Hi SSC,
Thanks for taking the time to let us know what you ended up deciding and for sharing your experience as well … I appreciate it.
You certainly chose a good quality/value mattress but I’m sorry to hear about the rest of your experience which is certainly unfortunate.
Have you considered exchanging your mattress for a softer one or did you end up keeping the one you have past the trial period. Hopefully you are still in the time window that you can exchange it if you wish to.
Any foam mattress with a polyfoam support core will generally do best with a firm, flat, and evenly supportive support surface underneath it that has minimal to no flex under the mattress and for larger sizes with at least one center support beam that has good support to the floor to prevent any sagging in the middle of the mattress. The components (bedframe and foundation or platform bed) need to be strong and durable enough to support the weight of the mattress and the people sleeping on it without some of the parts bending, sagging, shifting, or breaking with extended use. The support surface under the mattress (which may be slats or a steel or wire grid) should have enough surface area to prevent the mattress from sagging through any gaps or spaces in the support surface over time but still allow some airflow under the mattress. If a foundation has a slatted surface then I would suggest that the gaps between any slats are no more than about 5" (with 1 x 3 slats) although less than 4" would be better yet.
I would also be somewhat cautious with these type of lower cost wire grid platform foundations (see post #10 here). While they may be OK over the short term or even the medium term with a mattress that has a firmer polyfoam support core … the support surface area isn’t as large as support systems that have wooden slats so there would be some additional risk of the mattress sagging into the gaps between the wires over the longer term. There are a fairly large number of critical reviews that talk about the frame or legs bending and that indicate that the quality and strength of the steel and the foundation itself isn’t as high as it could be and there are also a percentage of them that appear to develop squeaking issues over time that may be difficult to locate and solve.
There is more information about support systems (bedframes and foundations or platform beds) that are generally suitable for different types of mattresses and some examples of each of them in post #1 here and some of the information and comments in this topic (which would apply to any foam mattress) may be helpful as well.
While accusations such as “lieing” are somewhat strong and often involve misunderstandings on a phone call or inexperience rather than intentional lies … I’m certainly disappointed to hear about the level of customer service you experienced and I hope that your experience was more of an exception than the rule.
A search on headboard brackets on the Walmart website will bring up several options that should work for you and if for any reason they have a great return policy that allows you to return them for a refund.
Thanks again for taking the time to share your experience.
Phoenix