess it's their job to do that. So far we have had only good experiences in the store even when we were just looking around for ideas. Over the years we have found a few really great pieces of furniture for regular or discount prices. Some were great and held up over the years and others had to get replaced after a relatively short usage time because they wore out really fast. They always have tags on their furniture "was $amount", which is high, and "now $amount", which is low, but we don't fall for that tag anymore - they just want to make their prices look better. Decorative items are nice but overpriced, decorative Clearance items are still expensive. The Clearance furniture department in the basement is pretty big and we actually found some nice and inexpensive things for our home inbetween the outdated stuff in there before. more

If you've ever entered this store, you understand my subject line. The moment you walk in the door, the salespeople start hovering, hoping to talk you into a sale. They continuously "check in" with you, even if you tell them you're just looking. We've bought quite a few items from Art Van in the past. But, our last purchase was just that- our last purchase (this was in 2000 or so). We bought an inexpensive mattress set to use in our guest bedroom. The set we were shown had a low price tag and looked reasonably nice with a soft quilted cotton top. But, when we went to pick up the set, they gave us a completely different mattress set. It was VERY cheaply made- the shiny polyester, very hard mattresses you would expect to find 20 years ago. I told them I was sure this wasn't the mattress set we bought. Our salesman, Tyrone, said "Oh, well, the tag was on the wrong mattress. This is the mattress you actually bought." I told him I wasn't going to accept the mattress and that's when it started getting ugly. My husband and I said we expected to get the mattress we were shown for the price we paid. Tyrone immediately started yelling, yes yelling, at us in the middle of the store- in front of other customers and salespeople. He was calling us dishonest, saying we were taking advantage of him, etc... No other salesperson or manager came out to put a stop to it. We were absolutely mortified that we were being berated for something that was completely not our fault. In the end, we did get the mattress we were shown for the price we paid, after threatening legal action for something that was even worse than a "bait and switch" scheme. It was a horrible experience and, in my opinion, this is a horrible business. more