Patrick

We have had all the good things about the US (a million times) but what has let you down about moving over here. Especially in respect to what people have said (and what your expectations where) compared to the reality.

I know things are going to be different state to state and city to city but do you think the Customer Service is all it is cracked up to be, are the people as nice as you thought they would be, is everything as cheap as you where led to beleive.

What has shocked you, what has surprised you, what has made you weep like a 7 year old girl who just found out Father Christmas didn't exist!

Patrick

robclews

!!!!! You mean he doesn't Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa !!!!!!

frrussre

Most USA CS is good. NY City it generally stinks. In UK phone a store looking for a left handed screw driver, "No we don't sell them, try Harry here is the number".
NYC call the store, ask same question, NO wham as they slam down the phone. Even if you go into the store , they will almost never tell you to go to another store. Next please.

Reg. Frank R.

Biggest sticker shock: The price of BEDS, Auto Insurance, Auto repairs/servicing.

Pulaski

I never did find out where you bought yours, Frank.

I mentioned before that we bought a Stearns and Foster, the Rolls Royce of beds, a king size to boot and including the box-spring base, for $1,600.

There were plenty of other good quality mattresses for a good bit less, and cheaper still if you'd take a queen sized bed, which is still a good size compared to British beds. We bought it in White Plains, just north of NYC.

When we moved to Virginia we found a clearance center selling brand new, bagged, S&F queen size mattresses for $600, and other good quality brands for less again.

You may have been stitched up when you bought yours Frank, but beds are NOT much more expensive than in the UK, if at all.

frrussre

Don't want to be rude Pulaski, but good S&F beds $5000.00

I even gave the URL, remember.
http://www.us-mattress.com/bonnuiteurto.html

Most of the beds here are man made fibre. To get a good British bed Relyon, Heals etc made with cotton batting & real Cooton damask cover look at $5000 & up.
Reg. Frank R.

frrussre

Relyon Mattress Upholstery

As part of their quest to find the finest materials, Relyon have searched the corners of the globe to bring you the ultimate sleeping experience.

RELYON POCKETED SPRING
The finest high tensile steel is wound into individual springs, which are sewn into their own hard wearing 100% cotton calico pocket. Each pocketed spring is hand nested in a honeycomb pattern and hand tied with linen cord. Our commitment to continue our research and development ensures that our pocketed spring provides superb resilience, comforting support and a luxurious night's sleep.

RELYON COTTON FELT
Raw cotton felt is sourced world wide and is processed at Relyon's own plant to create natural cotton felt. The raw cotton is firstly carded, to remove all unwanted particles, then formed into a layer, nourished with natural oils, prior to a fire retardancy treatment. The final result is the purest white cotton felt, for guaranteed quality and softness.

LAMBSWOOL
The finest New Zealand lambswool is selected and sorted to provide a sumptuous warm filling with excellent hydroscopic properties that allows body moisture to evaporate. Lambswool is a natural insulator offering luxurious levels of warmth and softness.

HAND TEASING
This traditional craft enhances the inherent attributes of natural fillings. By holding a filling in both hands and gently separating the fibres, the natural resilience is better exposed to provide superior springiness and insulative qualities. This time consuming process ensures an even distribution of the fillings and results in a seductively soft feel.

CURLED LOOSE HAIR
Hand teased natural curled hair, sourced from South America, provides loft and resilience allowing the mattress to breathe cool in the summer and warm in the winter. Curled hair maintains its springiness longer than any other fillings and contributes to a deep luxurious feel that lasts and lasts.

NATURAL TEASED HAIR PAD
The inherent attributes of natural hair are combined with the durability of an insulation pad. The hair is teased before their natural strands are caught and threaded into the hessian pad for a secure natural fixing. A very durable product offering optimum support and resilience.

Pulaski

It looks alot like you are being rude?

So what, pray tell, did I buy for $1,600 in a sale???

..... Even Macey's would have sold us the same S&F for $2,200, and that too was the top "regular" S&F mattress (one without a "pillow top"), all natural fibres - linen casing and wool interior etc.. Surely you aren't go to tell us that Macey's are passing off duds?

* Checked your link, the mattress it shows is just like ours but without the funky space-age foam. We tried that one in Maceys and decided that we preferred the firmer "regular" one. I don't remember it being $2,800 more for the one with the foam though.

frrussre

So you think you bought the $5000 S&F for $1600. You don't get it. U have seen S&F beds for $600, what does that tell you. They make a line of cheaper discount beds, using their name.
Okay.
I don't want to spoil this interesting thread by Patrick. So I make you the winner. Lets get back to the original thread.

Reg. Frank R.

Patrick

All of a sudden a bed salesmen convention broke out in the middle of my thread!

frrussre

Patrick, I surrendered.

Reg. Frank R.

mark19964

As they say "you made your bed now lay down in it", and all I wanted to add was, the first time we lived there( Seattle) - it was a shock to have such a build up to the Holidays on TV and radio etc,and then find out you got just Xmas day off - wwhhhaattttttt - No Boxing day.

Regards - Mark

Hey Pulaski, whereabouts are you in US.

MrsLondon

Well, our bed, here in the UK (4 ft 6' iron frame victorian type) was £169 and the mattress £100. That's about $400. Nothing wrong with it.

NC Penguin

I've brought this up before and I'll bring it up again (so too bad if some of you are getting deja vu )

The general quality of food is pretty poor considering that many parts of the US are famed (at least in the US) for producing specific foods. e.g. fresh produce is generally far bigger than in the UK (eggplant, grapefruit, strawberries, peaches come to mind) but they lack taste and their freshness is dubious.

There's also an unbelievable amount of sugar in foods throughout the States. Corn syrup dominates foods too. I believe the typical American who's carefully trying to avoid diabetes has a mammoth task in avoiding sugar laden foods.

Food labelling is very poor in the US. I'd like to make an informed decision about GM(O) foods but I can't because there's no federal law to have manufacturers label foodstuffs that contain GM ingredients.

Add to that the nutritional information panels. They are just about useless to the consumer unless they're armed with a calculator. I tried comparing two different varieties (not flavors) of a particular brand of yoghurt. One serving size was bigger than the other so on first inspection, I couldn't immediately determine which had less fat, less sugar etc. To make matters worse, the breakdown of nutritional info is in metric, not imperials measurements, which is what Americans are familiar with.





NC Penguin

hhmaker

Lets be honest the Quality of TV here is crap. I was told that I would have access to 250 great channels. Its hard to find one decent channel. I would much rather settle for the 5 basic channels of British tele (plus sky sport)

robclews

Food labeling I agree is very poor, in the UK you could see exactly what the content was by reading the label, as for the sugar well look around you at some of the over large people.

My gripe is the quality of the roads, here in Maryland we are second in the US league of bad road maintenance, they really are appalling, even the Interstate is terrible, in the UK they would have resurfaced them ages ago. If you came along the road I lived on you would be shocked, any wonder we got a 4x4. And those merge lanes onto major Highways, remember the slip roads on to the Motorways back home, you could be doing 80 by the time you merged, dear god no kidding, 250 yards to join and exit on some here!!!

Without going back to beds too much, I recently bought a $2300 Simmons box spring , double layer of independent springs with a memory foam top layer for $1500, just under a grand in old money, I would doubt you would get a bed like that for the money in the UK, at first I though it was expensive, if your not working I guess it is, but I checked the UK equivalent and it was about the same pre discounted price. Oh god do I sleep well now.

Rob