A B.

I was initially told it would take 17-19 weeks to get my Cameo Indigo Open Bookcase. It took an extra month. After waiting this long, on the delivery date, the delivery guy told me the base piece was broken. He told me I could either send the entire item back with him or else they could have the base piece replaced. After such a long wait time, you would think C&B would be VERY careful in their delivery, but apparently they take less care than IKEA. The delivery guy also did not assemble the shelves, but simply left them in a box for me to put in. I elected not to send the item back right away and called C&B customer service. The first person I spoke to, Amanda, did her best to be helpful, gave me a contact information to send a picture of the break, and took down the information of what happened. In order to deal with the situation, she had to transfer me to someone else. I then had to repeat the entire story to this other person, Kimberly, who was completely unhelpful. She told me it would take another 19-24 weeks just to replace THE BASE PIECE ALONE--the same amount of time it took to get the ENTIRE BOOKCASE made! I asked her if C&B could expedite this replacement, because C&B had broken the item in the first place. She said "they"--meaning the manufacturers--refused to change "their" schedule at C&B's request. This is a pathetic excuse. It's bad enough for C&B to break a long-delayed custom-made piece before delivery, but then to make a customer endure the same delay AGAIN before it can be repaired, and to disclaim responsibility for it, is a ridiculous business practice. Kimberly agreed to waive delivery and assembly fees for the item and for the replacement base piece, but did not offer me a discount on the item itself, which she should have done. It's ridiculous to expect me to pay full price on an item that will end up taking a YEAR before I have it in proper condition, when I was told I would get it in 17-19 weeks. I had to call C&B again and speak to a different person, named Vidhya, and I had to actually demand a discount. Vidhya was very helpful and was able to agree to a 15% discount as well as waiving all delivery/assembly fees. However, she would/could not agree to a greater than 15% discount and she could do nothing about the time it would take to replace the base piece. She also said she could arrange for the item to be taken away and fully refunded if I preferred. Removing the item would have taken another 11 days. Neither of these options are at all good. Eventually, because I do like the indigo color and because the break in the base didn't impair the stability of the item, I told C&B I would keep the piece and take the discount. But I would NEVER recommend that anyone else buy this piece or anything else from Crate and Barrel. Crate and Barrel is just too unreliable and unhelpful and screws over their customers. Even their more helpful customer service representatives can do nothing when the company itself has such bad practices.