We list Lighting by Gregory in our Guide, and have had a pretty good experience with them, but we keep hearing about awful experiences. Here is the lastest that came in last week:
I ordered a ceiling fan from Lighting by Gregory in July, and didn't receive it till mid September (i.e. after summer ended). I had to chase them down, bully customer service, and basically threaten to track down their senior management in order to get a response.
Repeatedly, they just tried to give me a refund rather than deal with the problem-including the head of Customer Service! It's one thing to be out of stock, it's another thing to avoid responding to email queries and phone calls asking for an estimated delivery date. I pointed out that if they had simply just called to let me know the status, I could have ordered another ceiling fan and avoided the headache. No point in being nice on the first go round with them--they only respond to being pissed off. I would NEVER recommend this place unless you really can't afford to go elsewhere...and then I'd just wait and save my $$ Kristine
© 2009 Apartment Therapy
I had to wait longer than they promised for a fan this summer also... and the first call to customer service resulted in nothing but frustration... but the second week around, I did get results.
Service is a key thing...
Wow. They're STILL screwing people over! I bought a lamp from them in 1998 and kept burning out bulbs until my father discovered faulty wiring that would have surely led to an electrical fire.
I just ordered Halo parts from LBG for a commercial project I am working on.
After the parts didn't arrive when promised, I had to call repeatedly to find out if they had even shipped. They hadn't even ordered them. They were rude on top of it all.
They finally arrived at my location after paying $20 in "express" shipping -- a week late.
The parts were all the wrong color.
I tried to return them today and they wanted to charge me another $20 to have the correct parts sent freight to me. After having a very long pointless argument with Joel (who is incredibly rude and condescending) I decided to take this issue up with my credit card company.
Lighting by Gregory is incompetent. The customer service is non-existent. Steer clear of them and give your business to a company that actually has decent customer service.
There are so many complaints. But I went to Lighting By Gregory recently and I think things have really changed. The customer service was very good. They shipped my product in a timely matter and were very friendly. I think that maybe your negative comments have helped because they really seem to have changed.
Don't know about the change in attitude- I just had one of the most incredibly distasteful experiences in my professional career.
I have no idea how to tell my clients- who already took a day off to accompany me to LBG - that they refuse to take our order without paying for their time.
I'm accustomed to putting large orders together for high-end residential projects and had called ahead to see if I needed an appointment. They said no and while I pulled out my detailed paperwork for an UWS apartment combination (read about $10k in fixtures), David glibly sat there eating cake while refusing to put our order together for fear that we'd take the info and go somewhere else.
'Going somewhere else' is precisely what we'll do.
If you are ordering from via the Internet, stay away from Lighting by Gregory. Give your business to CSN Lighting or Lamps Plus. LBG doesn't want returns. They charged me 40% restocking fee on the same item that CSN and Lamps Plus charges zero. This was on my third and last order from this company.
I absolutly just enjoy shopping at Lighting By Gregory. The service and professionalism of the staff is unbelievable. The knowledge of their staff is far beyond any other lighting store I have shopped in. The best part of Lighting By Gregory is that once I walk in the door I get greeted hello and am asked if I need any help. I don't have to walk around for half an hour to find a salesperson like other lighting stores. The selection at Lighting By Gregory is probably the largest anywhere. I would highly recommend to anyone.
As a designer I take my clients only to Lighting BY Gregory. They have everything I could possibly want to show my clients plus their staff will help to find things that I have not even thought of. If you want to impress your clients and get great service shop only Lighting BY Gregory. As far as "Designer" Ray goes he sounds like an incompetant jerk who thinks nothing of wasting someones time.
For what it's worth, I ordered three ceiling fans from them yesterday (before checking here, like a moron) and I already got DHL shipping notifications from them. The salesperson I spoke with (Kasey?) was very sweet, and I was going to order additional wall switches for the two fans that only came with remotes, but she told me not to. She explained the restocking fee policy and told me to live with the remotes for a bit and if I decided I wanted the wall switches I could always order them later.
I'll update when I get everything. I will say when I lived in NYC I also bought stuff fronm LBG (probably in 2003) and their customer service was middling and it took me a very long time to get the fan. We'll see what happens - because they didn't charge shipping it was way cheaper to order from them than Lamps Plus...
I am a designer in the city, when i went down to LBG as soon as i got in the door a young salesman whos name happened to be Gregory greeted me immediately and asked me what i needed. his extensive knowledge of the vast product LBG has to offer made it a breeze (even with pain in the ass clients). Some of the product had to be ordered but it shipped quick and customer service tracked my order. I highly recommend this place especially Greg if you can grab him. Also the website they have is pretty good too.