Bellini stores in Chicago close without warning



A reader in Chicago writes:

I thought you might want to pass along the following information via your website. My husband and I ordered furniture from the Bellini store located in Chicago, IL 2 months ago. I tried calling them yesterday to follow-up on a item and was surprised when they didn't answer their phone during business hours (with no machine/recording indicating why). When the same thing happened today we decided to drive by the store to find that it had been padlocked from the inside (though oddly all the lights were on) with no indication (i.e., signs) as to why they were closed during normal business hours. I immediately tried calling the other Chicagoland location and similiarly no one picked up and their was no recording. Not surprising since they are apparently owned by the same person.

I called a couple of the corporate stores throughout the country (they are independent franchises but I learned through calling stores in other states that there are a few that are corporate stores in the New York area) and no one had any information/knowledge about the Chicago stores. Interestingly enough, when I called the Scarsdale NY location, the woman asked me if I had called the Connecticut location (which I had not) so I guess I am not the only person catching on. When I mentioned the potential reputational impact to the national reputation, she said that she hoped that "she hoped he wouldn't be that stupid." I take it she was referring to the owner of the Chicago store and the possibility that he intends to leave his customers in a major lurch with no communication.

Needless to say we have already disputed our deposit charges with our credit card company and we fortunately have a little bit of time to get this resolved before we need the nursery furniture (I am due end of January but the baby will be in a bassinet for the first bit), but I would like to get the word out to other Chicago patrons so they can take appropriate action as well.

Ironically, the Chicago Bellini took over the old Cradles of Distinction space, which closed down without notice, taking a lot of innocent parents money with it......

Thanks for listening.

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A follow up on this from the same reader:

Thanks. Just a quick update from my end....The corporate store in Scarsdale has stepped in and offered to ship me my order directly for the price that was agreed with the Chicago location (obviously not considering the deposit we already paid to the Chicago store). The only catch is that we would have to pay shipping, which is likely to exceed the sales tax we paid locally. That said, if the shipping charges were "astronomical" they have offered to pay a portion of them. Not sure if we are going to go that route or not...we have some concerns about taking possession from another Bellini store while disputing the credit card deposit and will be talking to a lawyer about the implications of doing such.

Nevertheless, I wanted to report to you that the company seems to be trying to do the right thing...though it seems to me that a bit too much of the burden still falls on the consumer under this arrangement.....But it is certainly better than where we stood two days ago.

I will give specific kudos to the folks at the Short Hills, NJ store (Mark), Cincinnati store (Denise) and Robin at the Scarsdale store, who were the only people in 10+ of the stores that I called to actively give me information/follow-up with me. While Scarsdale is a corporate store, so that makes sense, the Short Hills and Cincinnati folks were simply engaging in good customer service even though I wasn't their customer.

Posted: Mon - December 11, 2006 at 04:44 PM          

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