Bray & Scarff

Reviews 3

A

A Private User

We recently had one of the strangest experiences with a retailer. Actually, it still is ongoing so perhaps we’re getting ahead of ourselves. In a nutshell, the salesperson Sean R. had positive moments and the installation was both on time and done professionally. But for some strange reason, the process of sending me the receipt and rebate form that covers the delivery cost is proving to be a grind taking well over three weeks without anything in the mail yet. To be fair, I’ll give the details below. Our dish washer broke a few days prior to Christmas. We like shopping locally and due to a positive experience in the past I went to the Arlington Bray and Scharff. Sean R. patiently answered my questions and provided some helpful insights into dishwashers and the different models. After returning home and talking with the boss, I checked showroom model along with similar models on their website. I called Sean -- there was an accompanied e-mail to help the conversation -- with a few more questions and made a purchase. At the moment, he was busy with a few things and he said he would process the order later. Consequently, he didn’t give me a run down on the total. Now I was uncomfortable with that, but I felt that he had put some time and effort into the sale and thought that (1) he deserved the commission and (2) since everything was so positive I figured that it was unlikely anything would go amiss. Now I think that there was some miscommunication around here. Thinking back on the conversation, paraphrasing, he said that he had my e-mail address and that he would mail me my receipt. I interpreted it as he would e-mail me my receipt but perhaps there was a period between the two fragments meaning he would snail mail me the receipt. A few hours later in the day, I e-mailed about the receipt. The following day, since I never received a response, I called but another salesperson answered saying Sean was busy with another customer. The salesperson gave me the total, I asked for a quick breakdown but he responded that he was in the middle of customer and that Sean would call me back. Unfortunately, I never got a call nor was there a message from Sean. With the holiday, I had other things to do such that before I knew, it the 12/29/2011 delivery was just about here such that I called the prior evening regarding when to expect the deliverymen and the receipt/rebate form. Sean was not there but another salesperson answered the delivery questions, printed out the form/receipt and said that he left a note on Sean’s desk to please mail it out. As I mentioned earlier, the delivery went well: the men arrived according to schedule and did their job professionally. Before I knew it, another week passed without a receipt/rebate form such that I called the evening of 1/4/2012 and got the same salesperson as the prior week. The gentleman actually recognized me, was astonished that I had not received the paperwork, and without any comments from me, insisted that he left the forms with a note on Sean’s desk the previous week. He sounded really annoyed but told me he would make sure that the paperwork was sent out. Six days later, 1/10/2012, still no letter from Bray and Scharff with my paperwork. I called tonight figuring that Sean might be off Wednesdays and I got a polite salesperson named Jerome. He was going to leave another note for Sean, but I’ve decided that I need to talk to a manager to get the paperwork. I’m assuming that all will go well tomorrow over this mind-numbingly trivial matter. In the end, I’m not sure what to think. Fundamentally, the advice was good. Most matched what I already knew and, moreover, Sean provided some good insights. But either this is some string of weirdo coincidences or someone is blowing off a crazy easy task that ended up making a very positive experience into a so-so experience. Most likely, next time I’ll do more research on the Internet and talk to the Bray and Scharff online sales department which was helpful in the past.

NE

Neil Schuster

weve used Bray and Scarff for quite a few appliance purchases over the last 10 years or so - dishwasher, refrigerator, and just recently, washing machine. we spoke with Pablo Vallejos when we visited the Arlington store. He was very courteous, professional, and knowledgeable and is GREAT at customer service. He listened to our needs and suggested a well-rated dishwasher (I checked ratings online while we were in the store), and then calculated a price (and I checked online - the price was considerably less than I could find anywhere else). also, bray and scarff doesnt load up the price with costly add-ons (for delivery, set-up, removal of an old appliance, etc.). Not a big deal, because I compare the final price online, but i always view excessive add-ons an insult to the consumer. If only car dealers would adopt the Bray and Scarff approach! he clearly explained the invoice he presented to us, explained how to apply for the rebate they offered, scheduled delivery/installation, and said we could contact him with any questions we had. we were very impressed. we opted for the extended warranty (we tend to be heavy washing machine users), and Bray and Scarff offers a nice added feature - if you dont use the extended warranty at all, you get the the full price of the warranty as a credit towards another purchase. I couldnt figure out how to write a new review on Google, so Im editing this review to add info about another Bray & Scarff purchase we made in late April. We needed a dryer, and after doing our online research, we visited Bray & Scarff. One of the managers, Matt Bernier, helped us. He was very friendly, gave us great info on the dryers we were considering, and didnt press us to make a decision. I did a quick online search for the lowest price of the dryer we chose, and showed Matt the results. He offered to meet that lowest price and completed our purchase efficiently. He was great, and made the shopping experience a pleasure. Installation went exactly as planned (on the day and in the timeframe promised), and the two fellows who did the installation called before they arrived. They were efficient and completed the installation very quickly and exactly as we asked. If you are planning an appliance purchase, we suggest you should give Bray and Scarff and their team a chance to wow you. They will!

TI

TIm Cleary

My experience was poor. I bought about $8,000 worth of appliances from these guys if I remember correctly - cooktop, oven, fridge, downdraft vent, and maybe microwave. Premium stuff - GE monogram or GE profile I think. Two years later the GE cooktop stopped working well (click, click noise from ignitor, cant hold simmer etc.). The B&S repair guy came out and for $150 for the visit he told me that I needed to spend $896 as I would have to replace wiring harness, every burner assembly and knob, every valve, double check the gas line, etc., and even that was chancy. Told me I should just spend $1500 on a new cooktop instead. I took them at their word so then spent a couple hours at B&S trying to pick out new cooktop but they had a harder time than I did figuring out which cooktops would pick the specific cutout dimensions which are different for each manufacturer and even model (asked the sales rep about model X in the store, got a google answer in 3 minutes but took them 15 minutes etc). Just didnt have the right / obvious info on hand. I started to worry that B&S maybe didnt really know what they were talking about so decided to put my wallet back in my pocket. So I decided to call GE instead. Two weeks later I got a GE appliance guy to come out. It turns out that the simmer ignitors were corroded - the guy figured it out in 5 minutes and was extremely knowledgable. He even stayed a couple hours more to disassemble the whole thing and validate that nothing else was wrong. It cost me $2 per igniter (they replaced 3) plus $55 for home visit. They actually didnt have the igniters on the truck so they came back for free and got their $6 payment for the ignitors when they came back the second time. So B&S guy spent 20 minutes and got $150 and had a bad solution that was going to cost $900-$1500 to proceed; GE guys had 2 visits, disassembled the whole cooktop to test a bunch of things, spent probably 4 hours total in my house, and it was about $60. No contest on who knew what they were talking about as the cooktop has done fine since (~1 year). Just my experience obviously. But I will not be going back.