Why I would never purchase from Vosges, Inc. again
Vosges, Inc. posted inaccurate images of its product to its catalog and then, without notice or client authorization, shipped inferior products with altered designs that it refused to correct. I believe that I have been misled and would not recommend Vosges as an honest or trustworthy maker of custom furniture and would never again work with the firm.
Earlier this year, I ordered four tables from Vosges, Inc. based upon a website catalog page. I drafted a detailed purchase order in which I embedded Vosges’s own catalog images of the tables. I reinforced the specificity of my request by explaining to its “Founder Manager,” on multiple occasions, that I was seeking a specific effect and needed the brass components of the tables to look exactly like the ones in the catalog. Each of these tables is expensive, and as such one expects to receive exactly what one has ordered.
Approximately half a year after the inception of my order, the tables were received and not as shown in the catalog. My request and the purchase order had been ignored. Key design elements from the catalog image were altered: (1) a prominent moulding design had been changed in proportion, altering the appearance of the base; (2) the design of the table legs was different from the catalog, especially the feet; and (3) a completely different, less detailed turnkey, one of the table’s most prominent design features, was used and not the one from the catalog. Were these inexpensive ready-made tables, one might forgive the changes, but that was not the case. Collectively, these tables cost in the tens of thousands of dollars and had to be shipped, at great expense, from France.
In the days following order receipt, I gave Vosges the benefit of the doubt and communicated with its “Founder Manager” about the tables. In order not to offend, I made every effort to compliment the elements of the tables that were well made while requesting that corrections be made. I even offered to return the incorrect components so that they could be corrected to look like the tables in the catalog image.
Vosges flatly refused to correct the tables, despite admitting the differences between the catalog image and what was shipped, incorrectly calling the differences “truly minor and imperceptible.” It is noteworthy that Vosges thinks it is acceptable to make design changes to a client’s order without notice or authorization, and after receipt of funds. Vosges’s changes are quite obvious when one compares the tables shown in the catalog with the ones received. Had Vosges been an honest actor, it could have taken one of many opportunities to update its catalog and/or inform me that the design of the catalog tables would be different from that of the tables to be shipped. The refusal to correct the order is not the response of a "trustworthy source for custom-made furniture" that "meet[s] the most demanding requests,” which is how Vosges promotes itself on its website. It is, in my view, the response of a firm that misleads a client with an inaccurate catalog image of a table the firm might not even have made, extracts payment, and then ships an inferior version of that product, leaving the customer in the lurch.