Furniture Shopping Scams

I got this horrible gut feeling that something was terribly wrong when I went to buy a “high end custom made sofa” and the receipt didn’t show any price itemization. when I asked for an itemized receipt I was told that wouldn’t be possible.

I am in desperate need of new furniture and this is what i have come across so far.

In the market for new furniture BEWARE of unethical and often times illegal sales tactics. Shopping for quality or “high end” furniture does not exclude or protect buyers from these scams. Buying Century Furniture, Taylor King, etc.. these furniture companies and retail partners are not above unethical sales tactics.

Buyer Beware

Many companies are going to say that they do not sell direct. This means they are trying to remove themselves from having to deal directly with the public and or dealing with sales taxes as a business book keeping stand point by selling their products through “trade business” or third party retailers such as your local furniture store.

Companies like Century Furniture take it a step further by hiding valuable pertinent product spec details from the consumers. More on that further on.

Transferrable warranties

When buying a customizable sofa the furniture company buys materials such as the wood, textiles, metal coils, etc.. from the manufacturers and then uses those materials to build the furniture. This means that any product full warranties provided by the original manufacturer is transferrable to the buyer of the finished product but buyers are not normally aware of this fact. It is imperative to know where your materials are coming from such as the manufacturer of the sofa fabric which may have its own warranty.

Textiles

With cats in the house it is beyond imperative that I make the best possible informed purchase for my sofa to ensure easy cleaning and high tensil durability with a plain or twill weave to best hide and quickly recover from any claw punctures. Textiles that are good for dogs are not interchangeably good for cats. Cats have needle like claws which are much more piercing and easily catch on fabric.

Unethical Sales tactic/ illegal per the FTC business guidelines..

Many companies such as Century Furniture offer Crypton Fabrics, Sunbrella.. etc.. these fabrics are listed on the century furniture website and available to see in person at a local retailer. However all of the manufacturer ID numbers and names have been removed and replaced. I spoke with a Crypton employee who said “these companies remove any identifying information of the fabric so that consumers can’t shop around for a better price. You are better off buying from sailrite.com.”

The numbers on these sample fabrics are a proprietary identification system utilized by century furniture and tie it back to the century website but does not give the consumer any REAL information such as what is provided by the textile manufacturer on the data spec sheet. Vital information to consumers needing to make an informed purchase decisions. Consumers are left to guess if a fabric is a chenille, velvet, canvas, basket weave.. etc.. For what it is worth it it is illegal to remove original identification tags provided by the manufacturer.

Data Spec Sheets

It was extremely difficult to match these textiles to the manufacturing ID. Mostly because the only way to match this fabric without access to Crypton manufacturing online data base (does not exist) or factual data such as thread count density, weave, etc.. the only way to Cross reference them is to do an image search and guess, which does not work!!! You are cross referencing images and information available online by other retailers such as fabric supply stores. Not all online fabric supply stores have ethical detail oriented transparency like sailrite.com. Sailrite provides the manufacturer data spec sheets on the product page.

I was never able to identify this fabric. I contacted Crypton directly and asked for the data spec sheets on the two fabrics Crypton Bennett chenille and Crypton Artemis velvet. Crypton will not send sample fabric so another dead end. I managed to eventually get samples from more transparent companies offering free samples online of the Artemis and Bennett.

I have had to do all of this work myself because the self proclaimed “designer” aka sales employee at the furniture store didn’t know anything about these fabrics other than what was on the tags I took pictures of.

Price Hiking

This is another scam to watch out for and is very common among furniture stores.

Example: Reclining chair shows price of $2,500 and the store is offering 40% off MSRP. MSRP price listed on sales tag above the normal sale price of $2,500 is $3,700.

The reclining chair sells for $2,500 all year long except during “sales events” at which time the store inflates the price to deceive consumers into believing they are getting a steep discount.

Keystone Pricing

High end furniture stores commonly inflate prices of 100% -400% over wholesale prices.

‼️⚠️🚩 If a furniture store shows an item online and pricing says “call for price” then this is a giant unethical sales tactic. This forces buyers into calling and speaking and being pressured by sales people.

🚩 Self proclaimed high end furniture stores call their sales employees “designers” and this is all a trick to deceive consumers. These people are sim.y sales employees using a computer to input your fabric choices etc.. into an online order form. If taxes can be done online then consumers can buy their own furniture online without needing price markups for the third party store surcharge.

🚩By not listing prices the stores don’t have to price match or honor pricing. This also makes it much harder for the average consumer to identify when price hiking is happening.

🚩Some stores have resorted to removing pricing from their floor demos so they do not have to honor listed prices.

Conclusion

I purchased my Crypton Artemis from fabricguru.com because they had the color I wanted. Sadly the fabrics offered by century furniture were not premium enough and by premium I mean that the fabrics available were low density loose open weave or synthetic fibers with an exorbitant price tag. I need premium grade tight weave aka canvas grade= minimal if any light visible through the weave, high rub count, premium mean heavy weight upholstery fabric that withstands the rigors of daily use and a house with cats. So for my throw pillows I settled on 11oz-12oz/sq yd Belgian linen 55% cotton 45% blend and the Artemis velvet for the main sofa.

It is my understanding that any fabric with a density sq yd weight of less than 11oz is going to fall into the medium to light weight decorative category and will not hold up to being on any piece of furniture that sees daily use. It especially will not hold up to daily life with cats.