American Freight

I hope that this email finds you and your family doing well. My name is Chernell Bizzell, and I wanted to contact you as a person in leadership at American freight to share with you one of the MOST unbelievably disrespectful, degrading, and despicable customer service experiences I have EVER, literally, had in my entire life. I have been fortunate enough to have been all over the world, and have had interactions with people from many cultures, belief systems and behavior patterns, but I have never seen salespeople behave the way two of your salespersons did in Forestdale, AL on 7/16/2023. To be fair, I have seen varying degrees of ugly behavior, rudeness, and condescension.

However, the experience I had with Shontoya and Ben at the Forestdale, AL American Freight store was unlike any experience I have ever had! I will love to share the details with you, they are lengthy, and I will start with a summation. The police were called on me at that store on Sunday the 16th.As an African American in this country, at this time, to have the police called on me could have cost me my life, literally. I could have been shot and killed because all because the store clerks were dishonest in their explanation of services and deceived me just to make the sale. They omitted pertinent information to aid in me making a well-informed decision about the purchase of items from the store. She took my delivery fee after telling me that is non-refundable and from the documentation that she gave me when I made the purchase, that information is not listed anywhere.

I want to get my delivery fee back because the furniture was never delivered, and the delivery guys never arrived at my home. Lastly, they treated me like I was garbage not deserving of an iota of respect, they laughed and ganged up on me with their vicious words and personal attacks. There must not be a camera monitoring the store based on the way they behaved, and I realized that rather quickly. I couldn’t have imagined them behaving that way if there was one. It appears to me, that their behavior is a common practice and that they have behaved this way regularly. I do have video that I will release of their behavior that day. It is footage of Ben and Shatoyas behavior towards me. It shows all the ugly things they were saying and how unprofessional they were. It shows me in there upset and trying to get to some form of resolution with your salespeople, who should not be in any community treating customers the way they treated me that day. Ben the Manager also has footage that he recorded of me as well. I caught him sneaking and recording me as I engaged in dialog with Shontoya.

I have started counseling to help me through this ordeal. Having the police called on me was extremely traumatic, being disrespected taunted, laughed at, and ripped off for my delivery fee in which she taxed has been extremely difficult. It has affected my sleep, I have made an appointment with my primary doctor because of the chest pain I started having after I left the store that day. My nervous system was overloaded, I was shaking extremely from the stress of the situation.

Saturday, July 15th I went to the Forestdale American Freight store to purchase some bedroom furniture. My husband and I arrived in the late afternoon. We looked around and decided on what we wanted. I had several questions because this purchase, in my household, is considered a large purchase which means we must do our due diligence in knowing the details of the items we wanted to purchase. I met Shontoya and she appeared to be kind enough, at that time. After asking several questions about the pieces we were interested in she started to become mildly agitated and mildly passive aggressive, I could tell I had reached my limit of being able to ask questions. We asked about delivery because my husband and I both work and needed to know the details of how it works if we decided to use the service. Ultimately, we decided to use the delivery service. I asked if we could set the delivery up at around 3:00 pm because we won’t be home before that time. She told us “Yes” she can schedule us for 3:00. She started to explain that they had a warranty, and we should get it. She told us that the manufacturer’s warranty only lasted 48 hours on the furniture, which I thought was weird, but okay. I asked for written information on the warranty I wanted to read the terms of the warranty. The confusing part is, I had to ask for written information on the warranty plan and when I did ask, she appeared agitated about me asking for it in written form. I guess she wanted me to take her word for the details. I started feeling, based on her behavior, that this store purchase may be a very bad idea, but I wanted to read reviews on the store’s site.

After reading the reviews on the store site I felt that maybe I was misreading her. We decided to give it a shot and returned Sunday July 16th to purchase the furniture. I started to ask more questions about the furniture and delivery again especially on the delivery time (3:00 pm) because we would not be home to receive it and I made that VERY CLEAR. In hindsight, I realize she said that (they can deliver at 3) just to make the sale. She did not want to create any barriers to us making the purchase even if she had to lie to us to get our money. In addition, she sparingly shared the terms of the warranty, and in reading the reviews on the BBB website, she did not tell us ANY information about the warranty other call this number if you have a claim and write down everybody’s name when you talk to them which was another red flag based on the way. Her comment, the use of the words, and body language indicated to us that there has been a lot of issues with the warranty. I just should have left the store then.

