Last summer, Stacey and Mike Friedlander placed a furniture order.
Part of the order — a sofa bed — was delivered on Aug. 6. It came in two parts: a mattress and the couch itself, wrapped in plastic and cardboard.
The items needed to go up a stairway that has seven steps, then a turn, then five more steps.
Stacey Friedlander said she suggested the delivery team of three take the couch out of the box to make it easier to get up the stairs. The team refused, she said.
They tried to get the boxed couch upstairs, knocking a picture frame off the wall and breaking the glass, she said. They knocked into a chandelier, undoing a hook, but that wasn’t permanent damage, she said.
“The delivery team refused to remove the cardboard and covering, despite repeated warnings that it would damage our walls,” she said. “Only after they realized they were in fact causing damage, did they (remove the packaging) and the couch went up fine.”
They were left with dozens of black scuffmarks and a gouge on one of the stairway walls, she said.
The couple tried to make the fix themselves using paint from a can that was originally used for the stairway walls several years back. But given that time had passed, the paint didn’t match, she said.
The couple filed a claim with XPOLogistics, which represented the delivery team, and it agreed that damage was done. The question was how best to fix it.
The couple went to Home Depot to get a new can of the same paint to see if that would work, but the color still didn’t match.
XPO suggested they paint the entire wall rather than just the scuffed parts. That presented two problems, the couple said. The wall was too tall for them to do on their own, and the newly painted wall wouldn’t match the other walls in the staircase.
The couple agreed to get estimates, but they decided to wait until the rest of their furniture arrived so a newly-painted staircase wouldn’t get damaged again.
After the second delivery, they contacted two painters. The lower estimate, for $575, covered all the walls in the stairway so they would match. It was emailed to XPO on Aug. 27.
And that’s when the real battle began.
FIGHTING IT OUT
XPO didn’t want to cover the entire job.
“Please keep in mind we are only responsible for the wall that was damaged,” XPO said in an email. “We will not reimburse you for multiple walls if there was no damage to the other walls.”
It offered $250.
For the next several weeks, in a series of emails, the couple argued that painting just one wall would not make them whole.
“You cannot paint one wall where damage occurred. The paint will not match,” the couple said. “The entire hallway must be done. We have already supplied ample photos and proof of this.”
XPO came back with an offer of $350 in mid-October, but the couple wasn’t satisfied.
They asked Bamboozled for help.
After reviewing photos of the damage and the email string between the couple and the company, we asked the company to reconsider.
Twenty-eight minutes later, Friedlander emailed a video to XPO again showing why the paint wouldn’t match.
Twenty minutes after that, she got an emailed response.
“I don’t know if it’s something you said or my video but we just found out they’re giving us the full $575,” Friedlander said.
We asked the company what made it change its mind.
“We checked in with members of our team after your email, and they immediately called the customer to make it right,” a spokesperson said. “We’re happy there’s a good resolution.”
We’re also glad the matter is settled, but it’s a shame that the homeowners had to jump through hoops before it was resolved.
The lesson? If you have a dispute with a company, don’t give up. Be reasonable, but stay persistent.
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Karin Price Mueller may be reached at KPriceMueller@NJAdvanceMedia.com.
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