Urban Archaeology

I wish I read the other reviews before doing business with urban archeology. They certainly have beautiful things but their customer service is beyond reproach. I’m sure it stems from the leadership; the owner Gil, is brash, unhelpful, and frankly inappropriate. I would caution anyone on doing business with then.

My wife Alexa and I love this company. They fully replaced a really expensive bathtub that had a defect and the way the owner, Mr Shapiro, handled it was first class. Just a tremendous product and experience. We live all the way out in SF area so this was a big deal.

I DO NOT WRITE MANY Unilocal REVIEWS BUT THE ABSOLUTE INCOMPETENCE OF URBAN ARCHEOLOGY CAUSED ME TO DO SO. What did they do wrong? The full story is below, but their incompetence falls into 3 broad categories.
1. FAILURE TO TAKE ANY LEVEL OF OWNERSHIP OR RESPONSIBILITY FOR A RESULT THAT WAS SOLELY IN THEIR CONTROL TO AVOID
2. CHARGED US FOR INSURANCE BUT FAILED TO ADVISE HOW TO FILE INSURANCE CLAIM WITH UPS
3. THEY DESTROYED ORIGINAL PACKAGING WHICH THEY KNEW WAS NECESSARY TO FILE INSURANCE CLAIM
The back story— We purchased an expensive light fixture from Urban Archeology («UA») in Nov 2011. It was delivered Jan 2012. UA has a 3 day inspection policy. We opened the box with our designer and we examined the fixture with the naked eye. There was no «apparent» damage on the fixture or to the box. We did not remove the fixture from the box (the material was alabaster and it was extremely heavy). But we looked for signs of breakage and there wasn’t any.
We called our electrician who came 3 weeks later to install the fixture. In the interim period, the box stayed on the floor exactly where we first opened it. As soon as the electrician lifted the heavy fixture from the box a piece of the alabaster broke off (into 3 pieces). We immediately called UA. They reminded us of the 3 day inspection policy. We said we were aware of the policy and told them we did open and inspect but there must have been a hairline fracture that occurred during shipping that wasn’t visible upon our initial inspection. UA INSTRUCTED US TO SEND THE FIXTURE BACK TO THEM IN THE ORIGINAL BOX/​PACKAGING AND THEY WOULD INSPECT AND GET BACK TO US. We hoped they would do the right thing.
We incurred the additional cost and sent them the fixture in the original packaging as instructed. They looked at the fixture and said they would not replace it because we did not notify them within 3 days. Not the result we had hoped for but we were prepared to move on.
We reminded UA that we had been charged for insurance and asked what exactly that covered. IN RESPONSE TO OUR INQUIRY — FOR THE FIRST TIME — THEY SAID WE HAD PAID FOR INSURANCE THROUGH UPS FOR THE FULL VALUE OF THE FIXTURE.
We then called UPS and put in a claim (they accepted the claim — they do not have a 3 day policy). They scheduled an appointment to inspect the fixture at UA. UPS’s only requirement was that the broken fixture was in its original box/​packaging. We called UA to notify them UPS would be processing the claim/​inspecting the fixture.
UA notified us they had bad news — UA HAD DESTROYED THE ORIGINAL PACKAGING WHICH THEY KNEW, BASED ON PRIOR DEALINGS WITH UPS, WAS NECESSARY FOR UPS TO PROCESS THE CLAIM. AS A RESULT, SOLEY DUE TO UA’S NEGLIGANCE, WE COULD NOT GET UPS TO COVER THE LOSS.
When we brought all of this to UA’s attention, they took no responsibility or ownership of the issue and refused to replace our fixture. We were shocked and dismayed at their response. HAD THEY HANDLED THIS MATTER APPROPRIATELY FROM THE BEGINNING (ADVISING US TO CONTACT UPS AND HOW TO FILE THE CLAIM THROUGH UPS) WE WOULD EVER HAD INCURRED ADDITIONAL COSTS TO SEND THE FIXTURE BACK TO UA OR TO REPLACE THE BROKEN FIXTURE. We had insurance! We will never ever do business with them again and we highly recommend others to think twice.
Stay away. This is not the way to treat customers/​to run a business.