We make the purchase, I had to ask for a warranty brochure, which providing one should have been normal and a routine part of the process of purchase. She provided one, then when I walked away, she called the next customer and sighed very loud to indicate to the customer that I was “getting on her nerves.” The problem with that is any sensible person buying anything that will cost their household over a thousand dollars will have several questions. So, when she was evidently rude, I was just surprised, but I wanted to keep my cool and not stoop to her level. Interestingly, when she ran my card for the purchase, she starts dancing, popping her fingers, and singing. She then became very friendly and told me how nice my glasses were. All the passive aggression disappeared for the moment.

Tuesday, July 18th, at 11:00 am I received a call from Shontoya asking me if I am ready to receive my furniture. I became confused because we had already had the discussion regarding the time, we can be there to receive the furniture. Then she said “okay” and that was the end of the conversation. I get home early to receive the furniture after leaving work. I don’t get off until 4:30. I’m waiting around for them to arrive at 3:00, but no one shows. I understand that people run late get caught in traffic, so I didn’t mind them running late. But at 3:20, I called and spoke to Ben to see what the ETA for the furniture. He told me that “the guys were in Helena, and when they leave Helena they were coming to me.” I said “okay.” I wait around more, and at 4:30, no one had arrived, and I called the store back and spoke with Ben again. He then told me that the guys were in “Gardendale” which you must pass my home to go to Gardendale”. I asked why they passed my home to go to Gardendale especially since I have been waiting since 3:00 pm. Ben replied, very rudely, “ma’am” we don’t tell people when we are going to be at their homes, we just show up when we can, which is contrary to the past few days of conversation. He takes a big sigh and says “I am going to put you on hold” then Shontoya comes to the phone and contradicts everything she told me about the purchase. I told them “I am coming to get my money back.

I arrive at the store and go in and ask for a refund. Very condescendingly she tries to reinforce that they don’t have delivery times which was not what she told me Sunday. I replied, “just give me my money, I am not going to go back and forth with you.” Ben started talking to me telling me that I am childish, asking me how old am, and I just a bunch of random ugliness. That is when it came to me, there must not be a camera in this store to record how disrespectful, ugly-spirited, hateful they are being. I felt extremely unsafe in that store. There was another African American guy in there(employee) who did not engage the same way they did even though they tried their best to bring him in it. It appeared to me that he has seen this go on many times before and did not want to behave like they were behaving.

Shontoya told me that she wasn’t going to give me my delivery fee back because they loaded it on the truck, and it’s not their fault that they were not there at 3:00. I said to her “call the police.” She never told us that if we get a refund that the delivery fee is not refundable. It is not listed on the receipt, there is no indication anywhere in the purchase paperwork she gave me that mentions that the delivery fee is non-refundable, and the police also pointed that out. All I received, besides the warranty brochure, and she NEVER EVER mentioned that. We continued to go back and forward arguing profusely about the fee and Ben told her to call the police. When she got on the phone, she told the police dispatcher (that I was in the store yelling, she explained the story to the dispatcher in which 70% was half-truths obviously in her favor. The only truth she told is that I was upset about the delivery. She then made a specific mention to the dispatcher that “she is Black.” I thought to myself, what does me being Black have to do with anything? I yelled to the dispatcher; I am African American. The line she used is the very line that many African American’s are being murdered by police every day in this country. We have lost hundreds of Black men and women in the last two year from the line used “they are Black.” What it does is send a false and misleading signal out that this person is a threat, dangerous, and need to be handle with all force necessary. This is well documented as the precursor to many unarmed African Americans being murdered by police. When, they are truly the victims, as in this case. Thus, I could have been shot and killed by Adamsville police that day.

Shontoya told the police that there was a contract that said I could not get my fee back, but I was never given this contract. She told the police she had to have someone send it to her from another location and that she wanted them, them the police, to make me sign it and then she wanted me to leave. The police had to tell her that they can’t make me sign anything. This situation could have been easily avoided had they been honest with me, showed up in a timely manner, and had some level of professionalism. I have had to start counseling to help me through this situation. Having the police called on me was extremely traumatic, being disrespected taunted, laughed at, and ripped off for my delivery fee in which she taxed it when she supposedly refunded my money. I paid $109.00 in the beginning for the delivery, but when my money was refunded, she took $118.00, and additional $9 dollars more than I paid for the delivery fee. The furniture was not delivered they never ever showed up to the house EVER, and to have to wait from 3:00-4:30 for a delivery is unprofessional, inconsiderate and are very bad business practices. Please refund my delivery fee.