Susan and her husband recently made a decent-sized purchase from Raymour & Flanigan, a chain in the Northeast that sells nice quality furniture. On a return visit to make some changes to their order, they learned that the original person who helped them had to split his commission on the sale with another saleswoman who happened to key in Susan’s order while the original salesman was on a lunch break. Susan thinks this is unfair, and wants to defend the original salesman’s right to the entire commission. But is it her fight, or is that just the nature of commission sales?

Looking for some advice from the Conumerist hive mind – my husband and I recently purchased some furniture from Raymour and Flanigan. We’d been in a couple of times, making decisions on pieces and had been working with the same sales guy. He’d been nice and patient with us as we made our choices. We finally decide and go back to order everything. We ask for him and after a good 20 minutes are told he’s gone to lunch. We are told no big deal, that another person can enter our order into the computer. As a former commission salesperson, I ask: “This is all going to go to Steve, right?” I wanted to make sure that the action of entering the order into the computer didn’t cut him out of his commission. The new salesperson looked me right in the eye and assured me that this was Steve’s sale.

Cut to two weeks later, and we needed to take some of the furniture off the order and add different items in. Back to R&F we go. We ask for Steve. We pick the new stuff. As he’s entering the new items into the system and taking the old ones off, we are talking about the economy, and how it’s affected his business. He makes an offhanded comment about how he’d had to split the commission from the first order with the other sales person. We talk about it for a bit and then he changes the subject.

So here’s my story – do I call and make a fuss about it after I get my furniture? I feel like she blatantly lied to me. He was great and the woman who put the order in was the opposite. She put off this vibe of being put upon and was sort of rude to us. My husband says it might get him into trouble which I certainly don’t want to do. I just want him to get credit for the work that he did for us over all those visits.

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