Sorry for venting to you. Please feel free to ignore, but for the curious, this was (and continues to be) my IKEA Experience:

IKEA Log:

Dear Sirs:

This is a log of my IKEA experience.

April 30th: Ordered and paid for Effectiv Desk and Verksam Chair. Total cost: $830. Estimated delivery: 3 weeks.

1st week: Reserve $1400 in Bonde shelving. Told most of it is on backorder, due in one week. I'll receive a postcard in the mail when items are in and will have 10 days to pick them up.

2nd week: Emily had her Effectiv desk (ordered at the same time) delivered to her home free of charge.

3rd week: No word.

4th week: Call IKEA to find out if desk is there. No extentions at Emeryville, so Los Angeles call center sends a fax to Work IKEA in Emeryville. No response to fax.

5th week: Get call center to fax Work IKEA again. No response to fax.

6th week, Thursday, June 8th: Told Call Center I'm leaving the country for two weeks in 5 days and I need the furniture before I go. Asked Call Center for corporate number, ask them to fax Emeryville marked extremely urgent. Get a call back from Daryl. He says the items are in and shipping will call back. I get a call from shipping. I tell them I have to have it by Tuesday, June 13th. They say they'll call me back within 30 minutes with a confirmed day and time for delivery. Never received a call back. Have no way to call them.

7th week, Monday June 13th: Using voicemail extention Daryl gave me, I leave a message telling Work IKEA that I am going out of town until July 1st, and since items can't be delivered, to hold them and not sell them away.

10th week; Friday, July 7th: Back in town, I go to IKEA. Following up on the reservation for Bonde furniture, I'm told that they have discontinued their reservation service. They look up my reservation number and find my name and address, but no items reserved. Ironically, all the items I want are in stock, except for the 28x57cm Bonde Bookcase in Beech Veneer, and 2 two-drawer Bonde inserts and 2 three-drawer Bonde inserts. This is ironic because these were the only three items that were in stock when I made my original reservation, and now they're backordered for 6 weeks.

I purchase the available items ($1254) and proceed to Work IKEA. Work IKEA was very helpful, not only by remembering me, but by helping add my Bonde purchases to my imminent shipment. Proceeding down to shipping, I pay for and get my Bonde shelving, and pass it to IKEA Home Delivery where, after some confusion, it's incorporated into my Work delivery. Delivery is scheduled for Thursday, July 13th.

11th week: After not receiving the expected call by 6pm on Wednesday July 12th, confirming delivery window for the following day, I call the Call Center, where they tell me my delivery window is between 9am and 12pm.

Thursday, 1pm: No delivery. I call the Call Center and they connect me to Emeryville Home Delivery. Emeryville informs me that my pallete is marked for customer pick-up, and they're waiting for me to pick it up. Informed of their mistake, we schedule another delivery attempt for Monday, July 17th. Triplechecking shipping invoice, I notice two purchased items missing from the shipping manifest. I call in to Work IKEA to verify that these two items will be included in the shipment.

12th week; Sunday, July 16th: Received call from Home Delivery confirming delivery window between 9am and 1pm on Monday.

Monday, July 1th: Receive shipment. All boxes are stacked against the wall so when asked to sign the manifest, I verify that the two items not on the original manifest made it on and arrived, which they did. Later on in the day, moving my boxes to begin construction, I find that two of the three table surfaces for my desk (Items 30012742 and 84865508) are missing. I currently have calls in to Work IKEA and Home Delivery but have not heard back yet.

Suffice it to say that while every person I have spoken to in this saga (around 25 people) has been positive and helpful, the fact remains that every time I'm told everything is okay, something goes wrong. It's always something that I'm told can be fixed in a matter of days, but the solution creates, or at least precipitates, another problem. It would seem trivial to locate the two missing pieces, either on a palette or in a shipping van, and I hope that it will be, but I think it's just as likely that another unforeseen occurance will delay the conclusion of this matter another week, and then another.

I have put dozens of hours and three months of regular attempts at communication to simply try to spend $2100 at your store. I had the option to rent a U-Haul 6 months ago and purchase these items from the Burbank store and drive back up, but though I needed the furniture, I thought it would be less hassle to wait until the Emeryville store opened. In hindsight I can see how wrong I was.

Early on (6th week) Work IKEA was kind enough to waive the $55 shipping fee because of the three week delay, and I thank you for that. Now that the delay has grown three times as large however, I'm hoping for a symbol that will restore some of my faith in IKEA. I've been a loyal customer of IKEA's down south for 8 years, and I'm looking for a sign that, even though the kinks aren't fully worked out of the system, IKEA retains its commitment to do right by the customer. My friends have all been watching my story as it unfolds (or fails to...) and I would like to give IKEA the chance to make this experience up to me.

Thank you for your consideration.

Sincerely,

Kevin Fox

Again: Sigh...