Aeron Chair Guide

2010-11-17T10:38:00.001-08:00

Update III: Understanding Ebay feedback and the relation to bad Sellers

Ebay has made some changes that make it much more difficult to decipher whether a Seller is less than good.

Luckly there are some tools to easily decipher negative feedback in its entireity, one can be found at ToolHaus.Org.

Below is a great example of the utility in action demonstrating a Seller you would want to stay away from.

toolhaus.org feedback tool

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2010-07-06T11:10:00.000-07:00

Update II: A new store front

To aid in hiding their true reputation from the consumers eye such as, review sites / BBB / google etc... Yet another new store has been created: http://www.overstockseating.com/

The past though is still present.
So Aeron and other office furniture buyers please peruse the reviews yourself.
You can see their horrible reviews via what is known as the google sniff test:

http://www.google.com/#hl=en&source=hp&q=shopseating.com+sucks

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2009-04-15T10:48:00.001-07:00

Update I: The Legal Pressure Worked

Many thanks to the:
General Counsel of Herman Miller / FBI / and the New York State Attorney General

Worth noting:
eBay did not cooperate at all with this problem.
In protection of the eBay revenue stream, eBay simply turned a blind eye.

The main culprit in the eBay / www Aeron Chair scam:
Goodcompany92 and shopseating.com et. al.
Have stopped listing the Aeron chairs they sell as 'Brand New'.
Unfortunately they now market the Aeron chair as 'Like New'.

However:
This description change does not alter any of the caveats listed in the first posting.
You will still receive an Aeron that is likely quite old and deceptively refurbished / re-conditioned.
Nor does it change the historical fraud they perpetrated on so many unsuspecting and still unknowing consumers.

If purchasing a Refurbished 'Like New' Aeron Chair, from other than an authorized dealer, please be advised that:

you will be getting a product that, in good faith, could never be described as 'like new'
and is actually quite used

This tool, in the link below, will scavenge the eBay feedback of one of the worst 'Like New' sellers and display that feedback for you in a new window.
The practices of deception will be obvious:
Feedback Revelations

Below is a letter, from the General Counsel of HM, documenting part of this lengthy process. Click on it to read it.

2008-08-25T07:56:00.000-07:00

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