| rev:text
| - Caveat emptor!!
Heed the filtered reviews! Seriously - scroll to the bottom and click on and carefully read them. When you are finished that, click on over to HomeStars and check out the (negative) reviews there. I even personally verified a couple of them when I considered pursuing action against this business to try to recoup our money.
There are far better places to purchase furniture from, both business and quality-wise.
My husband and I had been into Kimberley Jackson a number of times and admired their dining tables. One weekend we went in and laid eyes on one that we decided to purchase. As this is a cash-only business (red flag #1), we went to the bank, returned, and paid them in full, in cash for the table.
Delivery was prompt but unfortunately the table got seriously damaged on the way to our house. We contacted the store and they were seemingly good about it; offering to send their repair guy to come and take a look at it. I sent them some pictures of the damage and they did call back to say their repair guy said he couldn't fix it (who wants a repaired table anyway when you paid for an intact one??). So they offered to order us a new one and told us it would take 4-6 weeks. Assuming this was a custom order we also offered to pitch in some extra money if they could put 1-2 extra coats of finish (presumably polyurethane) on the new table as we noticed the original one seemed to have a few missed spots.
But like all the other reviewers 12 weeks came and went and they gave us every excuse in the book as to why the table was not ready in the time frame promised. At this point we started calling them every few days. We asked about just returning the damaged table to them and getting our money back. They said they would take the table back, but that they couldn't give us any sort of refund until they resold that damaged table as they needed to "manage cash flow". Not comfortable with that sort of consignment arrangement where we had no collateral, we declined and kept waiting.
Finally, just before Christmas our table was miraculously ready. We decided to go into the store to see it before it was delivered that weekend, just to make sure there were no "surprises". Lo and behold, despite being told we had waited so long for a custom made table, they showed us a few tables to choose from, none of which were even the same colour as the one. At this point we insisted we get our money back. They swore up and down they could get us a table in the right colour in 1 to 2 weeks. So we figured after waiting 12+ weeks another 2 weeks wouldn't kill us. 2 weeks later we call the store and they claim our table had just been finished but was in the "drying room". At this point I did as Sean F. suggested and asked them to send me a picture. Since they seemed to be so connected on social media, regularly posting and tweeting pictures, it shouldn't have been difficult. I followed up a couple of times and they were unable to produce a picture. Finally they admitted our table wasn't ready, so we brought the damaged table back to the store (at our own expense no less) and managed to get a full refund, in cash, from them. As we left the store I noticed a sales order, dated only a week prior, for our table that they had claimed to have order several weeks prior.
When we started looking for a new table, we came to learn that much of the furniture KJ carries is carried by any number of places that deal with "Mennonite" builders. The table we bought that the KJ staff claimed was "designed" by the owner Jack is just a stock model that we could order from all sorts of places around the GTA. We found the same table at other stores that had been in business much longer (some as long as 50+ years) and offered many more options in the way of customization (stain, wood type, dimensions), accepted credit cards, and included a lifetime guarantee on construction.
Also, comparing the finish on the two products, we came to realize the finishing that KJ does (most of these Mennonite furniture places receive unfinished furniture from the builders and then do the finishing themselves) was sub-par. The KJ table had only stain and polyurethane on the visible surfaces, the bottom of the table was completely unfinished, which could lead to warpage in time. The tables at the other stores we went to had every surface stained and sealed and used a more durable top surface finish.
We really learned our lesson after our experience with KJ. Next time we will do much more research before making any large purchase.
To those of you who still have money tied up in this business, please do consider filing a complaint with the Ministry of Consumer Services if you need to.
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