BigZeroLittleZero

About three weeks ago, I sent you an email about my horrible experience with a local Issaquah, WA La-Z-Boy retailer. My 11-month saga is described below. I want to thank the many people who offered suggestions about what to do and I wanted to let you know that today, it all had a very happy (albeit belated) ending.

I submitted a complaint to the Better Business Bureau and filed a complaint with the Attorney General’s office of the State of Washington, and even worked with a law firm briefly to explore my options. And the local Issaquah La-Z-Boy retailer never responded to any of these efforts nor to my own direct communications. But La-Z-Boy Corporate in Monroe, Michigan DID!!.

It turns out that this particular La-Z-Boy retailer was independently owned and operated (despite the La-Z-Boy sign on the outside of the building). It turns out that this particular store has had all sorts of problems recently and this very store was even featured this past week on not one but two local television newscasts for their poor sales and customer service practices: You can read the articles or watch the actual newscast clips that aired this past Tuesday, here:

·         From King 5 TV: http://www.king5.com/localnews/stories/NW_081809WAB-la-z-boy-problems-SW.f319afb8.html

·         From Komo 4 TV: http://www.komonews.com/news/53626412.html

But I have to say that justice was done in the end – and NOT by the local retailer. While technically – and legally -- La-Z-Boy Corporate was not responsible for what happened to me, they stepped up and resolved my complaint completely today. The horrible “gas card” promotion gone bad was NOT an idea of La-Z-Boy corporate but rather of the local store itself. La-Z-Boy corporate apparently had heard enough complaints from other people like myself about this very store (and its local owners) that they decided recently to intervene and have since taken over this local La-Z-Boy store location and essentially booted out the local owners. (Not sure exactly how they did this but they did).

So I want to amend my previous email by saying that while this particular (formerly) Independent La-Z-Boy store was an establishment I would never ever deal with again, La-Z-Boy corporate stepped up big time and intervened to make things right. I will now happily recommend to anyone to consider shopping at La-Z-Boy – even this particular store, since it’s now under new management – from La-Z-Boy itself.

tj

Hey, everybody.

Just as every now and then I share with you the name of someone or a business that I have high regard for and invite you to consider their services, once in awhile I come across a company that warrants my letting people know to avoid them. In this case, I am inviting you to strongly consider never doing business with La-Z-Boy Furniture Galleries – based on my own personal experience over the past ten months.

They engaged in highly deceptive and unethical sales practices with me last fall and this dragged on and on for the past ten months, with their deciding “there is nothing we can do.” I believe that La-Z-Boy Furniture is a business who had the chance to do the right thing – more than once – and in both instances failed miserably, and therefore, I am sharing my story and cautioning you not to do business with a company with their questionable business practices and business ethics.

Below are the details of my experience over the past ten months dealing with La-Z-Boy.

tj

My La-Z-Boy Experience: Sept, 2008 – July 2009

·         In Sept, 2008, Michele and I purchased $4000 worth of furniture from La-Z-Boy. We were incented to do so because of a $500 Gas Card promotion they were doing. The salesperson told us that if we made this level of purchase, they would give us a $500 gas card that would arrive in the mail in two weeks. We could use the gas card at any of many well known gasoline retailers. Based on this incentive, we went forward with the purchase.

·         The gas card did not arrive in two weeks (needless to say). It arrived in roughly 3 months. And it was not a $500 gas card – far, far from it.

·         It was a monthly program filled with tons of required labyrinthine paperwork undoubtedly deliberately designed to make 95% of customers give up from all the effort required to redeem your gas card. You had to pick one single gasoline retailer and IF you made $100 worth of gasoline purchases from that same gasoline retailer and IF you completed all the necessary paperwork AND IF you submitted it by the 19^th day of the month, you would receive a $25 gas coupon – which would arrive in roughly 4 weeks. And if you failed to achieve $100 in gasoline purchases in a given month, or failed to get the receipts mailed by the deadline, you forfeited that month completely. So if you did EVERY THING right to the letter, it would take you 20 months to get your full $500 worth of gas cards – a far cry from the $500 gas card I was told I would receive. I was led to believe it would arrive in two weeks and have the full amount. This was clearly a deceptive sales practice.

