New York woman buys a $3,000 couch from Ashley Furniture. Then her expectations shatter within minutes: ‘It’s not funny to me at all’

Buying a new couch is usually the kind of purchase that should make a home feel a little more settled. For one New York woman, however, the arrival of her new furniture turned into a customer service problem that she says has yet to be resolved.

TikTok creator Nina Alexander shared her experience in a video that has since drawn attention to what happened after she ordered a couch from Ashley Furniture. The furniture arrived in poor condition, and her attempt to find a replacement at the store led to another unexpected failure.

Alexander had owned the same couch for eight years before deciding it was finally time for something new. She ordered a couch from Ashley and also paid for removal of her existing furniture, expecting the replacement to arrive on her birthday, June 28. “We finally wanted to get a new one,” she explains, adding that the delivery ultimately came two days later. The delay, however, was not her main concern.

What happened once she had the couch inside her home was a different matter

According to Alexander, the furniture appeared to have been previously used. Ashley representatives eventually acknowledged her concerns during phone conversations, with the creator recalling that they agreed “it’s clear that I was given a couch with a tag on it, in plastic, in a box covered in white German Shepherd dog hair.” The most obvious problem, she claims, was the amount of dog hair covering the furniture.

Her background as a veterinary technician led her to identify it as white German Shepherd hair, with the couch “covered in it” and the pillows covered as well. The couch also allegedly had stains, while the loveseat did not match the sofa in color. The furniture then failed almost immediately.

The damage was not limited to the upholstery. Alexander says sitting down was enough to expose a problem underneath the couch, where she heard the staples give way and found an opening in the base. Issues with expensive furniture can be particularly frustrating when problems only become visible after delivery, as another customer discovered after paying movers to handle her belongings.

“I had owned the couch less than two minutes,” Alexander says in the video. She says she had only sat down to test the feel of the couch when the staples gave way.

Ashley subsequently agreed to an exchange, according to Alexander. That sent her back to the showroom to find another option, where she settled on considering the Caldwell sectional.

This time, however, Alexander wanted to test the furniture before committing to another purchase. She asked a sales associate to remove the cushions and stand on the base. The employee did so, only for the structure to break underneath him.

“The wood goes flying everywhere,” Alexander says. She adds that the employee “turns bright red” after the incident. Her reaction was considerably less amused. “It’s not funny to me at all,” she says.

Getting an expensive purchase resolved can become a problem of its own when something goes wrong after delivery. That is particularly true when customers have to rely on a retailer to make things right, as one Target shopper discovered after receiving an empty box instead of her $235 order.

Alexander says she is now dealing with corporate representatives and is considering legal action over the roughly $3,000 purchase. She ends the video with a straightforward message for other shoppers considering the retailer.

“I hope Ashley hears it. And I hope someone who’s considering getting Ashley furniture to not do it.”