Westelm Avis 

I am writing to formally express my dissatisfaction with a coffee table I purchased from West Elm a few years ago. The Streamline coffee table, which has a heavy marble top, recently experienced a structural failure due to the collapse of its base. This incident occurred without prior warning, and I was not informed of any necessary care instructions to tighten the connections at the time of purchase. I can see now on the website that the care instructions have been revised.

This defect posed a significant safety hazard, particularly as my infant son leant against the table, causing it to almost fall on him. This near-accident has raised serious concerns about the safety and integrity of the product.

Under the Consumer Rights Act 2015, goods must be of satisfactory quality, fit for purpose, and as described. It is evident that this coffee table fails to meet the "fitness for purpose" and "satisfactory quality" requirement as stipulated by the Act. The lack of adequate care instructions and the resulting frame collapse indicate that the product is not compliant with these legal obligations.

Given the dangerous situation this defect has created and the table's failure to meet the legal standards, I am requesting a full refund for the coffee table. I would appreciate it if you could process this refund at your earliest convenience

Priya Specifically is an absolute star!! She made me feel so comfortable and reassured to buy all my furniture from West Elm. Great sales woman and absolutely hard working

Horrible experience.
Bought a 3 seater sofa bed for almost £2k.
Sofa was broken when delivered. Damage was caused to my property and the delivery crew made me feel threatened and unsafe in my own house (Wincanton).
As the sofa was broken they collected it on the 2nd of December and promised I would be refunded soon.
It’s been over a month and I’m still waiting for
my refund. Please please please don’t buy anything from them.

Update on 14 January
WestElm kindly explain what request for information? You haven’t contacted me at all and we are now mid January and my almost £2k are still nowhere to be seen. I’m currently seeking legal advice to recover my money.

If I could give it zero I would !
Ordered some cushion covers on line December 19th Had order confirmation through soon after where I noticed the delivery charge was £19 that in itself a rip off .
Also then attached to the deliver notice was a delivery date of May 2025 !! 6 months to deliver ???
Been trying to contact them ever since .
Online chat doesn’t work just keeps saying not available . Email address no longer in use .. customer service contact number just keeps cutting you off and doesn’t connect.
Total scam of a business .
£200 out of pocket and can’t get hold of anyone
Don’t buy from this company!

Collected 2 x items from an order in-store (Tottenham Court Road) I returned 1 x of the items to the store straight away before I left as I had changed my mind. I was told that the refund would be processed.

A month later I followed up on Live Chat to ask about the status of my refund. I was told that the in-store team hadn't processed the refund correctly, and the Live Chat team would be in touch once the issue is resolved. That was over a month ago.

Still no updates from the Live Chat team. Still no refund. Very poor service. Avoid at all costs even though the products look nice and unique.

EDIT: Recieved a helpful reply from Jen and Michelle at Williams Sonoma Global who were able to process the refund without me having to contact the store - for an online order.

Ordered custom embroidered stockings, they arrived will all the names printed on the wrong stockings. Had to to return these and place a new order. The new order came printed on the wrong stockings AGAIN and the wrong font colour! Now I need to take time out of my day again to go ship these back because I won’t get my refund until they get their stockings back. The stockings that have custom names written on them and are completely useless to them.. terrible customer service and clearly super incompetent workers. Very annoyed since I ordered these almost 2 months before Christmas and not sure I’ll even be getting them on time.

Order number 3050036

I asked to cancel my order 4 days after making it. I was informed that this had been done and I would receive an email confirming this. I did not. I later received a request to agree a delivery date. I contacted Westelm who apologised for their error not cancelling the order and stated that if I refused the delivery I would receive a refund. I did this, but have not received the refund. When I subsequently contact customer service, on the rare occasion that they actually answer, they say they cannot cancel the order as it is in "the wrong stage". So Westelm still has £1700 for a bed I do not want and will not be delivered. I don't know whether they are dishonest, incompetent or both. I do know that I will never buy anything from them again.

