Deceptive Selling Practices?

So wish I would have found this very helpful and informative site before I purchased a mattress! I have a problem with a mattress purchase and would like to kindly solicit any input or advice.

Last week, I purchased a mattress at a large furniture store that advertises the “Sleep Spa” experience. Unfortunately, I bought into it hook, line, and sinker. I purchased a mattress sold as the store’s own trademarked “Wellness Series”, especially designed by their in-house doctor, manufactured by Sleep, Inc. The showroom model had no identifying tags and I was given the model name of Symphony.

Upon delivery, the mattress is the same model as purchased, but is clearly tagged twice as a Southerland brand, Symphony model – Not a “Wellness Series” and/nor manufactured by Sleep, Inc, as told and advertised. The exact same Southerland Symphony model can currently be found on the internet, at a less expensive price, I might add. Also have yet to receive the requested printed warranty information, so I am not sure who would cover the warranty if the store was to go out of business – proof of purchase receipt shows the brand as Wellness not Southerland.

Is it common practice or even legal for a retailer to buy mattresses from a discount manufacturer, remove the tags and sell them as their own “store brand” at a higher price point? I believe it is very deceptive. Not a Southerland fan and would have not purchased one of their product–at any price. Would like to return the mattress but running into difficulties that would involve a whole other post to explain – so not a good mattress buying experience!

Hi globalexplorer,

Your experience is very odd to me. If you look at the site here it’s clearly listed that the Sleep Spa Wellness series is made by Sleep Inc which is a very different company from Southerland.

Does your receipt specify the mattress you purchased?

The warranty would be covered by the manufacturer listed on the law tag of your mattress (which would be Southerland).

No this wouldn’t be a common practice at all and barring any other reasonable explanation I would say this was deceptive as well. The mattresses they have on display should have law tags on them which identify the mattress and the manufacturer. It’s not legal for a retailer to remove these. Based on their website they don’t even appear to carry Southerland mattresses.

In looking at their site the “Sleep Spa” name appears to be a generic name for their mattress showroom and the “Wellness Series” could just be their own generic name for any line of mattresses that they add under that umbrella rather than the actual name of a mattress line but the mattress you looked at should still have had the law tag attached to it and identified exactly what you were testing and buying.

I would certainly be interested in hearing the retailers explanation for the apparent mattress switch because if you purchased a specific mattress or that’s what you were told you were purchasing and that’s what’s listed on your receipt then that’s what you should have received.

I hope you let us know the outcome.

Phoenix