Cymax – Furniture Store From Hell

I need to take an hour to tell this little story like I need another testicle — but if it saves anyone else the grief I just went through — it will be worth it. In a nutshell — don't waste your time and money with Cymax at www.cymax.com.

We moved into this house a little over a year ago and since that time I've ordered on-line some fairly expensive office furniture for my home-office, all delivered with "White Glove Delivery" meaning not dropped on the curb — but unpacked and set where I need it, up to 2 fights of stairs. The below photos (as proof) show solid wood bookcases, desks, and other furniture delivered with the "White Glove Delivery" — although by a company different than Cymax. All went very well, and I was very satisfied — satisfied enough to have tipped well all of the people to deliver it.

The reason I order this stuff on-line is a combination of my being pretty particular about my office furniture (style and quality), and the convenience of looking at more desks on line than I could see spending a week running around to office furniture stores. I only buy with the "White Glove Delivery", because I'm the only guy here — and have a pretty screwed up back from a car accident. I can't be carrying this crap up stairs.

So I need a desk to go at the top of the stairs, to set a community computer on (the easiest of every furniture delivery ever made to this house – up one flight of stairs facing the front door, and on the other side of the short wall), and find what I want at Cymax, with "White Glove Delivery".

This one photo shows the entire path through the house and the desired location of the desk.

About a month after I order this desk, I get a call yesterday saying the only time they can deliver it is today between noon and four, which happens to also be the time my wife and daughter need to go to the airport for their 12:55 flight. So I say OK, and make arrangements for someone else to take them to the airport.

At 3:30, I get a phone call that they're on their way. At 3:50, this short little girl, and equally small guy show up. In the past, there was 3 or 4 men, who generally looked like they could handle the job. These two absolutely could not. The little girl (I doubt she was 5' tall) asks where it is going, and is obviously distressed with the answer upstairs. After a 5 minute conversation in Spanish with the guy with her — she says that she needs to see where. So I show her, after I lock up my 10-year-old 5lb Boston Terrier — because she's afraid of dogs, even the ones the size of hamsters. After another 5 minute conservation in Spanish, I'm catching that he's telling her that they'll leave it on the pallet and drag it up the stairs. They obviously can't lift this solid wood desk an inch off the ground, no less over the banister. Two on one end could barely get the damn thing raised high enough to get a dolly under.

So she tells me that that I need to sign a damage waiver in case they damage anything (and if there was anything certain — it was that there was going to be damage!), and that they will not unpack and cart off the pallet and crating, which has the appearance of external damage. I said — no way, that I paid for "White Glove Delivery", and that it is up to them to be prepared for it. She tells me that she needs to call her boss and goes to the truck. I call the Cymax number and played their game of going through menus and entering my sales order number. She comes back 10 minutes later — and I'm still on hold, yet to speak with any human. She hands me her phone, and some guy claiming to be her supervisor tells me that everyone has to sign a damage waiver, and that they won't be uncrating it, but will get it upstairs. End of conversation. It was obvious that they weren't even capable of dragging it up the stairs on a moving dolly (their incredible plan which was a physical impossibility based on dimensions alone), there was no way they could do it without damaging the wall and staircase (and most likely the desk and themselves), and they weren't going to try to it take upstairs without me signing a damage waiver. In the meantime I'm still listing to a Cymax recording that someone will be with me soon — but I'll get faster help going to the web site and reading the FAQs. I look at my phone and 19 minutes had gone by and still no human. So I tell them to put the desk in my garage and I'll tell the world how I feel I'm getting more of the "Latex Glove" treatment than the "White Glove" one.

These people can barely get the damn thing on wheels up a 1/2" lip at the end of the driveway! Yes there are two of them back there wrestling it for a good five minutes.

The little girl who can barely see over the top of the box is doing all of the grunt work.

The crating looks like I might find a surprise

So as they're leaving, a person comes on my phone (who suspiciously sounds like cross between Peggy and Osama Bin Laden – and I'd wager was at least 12,000 miles away making IUDs) and wants to know what the problem is. I tell him that in addition to being on hold for 25 minutes thus far, that I'm getting bitched slapped with their white glove. He asks what I want — and I tell him to get some people here who are capable of unpacking and taking the desk upstairs without me having to sign a damage waiver for certain damage. In his very fine combination of Farsi and English — Peggy tells me that he'll have to put me on hold. I soon got the expected dial tone.

So there you have it. Buy from Cymax.com at your own peril. I'd warn you of who their "White Glove" delivery people were — but it was a rental truck with the lease company name on the door, I see nothing on the paperwork on who they were, and I assume the two people sent were found at the local "Tree of Hope" for daytime laborers, or standing in front of Lowes.