·         I did all the required paperwork – month after month for about 4 months. And I never received a penny. When I attempted to reach the gas card company that La-Z-Boy had partnered with for the promotion, they never answered the phone. I sent about 12 or 13 emails asking “when will I receive my gas card?” I never heard back ever.

·         Then in January, I did a Google search and found that the gas card company La-Z-Boy had partnered with was being prosecuted by the State of Florida for fraud. That company had also filed for bankruptcy protection. I called La-Z-Boy (henceforth LZB for short) and I got a nice guy in customer service who said how badly he felt, and would try to help.

·         LZB’s solution? They swapped out this gas card promotion with a new gas card promotion company. So I had to start the process ALL over. By now it was April, and I had made the furniture purchase from LZB the previous September. So I started all over again – the exact same drill – filling out the forms, submitting $100 worth of receipts from the same gasoline retailer…. And then I waited…. And waited…. And waited….

·         After two months of this, I began getting concerned again. So I checked the new gas card promotion company’s web site: No phone number. Hmmm. I sent emails – six in total – and never heard back. What a surprise. About two months into this program with this replacement gas card promotion company, I went back to their web site again and when I clicked on the FAQ section, there was a new announcement: This company had also filed for bankruptcy protection and was being sued by creditors. And they were counter-suing their creditors. It was a mess.

·         So LZB had gotten in bed with not one but two sleazy gas card promotion companies. They completely misrepresented the nature of the gas card incentive and the incredible hassle required to get the gas card redeemed. Their marketing partners both were filing for bankruptcy – one was being sued for fraud – and when I called LZB back about this second gas card promotion scam, the response was essentially “We feel really badly. But there is nothing we can do.” Nothing? Nothing at all? Not even “we’ll make it right for you by giving you a $500 credit towards future furniture” or something? Nothing. I asked repeatedly “Can’t LZB offer me anything for the ten months I had been dealing with this headache?” The answer repeatedly came back “We’re sorry. There is nothing we can do.” They refused to try to do anything as they felt the problem was not with them but with the two gas card promoters. Talk about not getting the basic premise of keeping the customer satisfied.

So I have filed a complaint with the Better Business Bureau of WA state, and I would encourage you to share my experience with others and encourage them to spread the word that La-Z-Boy engages in deceptive sales practices, and when confronted with the problem, simply offers “we’re sorry” and nothing more. I will never do business with such an ethically-impaired company ever again, and I suggest you will avoid doing business with them as well.

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I am passing this along from my cousin Vicky, because I totally agree with her views on this important issue. If you wish to contact your state’s US Congressional representatives or US senators, here is the link: http://www.congress.org/congressorg/home/

Let’s let our President and our state and federal representatives know that healthcare should be a basic right of every American, not a profit center for insurance and pharmaceutical companies.

Thanks, Vicky, for this eloquent message. Please pass this around. This is going to be a critical debate that will impact all of us sooner or later.

tj

Hi. I spent the weekend writing to President Obama, Governor Doyle, and my senators and representatives (state and federal) on the subject of health care reform.    Here’s an excerpt:

Having health care should not be contingent upon a person having a job or being related to someone who has a job.  It should be a basic right of being American, in the same way that education is. Right now, the more people suffer, the more they have to pay.  In essence, we make people suffer twice.
 
The early health insurance companies like Blue Cross were formed to make sure that doctors get paid.  Now they only exist to make sure that executives and stockholders get paid.  This is not right.  It’s inhumane.
 
