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Comment by itodd | Hacker News Reader

I recently built a kitchen and made the huge mistake if buying appliances from Sears. I am in awe of how badly this company performed.

First delivery attempt, they called the night before to give me a window. Delivery driver called me to make sure I will be home and that he would be there in 30 minutes. They never showed up. After calling I learned the products were not in stock.

They did the exact same thing on the second delivery attempt.

Third delivery attempt they deliver a damaged fridge.

Fourth attempt, they opened the truck and they did not strap down the fridge. Parts everywhere.

Fifth, they got it right. Normally I would have cancelled the order but the experience became a curiosity. How badly could a company mess up? Turns out, a lot.

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I ordered my daughter's new bed from a different store with white glove service.

First attempt. Driver claimed no one was home. I was doing home renovation. My contractor was there, with no less than 10 other people doing work. The front door was even open at the time as two people were working on and around it. Contractor knew to expect delivery.

Second attempt (weeks later). They delivered some parts of a bed, did not assemble what parts were there. Repeatedly gave different stories about where the parts were. They made many claims about where the parts were, none of which seem to be true and some of which conflicted with each other.

Third attempt (more weeks after countless phone calls). Driver claimed he could not make it up hill to house. Left. Argument with customer service. Driver returned. They delivered one more part. Did not assemble anything.

Fourth attempt (months after original delivery date). Finally delivered the final piece. Moved mattress and box spring to hallway. Assembled bed. Left. Didn't bother to put boxspring and mattress back. (I checked their assembly work, which was fine.)

Since then I've gotten multiple phone calls from them telling me the bed is now ready for shipment.

I'm amazed they're even still in business.

> First attempt. Driver claimed no one was home.

Home Depot does this to me a lot. I think it's because the drivers are lazy and don't feel like getting out to attempt the actual delivery.

The drivers get marked down for being too far behind schedule, but the company also schedules more stops than can realistically be done in the time frame. So it's not terribly surprising that they're incentivized to cheat in this way, and gain back some time in their schedule...

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