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West-Press Printing Health Care CENTRAL ARIZONA COLLEGE DIRECTOR OF HEALTH INFORMATION MANAGEMENT Finance and Accounting Charles E. Gillman Company Accounting Specialist Trades/Construction RANCHO RESORT MAINTANANCE POSITION Health Care Sierra Tucson Eating Disorders Program Coordinator Health Care Dependable Health Services Physical Therapists Administrative & Professional Jorgensen Brooks Group Counselor BusinessClosed furniture store resolves client disputesArizona Daily Star
Tucson, Arizona | Published: 08.30.2008
A Northwest Side furniture store that closed last month appears to have resolved its last outstanding customer dispute.
Earlier this week, the Better Business Bureau of Southern Arizona announced that Shadow Furniture, 3696 W. Orange Grove Road, had closed up shop still owing one customer $1,500 and leaving another with furniture in need of repair.
Shortly after that announcement, store owner Renee O'Connor contacted the bureau and said she had contacted all customers with unresolved business before closing, but there was one she was unable to reach, said Enrique Maciel, alternative dispute resolution coordinator for the Southern Arizona bureau.
That client, Ivan Armenta, had given Shadow Furniture a Mexican cell-phone number at which to reach him, and O'Connor said she was unaware of several additional digits she needed to dial to make an international call.
"The customer did not leave complete information for us," she said.
When she attempted to dial him without using the international code, she reached someone in New York.
Once she discovered her error, O'Connor said, she didn't have the means to call an international phone number short of buying an international calling card, which would have required her to spend more money she didn't have, she said.
The BBB's position is that the business should have done more to reach Armenta.
"I just don't feel due diligence was done on the business' side," Maciel said.
O'Connor maintains that she did her best to contact everyone who needed to be contacted while the 2-year-old business was still open, and Armenta was the only client she didn't reach.
"Closing a business is difficult as it is," she said. "I understand that he didn't have a way to contact us once the store was closed, but we tried to contact him before the store closed."
The table that Armenta ordered arrived at Shadow Furniture on June 27, she said.
The Better Business Bureau announcement about Shadow Furniture's troubles said Armenta went to pick up his furniture on Aug. 22.
"It's not like we had anywhere to keep it," O'Connor said. She sold it to someone else as part of her closeout sale.
O'Connor said that of nine or 10 people with unfinished business, she returned checks to some customers. Others are still waiting for their pieces to arrive and will pay for the furniture then.
When that happens, O'Connor said, she will have money to return to Armenta. That could be in as little as two weeks.
Maciel acknowledged that O'Connor has told the bureau that is her plan and said he gave Armenta's address to her.
One other person had complained to the bureau about damaged furniture. O'Connor said that problem is a warranty issue that needs to be taken up with the manufacturer and that the bureau told her it had already told the customer as much.
● Contact reporter Shelley Shelton at 434-4086 or sshelton@azstarnet.com.
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