Green Culture / Eco-furniture.com engages in dishonest marketing practices

Green Culture / Eco-furniture.com engages in dishonest marketing practices

To whom it may concern,

I thought you might be interested to know about an ostensibly “green” furniture company located in the LA area that is engaging in dishonest marketing practices.

Here's what happened: After doing some web research and checking out platform beds at a local furniture store called Z Futon and Furniture, we narrowed our choice down to buying the Coronado bed from Z Futon, or the Malibu from Green Culture (Eco-Furniture.com).

We found the Coronado available from multiple stores for $299 to $449 and the Malibu for $695 plus shipping. From what we could tell, the Coronado and the Malibu had similar styles.

But the Malibu beds were advertised as being made from "100% plantation grown hardwoods, making them an enlightened and responsible choice." Just as important, the Green Culture web site indicated that each bed was custom made for the customer. We decided paying extra for a custom made ecologically responsible bed was something we wanted to do. So we ordered the Malibu.

Two weeks later, a packaged bed arrives - it came in a package labeled Coronado by Lifestyle Solutions, and came with instructions for the Coronado - there was no indication that this was the custom made Malibu we had ordered. We called Green Culture and said there must be some mistake - it looked like a cheaper production-made bed had been substituted for the custom-made bed we ordered.

The president of the company, Sunil Wagle, said there was no mistake - we were stuck with the Coronado since his company had a no return policy on custom orders. He said it was common practice to change the names of products and had no excuse for calling a production made bed available from multiple vendors a custom made bed.

In my experience custom made products often cost 2-3 times more than similar production made products.

We contacted our credit card company, and filed a complaint with their dispute office. Four months later and it looks like the credit card company is giving up.

We have confirmed that the bed we received is the exact same model as that sold by other vendors. They all get their beds from a company called Lifestyle Solutions. The Sales Manager of Lifestyle Solutions, James Ederisinghe verified that the Coronado is not a custom bed and should not be labeled as such. The other companies call the bed the Coronado and do not label it as custom made. Our bed also has a sticker on it that indicates it was manufactured in May of 2004, four months before we ordered it.

I am outraged that a company that markets itself as ecologically responsible could get away with such dishonest practices. If you can offer any advice or have an interest in writing up a story, please let me know.

Thanks.

Sincerely

Alex L

Click this link to e-mail the above consumer: Email User Consumer