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newyorker_2007

Disassembly of American Leather Sleeper for delivery

17 years ago

I went to buy an American Leather Comfort Sleeper for an apartment in NY. When discussing delivery, the authorized dealer (whose name I got from the AL web site) told me the comfort sleeper would not fit through my apartment door (a standard 36" door) but, not to worry, they would send an upholsterer to disassemble the sofa in order to get it into the apartment and then reassemble it once inside (which would cost me $200 in addition to the delivery charge). He said the regular delivery people would not be able to do this. (I also now see that another authorized dealer in the city specifically says the comfort sleeper is "fairly easy" to disassemble for delivery.) I am very concerned about the prospect of taking apart a $4000 leather sofa with a complex sleeper mechanism and about what I would do when I wanted to move, as well as whether the store would take full responsibility if the mechanism didn't work properly after the sofa was taken apart and reassembled or whether doing this would void any part of the warranty on the comfort sleeper or mechanism. The dealer led me to believe that having to take the sofa apart was fairly common, so I decided to contact AL to find out if they had a diagram or specific instructions for disassembly and reassembly of the comfort sleepers in case this needed to be done after the initial delivery. There was no telephone number at their web site but I used their web site contact form to ask my question. As I was eager to buy the sofa that day or the next I also looked up their telephone number at one of the online directory services. I was connected by the telephone menu to Customer Service but after a few announcements that "your expected wait time is 1 minute", the voice suddenly announced that Customer Service was not available and that I could leave a message, which I did. I explained my question and asked them to call back ASAP as I wanted to buy the sofa that day or the next. I even left a fax number and email address in case they had a diagram or instructions they could send me. So far a full week has gone by with no answer to either the email message or the telephone message. Does anyone have experience with disassembly of the comfort sleeper for delivery? Although I spent a lot of time choosing this product, I now feel very queasy about buying such an expensive item under these circumstances, and any advice would be welcome.

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