Scavolini

We paid InterAmerican Development Solutions (doing business as Scavolini Store Washington DC) in March 2015 for kitchen cabinets supply and installation (total $32,000). Scavolini DC delivered the cabinets in August, with the owner (Angelo Zamborano) alleging ?technical difficulties in Italy?. A Scavolini DC sub-contractor told us inadvertently that the real reason for the extreme delay was that Scavolini DC kept our money for a while before placing the order with Italy.

Scavolini DC then abandoned the cabinets in our living room for several days after confirming that the flooring and overall site was ready for installation but that they had higher priority commitments elsewhere.

They acknowledged several missing parts, including key structural supports, but were unable and unwilling to order them. Scavolini DC then repeatedly bungled the installation and butchered the cabinets haphazardly in attempting to fix installation errors and to compensate for the missing parts.

The heavy kitchen peninsula detached spontaneously from the adjoining masonry wall within less than a day of installation.

Scavolini DC resorted to breaking the legs and other parts of the cabinets to adjust for numerous additional installation mistakes, and permanently weakened the load-bearing stability of the remaining structures. Scavolini DC repeatedly asked us to re-install appliances because of wrong parts or of incorrect cabinet installation to begin with.

Scavolini DC ultimately destroyed our confidence in their fundamental competence and acknowledged our independent inspectors? assessments that the kitchen installation was beyond commercially or aesthetically reasonable repair by any provider.

We have the following issues raised in the kitchen project.
1.      Breach of Contract
2.      Design Defects
3.      Incompetent executive store manager and designer and Remedy offered by Executive Manager 
1.   Breach of Contract
After signing the purchase contract on August 8, 2014, Scavolini-DC has changed the original design at least twice without notifying us.  On August 8, 2014, we signed the contract and purchased the Kitchen design and Scavolini cabinetry (LIBERA MENTE) from Scavolini, Washington DC store.  However, during the installation in January, 2015, we found out that there are two more designs (first and second modified designs) of our kitchen project, which are different from the original design.
These two modified designs are dated as September 16, 2014, and January 5, 2015.  We were not aware of these modified designs until the installation started on site.  We found out about the design change because we found a document that the installer has left the document on site.  Thus, we have few cabinets that were not part of the design.  
2. Design Defects
I will make this very short.  They designed our countertop with 30 inch depth and gave us base cabinets with 22 inch depth.  We lose over 6 inches of floor space and storage space for no reason.  
One of the ordered cabinets do not fit in the designated space due to their inaccurate measurement.  
FYI, we have more issues than mentioned above (we have prepared a document over 20 pages long).   
3. Incompetent executive store manager and designer 
Regarding the first issue (breach of contract), we expected to receive a reasonable explanation from Scavolini-DC.  However, we did not receive any response from them so far. 
During our phone conversation, we were shocked that the Executive manager stated the following:     
- it is the standard of Scavolini to have the installer to modify the newly ordered cabinets to fit the designated area.
- a modified door panel is equal to a new door panel as long as the cut door edge faces the wall so that the cut edge won't be
obvious.
Our kitchen project became an absolute nightmare.  Depending on the result, we were planning to recommend the company to couple of our friends/families who are also planning to do kitchen remodeling, but after this, we cannot recommend this company to anyone.  
We also contacted the main headquarter of Scavolini US, but no response was received after 2 weeks.    

We had ongoing doubts about the competence, skill, timeliness, and especially the "warranty" that seemed different every time they explained it to us (and the verbal explanation was always different from what was actually on paper). All concerns were generally met with a laxidasical, "don't worry about it" response.  The problem with ordering somewhat expensive, pre-paid cabinets from Italy is that if things aren't just right the first time, you are left holding the bag as your renovation grinds to a halt. It wasn't his money, so Felix didn't seem to understand and/or care about that. He didn't write things down, or if he did he didn't read his notes, because certain details would be there in one iteration, then gone the next, so you had to keep a very close eye to make sure you knew what you were getting.  
I could list a lot of examples of problems (like they didn't ever confirm a faucet or sink option even though apparently it was included in our estimate?) but ultimately what happened to us is the single worst customer service experience my husband or I have ever encountered, hands down.  
Back in April (2012) when we were deciding whether or not to plunk down the design fee and proceed, we worked out a 10 percent overall discount on cabinets with the other guy at the store, Angelo (whose role is still unclear to us, as he essentially just walked in and out of the store with a small dog, made coffee, and bothered Felix from what we could determine. Maybe he was the franchise owner? He seemed to be the boss, but it was clear Felix did all the work by himself as the only time Angelo ever called us during this whole thing was the time he gave me the 10 percent discount and followed it by saying if that wasn't good enough we should just go to Ikea).  Following my phone conversation with Angelo, I sent an email to Felix documenting our conversation and the 1- percent discount from Angelo. Some subsequent iterations of the estimate even showed this 10 percent "Angelo's discount" on them.  Come June after months of back and forth, meetings with their contractor and our contractor, and when we were ready to sign the final contract despite all our doubts about these guys, it comes to us *without* the 10 percent discount. Despite my having forwarded that old email to Felix that documented Scavolini's word to us about the discount, he said, "That was an agreement between you and Angelo, and Angelo said he never gave you that discount. You know full well that he never said 10 percent, and he said 5 percent. You are trying to take advantage of me while Angelo is out of town." WHAT?!?!  Enter: the twilight zone!  We were literally about to sign the dotted line after months of working with them when they pulled this out of nowhere.  
So, they call us liars (they did it twice in two separate emails, actually) and their version of customer service was in that same email to say they'd agree to an 8 percent discount. This just added insult to injury because their consolation prize essentially meant that they were willing to ruin this deal, call us liars, make themselves look like incompetent jerks (remember, both of us had the written April  agreement for the 10 percent) all over what now would amount to a few hundred bucks of the cabinets out of a nearly $30K overall deal for counters, installation, etc.  What business does that?!  And, Angelo never once even bothered to call to us personally. We only ever got terse emails from Felix insulting us and saying "what Angelo said."
Needless to say, we walked away. If they didn't honor a simple line of written documentation regarding an agreed upon discount prior to us even paying them, what would they do if the cabinets came in incorrectly after we had already given them full payment? Would all our other written documentation also be moot based on the whim of some guy with a dog?  
Then, the rest of Scavolini showed its true colors. We thought that given the size of this company, perhaps it's just the incompetent duo in the DC store that's the problem. We contacted the flagship store in NYC thinking perhaps they could process our order given that we had so much invested in this already (contractor ready to go, etc). We called, and didn't say a word about the discount issue but simply said we'd prefer not to work through the NYC store if possible because the DC store wasn't working for us. Immediately, we recieved another nasty gram from the DC store that said, "We heard you called the NYC store complaining about the discount,"  and then something about how they still thought the 8 percent discount is fair, they went out of their way for us, and that we were bad clients. Back in NYC, no one ever returned our call.
With our kitchen on the line, we called NYC again about a week later. Saying she was shocked, the same store clerk who answered last time said that the "president of Scavolini USA would be calling us back" and she was sorry. Nothing.  We called a THIRD time to try and salvage this or at least get our deposit back, and again the same clerk feigned shock and said someone would call us right away, and again: NOTHING.
AVOID THIS BAD JOKE OF A STORE (AND COMPANY)!!!  You'll just lose your precious time and wind up confused, insulted, and ripped-off a design fee (no, they never gave that back). BEWARE!