Frustration with Penney's Home Decorating

Allow me to vent again. This time it's about vertical blinds that we did not receive.

We have two huge sliding glass doors that give us a nice view of the mountains. When we bought the house, it came with insulated shades that cover the windows at night -- very old insulated shades. We got tired of them coming out of their tracks and decided to replace them with vertical blinds.

Frank wanted to just buy a few sets and put them up but I really wanted them professionally done. I haven't been happy with vertical blinds in the past because we crimped the tracks slightly during installation and that made them hard to pull open and shut.

So we arranged for a home decorating visit from JCPenney's. After some initial confusion with their national office, a nice lady from the Winchester store came out in late winter and measured carefully and showed us countless samples. Finally we agreed on something and placed an order, paying half as a down payment. The installation date was set as the week of April 21.

I called JCP's the week before that and left a message asking when they would come. Got no answer and called twice the week of the 21st, getting an answering machine and leaving a message. When we still did not hear back, Frank called the store manager. After that the decorator called us and said she would call the installers. Later she called to say she left a message for them and would let us know.

The next week I called her cell phone and she said she would call them again. This was repeated several more times.

Four weeks after the original installation date, the supplier called to say that the blinds had been delayed and would be ready in July. "What!" I exclaimed. "That's two months from now!"

And three months late... so we canceled the order. Now we are back to deciding what to do about covering the windows.