We purchased a play set from Play N’ Learn Columbia in May 2020. During the purchasing process, the sale representative (George Humphreys) was readily available via chat, email and phone to answer my questions and provide me with information regarding the purchase (as we were not able to see the sets in the store due to the COVID-19 pandemic). Our set was installed in June 2020 and upon inspecting the installed play set, I noticed that many of the beams were split, damaged, and splintered. This was extreme concerning to us, given that it is an expensive purchase and we worried about the safety and quality of the product (Note: the split wood got worse with use in just the past month). I contacted George to make him aware of the damage and, over the course of a few days, continued to contact George regarding additional beams that I realized had damage. I requested over and over via email and multiple calls that George call me to discuss the problems and a resolution and not once did he call me to discuss. He offered, via email, to have some of the beams replaced but had to seek approval from his manager (Frank Goldstein). Due to the lack of responsiveness from George and the lack of any indication that he cared one bit about the damage to our brand new play set, I began contacting Frank directly. Frank offered to come to my house to look at the damage that I was complaining about and to decide what can be done to fix it. I appreciated his willingness to come to look at the product himself; however, he showed up at my house with an attitude and was very impolite and unprofessional in his demeanor. Frank insisted that the “damage” I identified was normal and, over and over again, he told me “if you are expecting perfection, maybe a wooden play set isn’t for you.” It was not until I pointed out how unprofessional and rude he was being to me, that Frank change his tone. Eventually, he agreed to replace some, not all, of the damaged beams. I was, and still to this day am, taken aback at the way that I was treated by both George and Frank, but I wanted to wait until the damage beams were replaced before I posted my experience. This is a word of mouth business and I want everyone to be aware of my experience and this company’s complete disregard for its customers. Most customer service oriented companies would have apologized that the product and/or installation was not up to par and would have immediately offered to make it right. Unfortunately, I have yet to receive one apology, they charged me $399 for installation and Frank informed me that I was lucky to even get a play set in the first place because of the high demand. This is not a cheap product and I suggest taking your money elsewhere to avoid all of the stress, regret and disappointment that this experience has caused.
