Information to help and guide New / Used / Refurbished and 'Like New' Aeron Chair Buyers, on eBay as well as dot.coms. And how to reveal Bad Sellers and their true negative feedback on Ebay.


Contemplating a new Aeron chair by Herman Miller?

Firstly you are making a great choice and with Herman Miller you will be dealing with an outstanding company.

To protect yourself during this transaction you should only purchase your new Aeron from an authorized dealer. These dealers can be found locally, on the internet, and on eBay as well, see the section entitled Finding a good seller, below.

You can find and search the listings of all of these Herman Miller dealers at:
www.hermanmiller.com/Where-To-Buy

Why all of this caution?

There are Sellers deceptively refurbishing used Aerons and selling them as 'Brand new'. An Aeron chair has a 12 year warranty when purchased from an authorized Herman Miller, and that warranty does not transfer from the original purchaser. So if you were to purchase an Aeron from one of these sketchy dealers, your $800 purchase is not covered by warranty and your chair will be used to an extent unknown.

The current perpetrators of this fraud will remove warranty labels, leaving no way to date the chair. And oddly enough sometimes leave them in place as well. These sellers create items to simulate a new factory chair, such as: labels, booklets, etc..., to aid in this fraud. Dozens upon dozens, were sold and are currently being sold by eBay and dot.com sellers, that:
  • maintain multiple dot.com's

  • are not authorized Herman Miller dealers

  • refurbish used Aeron chairs and then sell them as 'Brand new'

  • have high eBay feedback ratings ~ 99.5%

  • have been reported to: eBay / the FBI for wire fraud / the NY State Attorney General / and to Herman Miller, who is keenly aware and taking their own legal measures as well

The merchants perpetrating this fraud can be found on eBay and various dot.com sites. Please see the eBay auction and dot.com buying tips section below for safe buying tips.

eBay auction and dot.com buying tips

Avoiding bad Sellers

There are Sellers refurbishing used Aerons and selling them as 'Brand new'. These Aeron chairs are indeed not new. Worse yet, they are not covered by the 12 year warranty from Herman Miller, as the warranty does not transfer from the original purchaser. These Sellers are very creative at altering the used appearance of an Aeron
chair to simulate a new condition, so please read on.

How do I identify a bad seller at a dot.com site?
This fraud is very easy to identify, if the merchant is not an authorized Herman Miller dealer they can not sell you a new chair.

How do I identify a bad seller on eBay?
This fraud is also easy to spot:
If the seller is not, with one exception noted at the end of this section, an authorized Herman Miller dealer they can not sell you a new chair.
A bad seller will:

  • not be an authorized dealer, Herman Miller can help you with that, phone
    them at 888-443-4357
  • use pictures in an attempt to deceive you of an Aeron with a forged pinkish instruction tag, plastic booties to simulate a new chair and so on...
  • etc... remember they are very crafty


These eBay Sellers are good enough to fool most folks, as they are very good at their deceptive practices and rely on our implicit trust. Because they are able to pass off this deception they will have much higher positive feedback percentages than you would expect (i.e. the 99.5% range ).
And again please remember only an authorized dealer can sell you a new chair that has a 12 year warranty via Herman Miller.

Exception: find an individual Aeron seller with stellar feedback on eBay. For some logical and truthful reason these individuals have an Aeron up for auction they did not need. You can ask them for the FO number on the chair and where they purchased the chair and verify that number with Herman Miller. Remember the caveat that this Aeron will not be under warranty, but at the least you will know it is actually new.


Finding a good seller

Purchase your chair from a Herman Miller authorized dealer:
You can find and search the listings of all of these Herman Miller dealers at:
www.hermanmiller.com/Where-To-Buy
Some of these dealers are eBay sellers as well, and they do identify themselves as authorized dealers within their listings. The sellers association can easily be checked with the prior link or at Herman Miler directly 888-443-4357.
To find an authorized dealer on eBay use the search terms: New+Aeron+Authorized, here is a pre-composed search link:
eBay search link

6 comments:

Unknown said...

Spoke with Mark Weinstein from the chair company and he admitted that the chair is not under the Herman Miller warranty, but their own. They intentionally take off the white label according to Mark. They know they are playing on words and feel nobody will catch them or care. I'm not even sure if this chair is real, at beat its probably a refrib. I'm sending mine back today and filing a complaint with the New York Attorney General's office. I hope more will do the same. Its very easy to file the complaint just google New York Attorney General's office and they supply the pdf form. I hope ebay takes them off their auction site.

Robert

Ari Bann said...

Hiya
Great stuff!
You redirected my purchase to an authorized dealer. Thank you so much for your diligent effort in putting this together.

:( sad ebayer said...

I took a much closer look at my chair and am convinced it is not new at all. This makes me feel cheated.
There IS a label on it with the serial number and manufacture date (2005) so I guess I am one of the unlucky ones.
I will try to return it.
If I can assist your effort in any way, please let me know.

A D Vocadi said...

Oh my!
This Good Company is the pits...
Evasive & replied mostly with 1-liners.
HAD TO HIRE A LAWYER

Anonymous said...

Thank you for your informative post! I agree that dishonesty should not be rewarded and I'm glad your post spurs us to action.

Unknown said...

Thank you for your informative post! I agree that dishonesty should not be rewarded and I'm glad your post spurs us to action.
Aeron Chair