Canada Jane

Don’t get anything delivered from Ikea

No more snow to report, it is still quite barmy here in Ontario! We seem to have brought an English winter with us, although we shouldn’t speak too soon!

This week we managed to finish the kitchen. We now have a new backsplash, which looks really nice and new lights over the breakfast bar. So I think I can finally let hubby rest for a week or two.

In order to finish the basement area, we had ordered a large wall unit from Ikea here in Canada but what a palaver. I would urge anyone thinking of ordering anything from Ikea online, not to.

We placed the order via their website on Dec 27th. It said that someone would contact us within 24 and 48 hours to give us details of the shipping costs as the site could not provide this information.

We waited and waited and gave some leeway as it was New Year and then finally got a phone call on Tues 2nd Jan to say that they still did not have shipping costs and someone would call within 24 hours.

So again we waited. Then on Friday 5th when we still hadn’t heard anything I phoned their customer case line. After being on hold for quite some time I spoke to someone who said that they had got the shipping costs. I asked why no one had called and he couldn’t answer that. So I asked what the costs were and he replied $135. After I got back onto my chair I asked if I had heard correctly, he said yes $135. So I told him to cancel the order. He seemed very shocked that I would want to do this and suggested that I have the item delivered to a different town to cut down on the costs.

I couldn’t really understand what he was trying to suggest, but it turns out he was suggesting that the item was being delivered from Toronto and that if had it delivered, to say, Peterborough I would cost less and I could collect it from there. He was seriously suggesting that if I had it delivered to a place closer to Toronto I could collect it from there – but still pay a delivery fee, perhaps only $100. I told him that if I was going to collect it I would do so from the store itself and save all the shipping costs.

He then said gleefully that if I spent another $50, I would be entitled to a $50 discount on shipping costs, so it would be cheaper for me!!!!!!!!! I said, “So if I spend another $50, I will save $50, but not actually be any better off at the end, only have something extra that I didn’t really want.” He didn’t seem to understand the irony of that.

So the moral of this story is, if you want to buy something from Ikea, go to the store and collect it yourself.

So, sometime next week we will be off to Toronto – oh joy!