Update:

I did indeed receive a refund for the bed, but not the £129 I had paid for delivery. Given that I requested to cancel the order over 2 weeks before it was available for dispatch, it was never delivered to me, and any delay in cancellation was due to failures by Westelm, this seems unfair.

Unsurprisingly, Westelm are not available on their online chat for me to speak to someone to resolve this.

It the debate between dishonest or incompetent, I’m moving closer towards dishonest.

Went in store on Wednesday to have a nice browse at the Christmas stuff, not one staff member said hello or spoke to me, they all seemed to be talking to each other and quite frankly looked very miserable, not what I expected from a high end store in London. I’ve been to this store a few times over the years and it seems the staff turn around is quick, not sure what that says about the managers or employee satisfaction.

If I could rate 0 I would. Shocked how terrible their a) return policy is and b) the customer service!!!! I used to order from west elm and pottery barns when I lived in Canada and they were great but my goodness the service from their UK team was shocking. Not only were the staff incredibly rude and unhelpful, I also had to pay for my own return (especially when the item listed on the website was incorrect, which I also flagged to the customer rep). I’ve been trying to return a changing table topper since Nov 1st now and it’s still not resolved. I’ve also spent hours on the phone with both the courier and west elm customer service to sort it out, but to only be met with cold responses. Truly, disappointing.

Update:
I have now used UPS to return this package as requested and they’re now “ The package is being held for a future delivery date. We'll attempt to deliver on the date requested.”

It’s been a month to try and return this package and still not resolved. I also do not accept customer service answer as you also didn’t address the rudeness and what you’re supposed to do for your customers: customer service!!! Every time I email, they send me the same “automated” message.

Truly a disappointing experience with this company. And seeing how many people also experienced similar issues, it’s very frustrating to see the company not doing anything about it.

I will never order from this company again. I am ill at the moment and am having to shop online. Returning an item is unnecessarily complicated and layered, and this is the first time I have been told that it will be over a month before I get a refund.p, and that is only if UPS doesn’t let me down. All other companies I have dealt with supply returns postage labels, making the customer/retailer experience a much happier one.

What a dreadful dreadful refund experience. Firstly call centre in the States. The address where to return was hopeless. This is West Elm I am buying from. The refund name was Williams Sonoma. This was a large box that had to be uplifted by carrier at MY COST. All on-site carriers use a drop down menu linked to a post code. Nothing vaguely similar came up with Williams Sonoma. Another call to States. Apparently drop-down menu is William Logistics. Now HOW was I to know that. Try to generate a collection required telephone and email. Telephone number unobtainable. No email any where. Managed to get thru for a Royal Mail collection. I am totally un hopeful of a quick refund. This whole process took 2 hours. I will never go to this firm again.
I would now like to add a week on I have my refund. I will never know if it was inresponse to my 1* initial refund

Do not order from them! Awful returns policy, incredibly slow response rate and 1 star customer service. Hugely regret ordering from them.

Our item arrived damaged and what has preceded this is almost a month of the worst customer service I've experienced. Still no refund, no movement and the worst part? No one at customer service can actually tell me if they've received the return at all.

Do yourself a favour and do not order from this company.

I don’t know much about this company but it feels like one of those instagram store scams that takes your order then just tries to disappear.

Thankfully I only bought some coasters. Cost £33 + £10?! Postage.

Due for delivery October 24th (the next day). It’s currently November 15th and I have heard nothing from them, still says preparing to ship with estimated delivery of 28th October, so 3 weeks ago.

Honestly just don’t order from these guys.

Tried to call customer service and it answers, is silent for 5 mins, then hangs up on you.

Finally got through and they had let me order (with next day delivery) when the product had sold out. They were not expecting new stock until after Christmas (2+ months after actual order). Requested refund

Update 24th Nov - they issued a refund but only refunded me the price of the product and not the £10 postage for the item that was cancelled…

Like many other people below, I have been unable to get a refund despite chasing multiple times. Part of my order was undelivered and I have had at least 5 interactions with the customer service team through live chats. Each time I am promised a refund and then nothing happens. It has been over a month.

