My Mistake Buying RTA Kitchen Cabinets Online
Be Careful Buying Kitchen Cabinets Online!
I learned a big lesson by my kitchen cabinets through an online retailer for my kitchen remodel.
So I ordered my ready to assemble (RTA) cabinets on February 11, 2015 and didn’t receive them until almost June of that year. The company that I bought the kitchen cabinets from was very shady (thieves).
The company I used was www.shoprtacabinets.com for the design and purchase of my kitchen cabinets. Their website was very polished and looked very reputable. What I eventually found out was they basically did not have any inventory but bought the cabinets from China after they got my money.
They needed my money in order to pay for the cabinets to be shipped to them and then shipped to me. The cabinets took months to arrive and even then the order was wrong with damaged items.
Many of the cabinets were damaged and many were even missing. I contacted the company informing them of the damaged and missing pieces letting them know I want a replacement. They assured me they would send them out FedEx so it would be fast. After two weeks I contacted them again inquiring of when I would receive my missing and damaged pieces.
They assured me they would be coming soon but could not give me a date. After another week had gone by, I called again but didn’t receive any answer. For the next four weeks I emailed, called, and tried every which way to contact them but they would not return my phone calls or emails.
As it turns out, this company is a horrible company and I wish I had never gone with them. They even got the dimensions wrong on my plan and sent the wrong items because they were completely inept.
Apparently this one company gets in the big trouble with one website selling cabinets and then closes that website down and start a brand-new one with a different name but the same inventory and same bad business practices. One of the biggest things that I learned is that I will never pay a company with an ACH debit transaction out of my account.
There was no more money than I had originally agreed to pay taken out of my account but there was no repercussions that I can take from the bank to get my money back. The reason why I used the debit transaction was because they did not take credit cards.
They said on the website that it was because they didn’t want to charge extra fees, but what I believe is that they are actually barred from using a credit company because of their horrible business practices. If I use my American express card to purchase cabinets, American Express would have fought this fraud for me and I would’ve gotten my money back.
So I still needed to do they remodel and had $4000 worth of cabinets sitting all throughout my house. The remodel needed done so I scoured the Internet to try to find identical cabinets for sale anywhere else.
I looked for weeks and weeks but could not find anything that matched because apparently this product was discontinued. That could also have led to the problems with the first company. Rather than give me my money back they kept it and never gave me all my cabinets.
After weeks of searching I finally gave up and went to a local cabinet company that would manufacture from scratch the identical cabinet but it would cost $1800 to replace the cabinets.
This would eat into my remodel budget. By chance I went to look for a pullout trashcan for my cabinets and came across a company that sold the exact same door. I was so excited and found out that it was only going to be $800 for all the replacement items!
Praise the Lord!
Great thing about this new company was they have the product, it was a good price, and they were located in Los Angeles right off of the 405 Highway.
I have a good friend of mine that dries down to LA once a week selling birds to swap meets and he agreed to pick them up for me and save me the $300 in shipping. So I got the cabinets two days after I found them and started the remodel on my kitchen.
The great news is that I finished my remodel and the house looks terrific.
Pro Tip: Always Use Credit Cards to Purchase RTA Cabinets.
So big lesson learned never use a debit transaction for purchases. Always use credit cards because there is extra backup built-in. Never trust a company who doesn’t take credit cards.
Let me know if the comments below if you have been a victim of this or any other kitchen cabinet companies out there.
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