Buying theater seating was the last step in my home theater project. Corrently we are using a sofa and recliner that woefully lack good neck support when gazing at a ten foot screen that is ten feet in front of you. So anyways, after many hours of browsing the web and looking at local retailers offerings I finally settled on a HT retailer located in La Verne CA and placed the order on the 14th of October. I was very apprehensive about buying over the web, sight unseen and I didn't like the lead times quoted by most of the web-retailers. I settled on 4 seats that were promised to ship in two weeks. I placed the order and instead of charging my card upon shipment, my card was charged the very next day to the tune of $3004. After two weeks I contacted the company and was told that the chairs would ship the next Friday. No problem. That Friday I didn't get any tracking number so I contacted the company the following Monday and was told that the chairs weren't scheduled to ship for another two weeks. At that point I decided to Google their name and found quite a few complaints about this company ranging from chairs arriving and smelling moldy with rusted metal parts, late deliveries, poor customer service and generally getting the run-around when contacting the company. Promises of call backs with no call back, etc, etc. I called the company back and told them that I wished to cancel the order and the girl said "OK". I sent an email to confirm the phone call cancellation and that evening I received a phone call asking me if I would still want the chairs if they shipped them out the next day. At this point I had no desire to deal with a company with "poor customer service" so I told her no. I again requested a credit and she agreed to give me one. That was four days ago and haven't received a credit yet. Yesterday I sent another email asking when I could expect to see the credit because I planned on buying some seating locally when it does appear. I never got a response and don't expect to get one .
I wish that I had Googled the company before I placed the order, but I was fooled by their highly developed website and they have the Better Business Bureau and LaVerne Chamber of Commerce logos at the top of their Home page. It did seem odd that they charged my card immediately upon placing the order instead of "upon shipment" like so many retailers do.

I hope you notify your CC company before the time runs out to challenge a charge.

Also you didn't search the AVSforum for references. If you had this thread from last year would have caused some concern.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=861606&highlight=4seating

strange, then, that they maintain a nearly stellar BBB AA rating! :)
The BBB doesn't mention why they are not AAA ! :rolleyes:
http://www.la.bbb.org/BusinessReport.aspx?CompanyID=13218818

In addition to whatever else you may do, I would:

Ask the credit card company for a charge back

Report it to the Better Business Bureau to help knock their rating down a little further.

Notify the Chamber of Commerce.

The last two won't do much good for you, but it will help to alert others. The first one might get you a credit. Most merchants with any brains want to avoid charge backs if they can.

Yes, I notified Chase two days ago and they told me that the company has 30 days to apply the credit back to me and they cannot act until those 30 days have passed. They are sending a form out to me and Chase will cover the credit if 4seating fails to act after those 30 days. That was a relief to hear. Their (4seating.com) website is impressive and I did check out their BBB rating as well (as said they are AA instead of the max AAA, but no reason is given). I wish I had searched AVForum because I could have saved time and hassle.

Thanks for letting us know.
I wish there is a website that keeps up with all the bad companies out there.
Thanks again.

Just a heads up on Better Business Bureau. You also need to check HOW LONG the business has been a member. If it's less than 2 years I would be extra careful.

I once bid on a dutch auction item on $bay, won and called with my CC data. Prior to bidding I looked at their BB rating with the Nashville office. Also they had a 100% positive seller rating with auction site. Turns out that for the previous 12 months the scammer had been building a trail of positive business practices. Then over one weekend dumped over $500,000 in auction items they never owned. Basically they took all the product data and pictures from the 1:1 sales over the previous months and dumped 25 of each unit into the dutch auction system.

I got an email from another buyer and before long a bunch of us had pieced together the fraud. The BB visited their office and found it vacant, the FBI got involved. American Express stood by me but others had sent money orders.

The final word was that the perpetrators had gone back to "Eastern Europe"

The start date for that co is 1978, and member since 2005

It also shows that of the 9 formal complaints filed in the last 12 months that 6 were resolved by the company "agreeing" to a full refund and 3 with the company agreeing to provide the contracted product. The fact that 9 people had problems that were reported via the BBB system in the last 12 months is probably just the tip of the iceberg.

You have to wonder how useful a BBB rating actually is. I've formed my opinion long ago. IMHO BBB is about generating membership fees from participating businesses to support the salaries of the leaders and not about being an effective consumer watchdog that might anger their membership.

BigMouth, your opinion of the BBB reflects mine exactly. They are a totally worthless organization.

By the way, an honest, customer focused company will rarely have even one BBB complaint, and if they do, it's usually the complainer who is in the wrong.

I tried to file a BBB complaint once, and the company I was complaining about called me and was very angry with me. They ended the call with me saying "I know people at the BBB, hah! This won't even matter."

And the BBB never contacted me. Worthless organization.