I purchased a sofa online but I cancelled before delivery asked for a refund. A week on no refund came through, then contacted.them again just to realise that it wasn't cancelled in their system,this time I got an email confirmation on cancellation. Waited another a week and still no refund. Contacted them again ( all on chat service) just to find out that it wasn't cancelled properly, even delivery date is till valid,on top of that they don't keep CC details for refund! I was asked to call processing center and give my CC details. All previous 2 weeks I
was led to believe cancellation is done, money is on its way... I called on 5th Nov and given my CC details and asked ASAP refund... 2 days later I get a reminder msg from courier company for 14th Nov delivery!!
No money seen in my CC account,contacted again 8th Nov by email. I was told It's processed, yet nothing shows in. Today I checked again just to hear that it's been processes on 8th of Nov. If true they delayed refund process intentionally. I come to a point that I don't believe this company, might be having financial difficulties. Their staff incompetent, they can't do cancellations/refunds properly. I wouldn't do any business with them ever again!

Absolutely dreadful experience which is still not resolved

I ordered a curtain pole which arrived with the brackets missing and it was clearly used, scratched and dented with hair stuck in the grubby tape.

I immediately contacted WestElm by telephone (customer service email address doesn’t work) who said they would pick up the package and issue me a refund.

Then…nothing. I contacted them again and they said to allow 10 working days for UPS to collect the package. So I did. And here I am two weeks later and still nothing

Upon contacting them again they asked me to contact UPS to organise pick up. Despite me being inconvenienced and out of pocket, they now want me to arrange the return. Great. They’ve laid said that once they receive the item back it’ll be a further two weeks before I can expect a refund.

I can see why they don’t have a reviews section on their website

That aside the item is poor quality and not as described (coated wood effect rather than actual wood as in the description.). I could live with that if I had the essential parts to make it useable. Which I don’t.

Dreadful service and I have no faith I’ll ever be refunded for a very expensive item.

Update 13/11/24. Two further conversations with your customer service team and two with UPS. The tracking reference provided in West Elm’s response below is for a collection at their address and delivery to my address. Which is why this collection has still not been actioned. One month on this issue remains unresolved.

Unable to get through to customer service on any channel. Missing (very expensive) item from order with no way to query it. Online chat is never open, phone is never answered.

Their returns policy is absolutely appalling. Before placing an order I checked twice with customer service and called a local store to confirm their returns policy none of these occasions did anyone mention to me that I would have to pay and arrange for my own delivery service. Also the websites return policy doesn’t not state this. The chairs I brought was £650 and the return cost is £340. I cannot explain how disappointed I am with the misleading information provided to me. And am now stuck with 2 chairs I don’t like or I have to pay £340 to return them. Customer service barely answer and are in the US and are very unhelpful and just don’t care. Avoid ordering from this company at all costs. Absolutely terrible! Regret ever making a purchase and will certainly never buy from them again.

We bought some chairs and a lamp at the beginning of September in the flagship store in London. We weren’t sure if the chairs would fit, but the store manager encouraged us to buy the full set (8 chairs) as if ‘we didn’t like them, we could easily return them’.

Well they didn’t fit. And so we asked for them to be picked up. This required around 5 calls to customer service and the shop itself. A truck arrived 2 weeks later - but the truck only had paperwork for half the chairs. So we were left with some of them. We made another 10 calls to ge those picked up too. No luck. So we physically got a van and drove them down to the store and deposited them there. The manager said ‘oh sorry and your money will be back right away’. Well here we are over a month later and the money is no where in sight. We called again - ‘it’s coming’ they said. It’s still not here - all £3400 of it.

Don’t ever deal with this company - if things go wrong you are screwed. Oh and the lamp we bought, that was faulty. So we took it back too on that same van. They asked if they could delivery a new one… just so that we could go through the same hellish process again? Absolutely not, never again.

Don't be tempted to order online. Instead call the UK store directly and order from a human being. The online ordering customer service line is why all the bad reviews are on here, but the UK store staff are brilliant. Rebecca from the Westfield store could not have done enough for us. Delivery quicker than anywhere else, and reasonably priced, even though we're based in the Highlands!