By Christopher Elliott
Guest Columnist

La-Z-Boy has delayed Claire Engkvist’s furniture by more than a year. What does she have to do to get it?

Christopher Elliott

I am writing to you to let you know how extremely disappointed, dismayed and disgusted I am with La-Z-Boy’s customer service.

In March 2022, I placed an order for two La-Z-Boy recliners with a local furniture store in Cheyenne, Wyo. I also ordered three yards of matching fabric so that I could make my own headrest covers, arm covers and pillows for my couch. A store representative told me my chairs would be delivered in December 2022. I was not in a tremendous hurry to get my new chairs and felt that waiting for nine months would be worth it to get exactly what I wanted.

December arrived, and I heard nothing from the store. So I called them only to find out that my chairs had not been delivered as planned. They said the chairs would be ready in January. But January came and went. I called again, and a representative said it would be a “couple more weeks.”

February came and went, as did March and April, and every time I called for an update, they told me it would be a couple more weeks.

Finally, in May, La-Z-Boy said the chairs were ready for delivery. But then it sent only one chair. I refused delivery. Now La-Z-Boy is saying it will be another three months. Can you get me my chairs, please? — Claire Engkvist, Cheyenne, Wyo.

You have the patience of Methuselah. I would have canceled this order a year ago and ordered furniture elsewhere.

In reviewing your lengthy paper trail — by the way, great job of keeping all your correspondence — I see that La-Z-Boy claims COVID was the reason for its delay. But you ordered your furniture at the end of the pandemic, so unless the pandemic lasted a little longer in La-Z-Boy’s factory, that’s not a valid excuse.

What happened? In 2020, La-Z-Boy closed some of its factories and laid off workers. It’s possible the company was having some trouble getting restarted, and that’s what it meant when it used COVID as an excuse.

Either way, La-Z-Boy should have given you a straight answer when you asked about your delivery. And by the way, you were right to reject a partial delivery. I’ve seen companies get confused about exactly what was delivered, so you could have lost one of your recliners.

I list the names, numbers and emails of the executives at La-Z-Boy on my consumer advocacy site. I see that you started contacting them every week after the missed delivery date to remind them of their failure.

I contacted La-Z-Boy on your behalf and you also kept up the pressure on the company. The company delivered the recliners — both of them — as promised.

Christopher Elliott is the founder of Elliott Advocacy (https://elliottadvocacy.org), a nonprofit organization that helps consumers solve their problems. Email him at [email protected] or get help by contacting him.