The report is for 3 years.
I'm not defending anyone, just pointing that out.
Averaging three complaints per year, all of which were apparently "satisfied" needs to be compared to their actual total of business transactions which one cannot really determine. So, the rating is somewhat undeterminable? :confused: However, a customer actually going to the trouble to file a complaint is noteworthy.
Anyway, I agree that the BBB is all about membership fees.
And, I have filed complaints and the crappy company CEO contacted me at HOME! The BBB should NEVER give your home number to the company you filed a complaint against!

oops that does say 36 months not 12

The BBB is a crock. A small company I worked for during Uni. went to get registered with the BBB. It was explained that you pay your yearly fee and start out with a AAA rating and the rating stays there unless there are complaints. The owner wasn't impressed and didn't bother paying for it.

OK, the BBB has staff that has to keep track of complaints. How do folks think there salaries will be paid?

Wow seems like you got ripped off with those rubbish junk potato seats that don’t even look anything remotely like REAL cinema seats.

I had trouble with these folks too and have posted about them here before. My advice in a nutshell. Call your credit card company and tell them what is going on and request that they credit your account for the sale. Then go shop somewhere else. This sale will disappear from your credit card bill in due time.

I actually had good luck using the BBB to get a complaint resolved.

The company I was dealing with would not return calls (their phone forwarded to voice mail) and they never replied to email.

Within a few days of filing a BBB complaint, I had a resolution and a refund check mailed.

If your having a problem getting ripped off and no one else will help then call…:D

http://assets.hulu.com/shows/key_art_the_a_team.jpg
(Hey fool you better give these guys a good deal or, I’m going to bust you up real bad).

I’d personally shop around and look for legitimate cinema suppliers that do real cinema seats often you can get reconditioned cinema seats as cheap as biscuits.

Make that 10 bad complaints from the BBB.

Want proof? I'll send you pics of seven, yup, seven badly damaged seats from these jokers. Best part is there weren't even the seats I ordered. They tried to tell me that they called me and I accepted these instead. What a joke. Oh, the replacement shipment that finally came, you guessed it, it was damaged as well. Long stoy short, AMEX saw the scam and gave me my money back. It only took two months to straighten that out. you'd think that this doesn't go on to this level but it does. They even hung up on me when I demanded a full refund after the second damaged shipment. UPS even called me to ask if I thought the company had a scam going. I could go on, but I got better things to do. You've been warned.

Now, back to my Crown Royal, three cubes, and "The Dark Night."

back to my Crown Royal, three cubes, and "The Dark Night

hmmmmmmmmmm

sounds good. :)

Funny when you search the net for certain store problems you come up with a bunch of good info.

I am also here to share my disgust with this company. They are horrible to deal with and I am trying to get a refund from them as we speak. I have also launched a credit card dispute claim.

23 days ago they charged my card for a couple of light boxes. I have called and emailed with inquiries to my order, and they do not like to respond. When I do get someone on the phone, she merely says, "oh, they need to be packaged and sent, we will give you a tracking number probably tomorrow". This has happened several times. It is obvious they are floating peoples money.

The whole thing leaves a nasty taste in my mouth. Poor customer service and horrible wait times, yeah I am going somewhere else.

I truly would not recommend dealing with this company. I do plan on filing a report with the BBB as well.

For anyone looking to buy berklines, I recommend furnitureblue.com. They gave me an amazing deal on 12003s with real leather (4 seat power with leather (not bonded) for 2085$ and this was about 300 odd dealers cheaper than power buy which was with bonded leather. It is being shipped today (after 28 days after order) and it will be here next week. I will update once it arrives. Couple of others recommended the place on this forum with good experiences. And come on, that price cannot be beat. I really suggest u all to do ur due diligence at this site before buying. I took a good deal of time before purchasing.

Looks like I stumbled upon this forum a bit too late. Count me as another rube who may have been taken by 4seating. Like HDHTutah above, I ordered a pair of lighted-poster cases about 3 weeks ago. To date, the only thing I have received was an email confirming the purchase. I've sent two e-mails since and received nothing in reply. I'll be giving the customer service number a call on Monday, but judging by the previous posts, I'm not expecting this to be resolved any time soon.

Had something similar happen with a projector only to find out the same thing you guys are finding out; that the company doesnt actually posses the items there selling and are floating so far behind that they need to keep taking other peoples money to pay there back bills & orders... keep complaining and make sure it effects where there currently trying to sell, it is the only thing that matters to them if your effecting there current sales...

In the future, please take the time to search for complaints before placing orders and look for recommendations here on the site. And to give him yet one more glowing recommendation check out rtheaters.com for your seats. Its been almost 2 years since I got my Berkeline collection and RSH is still always helpfull if you have any problems and/or questions about the purchase. (and no I dont work for any HT company...)

Another thing that helped me with my previous problem with a similar company is contacting sites that advertised for the company causing the problems. And although it is not the advertisers responsibilty to see to the problem, it does cause a stink and if the retailer doesnt want to lose business he sees to greasing that squeaky problem...