If it’s generally accepted as true that you get what you pay for, at least some customers of International Business Interiors know that that’s not always true. The San Diego furniture company, which has done business under at least six other names and at least two San Diego locations, has been the subject of five complaints to the Southland Bureau about office furniture ordered and at least partially paid for, but never received.

From these complaints, it would seem that IBI makes the initial contacts to businesses. But once a contract is signed, deliveries, as well as such other accoutrements as communication, customer service, and pretty much all else that you might expect from a reputable business, are all invisible.

Joe Motz, Systems Administrator for Teris, a litigation support company, made a down payment of just under $7,500 for furniture for his company’s new San Diego location. “Customer service was good prior to winning the bid . . . but once the order was placed and our check was cashed, they never delivered the product originally ordered. Excuse after excuse was given as to why the delivery was taking months longer than originally discussed. Calls and emails are rarely returned [and] I’d usually have to drive out of my way just to get an answer . . .” says Motz.

Motz also says that the several meetings that had been scheduled to discuss the issues were either canceled or were no-shows on the part of IBI.

IBI never delivered Teris’s furniture, never refunded their down payment, and never even picked up the “cheap” loaner furniture Motz says they did provide. Teris finally donated the loaner furniture to a local charity and purchased furniture elsewhere.

May Vang, Program Director for East Wind Clubhouse, a San Diego mental health outpatient clinic, was promised delivery of her order 10 different times, nine of which were simply no-shows by IBI, with no phone calls canceling, postponing, or rescheduling. On one of those occasions, Vang received part of her order.

IBI disputes Vang’s complaint, saying that their standard lead time is four to six weeks. Vang, though, says that IBI never informed her of that either verbally or in her written contract. IBI also insists that they have returned her calls.

Vang has requested and was promised a $900 refund for the furniture she still has not received, but IBI refused to make the promise in writing and has still not made the refund.

IBI contacted Mark Sheldone, Fire Captain at the Oceanside Fire Department, asking to bid on a project of theirs to remodel their City Hall office. “They were eager and responsive,” says Sheldone. “They were a lot more competitive than anyone else.”

But when the time came to start the job, IBI stopped returning calls. For months before IBI did anything, the fire station’s personnel, who’d had to move out of the office during the planned remodeling, worked on card tables elsewhere. Sheldone called and emailed IBI every day.

What work was finally done was what Sheldone describes as “a hodgepodge of stuff, not what we ordered.” “They had the wrong materials and the wrong colors. The doorways were wrong, and they never delivered the doors.”

The Fire Department had paid 50 percent up front and had authorized a credit card payment of another 40 percent upon delivery, but IBI charged their credit card for the entire remaining 50 percent when they made the final delivery. Though they left a punch list with a secretary and promised to come back, the Department never saw them again. Refunds promised never materialized, and IBI still has the Department’s $4,500.

A Carlsbad complainant who seeks a refund of more than $12,000 says of IBI, “They’ve been paid in full and we don’t have any shelving or work tables for our cubicles.”

The complainant says IBI also installed the wrong workstations. They exchanged them, but for another wrong product. “Nothing they installed matched our original order except for the pedestal files,” says the Irvine complainant. “We constantly tried to contact them by phone but with no return calls.”

IBI responded to this complaint by saying that they supplied the complainant’s company with a “far superior product than what was ordered for the same price.” But the complainant says the upgrade was made without their approval or desire, and they received the wrong texture and colors on their fabric panels. She adds that they would have declined the upgrade if they’d been notified in advance.

One complainant says that IBI changes names frequently. Because they no longer have an address in the Southland Bureau’s service area, our complaints have been transferred to the San Diego Better Business Bureau. That Bureau gives them an “F” rating, as we did.

You might not think twice about doing business with

a company that that offers such competitive pricing and has only five Bureau complaints in an 18-month period--unless, that is, you consider the sizeable financial losses to individual businesses and the time lost because of missed appointments, incomplete and incorrect orders, calls made again and again but never returned, emails ignored, attorneys’ fees incurred to spur action, and so on. But if you don’t heed the experience of these complainants, you may one day realize that your place of business is decked out with only promises and that IBI still has both what you paid and what you paid for.