I am writing to beg you to advance a health care system that puts the welfare of all citizens at the fore.  A single-payer system needs to be our default position.  It needs to include every American in the risk pool, and it needs to be paid for  by taxes, just like public education.  (If some people would like to choose their own health insurance providers, they could pay extra for it, in the same way that people choose to pay extra to send their kids to private schools if they’re unhappy with the public offerings.)  I don’t care if it’s managed federally or on a state-to-state level.  Our system needs to make health insurance available to everyone regardless of ability to pay.  This needs to be a core value of our country – our commitment to providing universal health care is as essential to our nation’s  health, success, and prosperity as is our commitment to education.

Hello, friends, family, fellow citizens:

Right now, everyone seems to know that the US will have big changes in our health insurance system in the near future.
 
Will that system depend entirely on private insurance corporations, or will we have some health insurance available from public sources?
 
It’s important to understand this ‘public option’ debate. Even though the details are not worked out yet, insurance companies are very busy working right now—with more money than you or I will ever have—to make sure the Congress never gives Americans an option of public insurance, like buying into Medicare.  The insurance companies want ALL our health care dollars to be funneled through them; they want to be the ones standing between us and our doctors. The pharmaceutical and hospital industries don’t want anyone to be able to bargain hard on prices.
 
Here is a fact sheet: http://drsforamerica.org/documents/DfA-Public-Health-Insurance-Option-Fact-Sheet.pdf.
 
Here is another short, good article:
 
The healthcare war has officially begun
Will Obama stand up to lobbyists and insurers to give Americans a needed public option?  http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2009/06/12/reich/index.html
Wednesday <http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/11/us/politics/11health.html?hp> the American Medical Association came out against a public option for healthcare. The President has reaffirmed his support for it. The next weeks will show what Obama is made of -- whether he's willing and able to take on the most formidable lobbying coalition he has faced so far on an issue that will define his presidency.

And make no mistake: A public option large enough to have bargaining leverage to drive down drug prices and private-insurance premiums is the defining issue of universal healthcare. It's the only way to make healthcare affordable. It's the only way to prevent Medicare and Medicaid from eating up future federal budgets. An ersatz public option -- whether Kent Conrad's non-profit cooperatives, Olympia Snowe's "trigger," or regulated state-run plans -- won't do squat.

The last president to successfully take on the giant healthcare lobbies was LBJ. He got Medicare and Medicaid enacted because he weighed into the details, twisted congressional arms, threatened and cajoled, drew lines in the sand, and went to war against the AMA and the other giant lobbyists standing in the way. The question now is how much LBJ is in Barack Obama.

The big guns are out and they're firing. All major lobbying firms in Washington -- many of them brimming with ex-members of Congress -- are now crawling all over the Hill. Lots of money is on the table.

·        AMA's political action committee has contributed $9.8 million to congressional candidates since 2000, and its lobbying arm is one of the most formidable on the Hill.

·        Meanwhile, Big Insurance and Big Pharma are increasing their firepower. The five largest private insurers and their trade group America's Health Insurance Plans spent a total of $6.4 million on lobbying in the first quarter of this year, up more than $1 million from the first quarter last year, and are spending even more now.

·        United Health Group spent $1.5 million in the first quarter, up 34 percent from the $1.1 million it spent in the first quarter last year.

·        Aetna spent $809,793 between January and the end of March, up 41 percent from last year.

·        Pfizer, the world's biggest drugmaker, spent more than $6.1 million on lobbying between January and March, more than double what it spent last year. It also spent nearly $3.3 million lobbying in the fourth quarter of 2008.

Every one of them is upping their spending. Some congressional Democrats are willing and able to stand up to this barrage. Many are not. They need cover from the White House.

The President can't do this alone. The next weeks will show what we are made of, too.  You must weigh in and get everyone you know to weigh in, too. Bombard your senators and representatives. Organize and mobilize others. And let the White House know how strongly you feel. This is one of those battles that define a presidency. But more importantly, it's one of those battles that define the state of American democracy.

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The following website makes it easy to identify and contact your legislators: http://www.congress.org/congressorg/home/