This post was an email sent to a woman who called me, distraught over her situation.
It's not an uncommon problem, so I thought I'd share it with all of you.
This person, like so many others, had been taken in by advertising and by a smooth talking salesperson.
In her case, the mattress is a Stearns & Foster. But this situation isn't unique to that brand.
She's a large woman who suffers with back pain and arthritis.
She was sold an expensive, poor quality pillowtop mattress and an adjustable bed base that she didn't need.
Now, she feels like she's stuck, dealing with a mattress retailer that doesn't care.
A retailer is obligated to service you if they sell you a defective product.
Even then, they are under no obligation to refund your money…only provide you with an exchange.
However, the problem with your mattress isn’t likely to a defect.
S&F, owned by Tempurpedic since 2013, hasn’t made a mattress worth buying since before January of 2014.
So, to exchange that mattress for any other S&F model will result in the same dissatisfaction that you’re experiencing now.
If you are forced to accepting an exchange, choose a mattress that has no memory foam in it.
It’s the memory foam that is causing your problems.
If you aren’t receiving the level of satisfaction from your retailer that you want, there are steps you can take to coerce them to service you as you want.
You can contact the BBB, your state’s Bureau of Consumer Affairs, your state’s Attorney General, local news agencies consumer advocates, leave negative reviews on the internet.
Threatening to take these measures can have a positive result.
It’s important to register your complaint to the person at the top of the chain.
Owners dislike having to get directly involved with this sort of thing and often will instruct their subordinates to give you whatever you want just to avoid dealing with your problems.
The memory foam in your mattress is what’s causing your problems.
Memory foam is poorest quality upholstery material on the market.
Memory foam is specifically designed to cause a mattress to need frequent replacing…which enhances profits for everyone.
Even though the memory foam collapses when you're in bed, it returns close enough to its original shape when you get out of bed…which allowing you to prevail in a warranty claim, highly unlikely.
Memory foam is a temperature sensitive material that softens as it warms from your body heat.
It reflects your body’s heat back to you, causing the mattress to sleep hot.
And as if all that weren’t bad enough, memory foam off gasses the toxic chemicals from which it’s made. Memory foam consists of 61 different chemicals.
Some of those chemicals are carcinogenic…formaldehyde and benzene are only 2 of the more dangerous chemicals used.
All of the name brands have been sold and all are using memory foam upholstery.
All of them are a problem and none of them are worth buying.
You mentioned Gold Bond during our conversation.
That would be a good brand to consider.
Just make sure that whatever you get next has no memory foam.
To address your problem immediately, flip your mattress over and add whatever you have on hand to soften it…like a comforter.
This trick will help you get a better night’s sleep while you wait for this issue to get resolved.
We had been a Sealy/S&F dealer for many years prior to Tempurpedic buying them.
We stopped selling both brands because we knew what to expect from memory foam. We went shopping at the industry trade shows for high quality alternative brands.
The Natura of Canada Greenspring mattresses are what we found to replace S&F.
The specifications are higher quality than the specifications of S&F BEFORE Tempurpedic bought them.
For a woman your size, with your physical ailments, my recommendation will come in two parts.
1) A mattress strong enough to hold up under your weight over the long term.
2) A soft latex topper to cushion the surface for your arthritis.
Natural Latex is and has been the best upholstery material for the last 100 years.
The latex topper will also absorb much of your body weight, which will cause the mattress to last longer than it would without it.
Years from now, when the latex topper needs to be replaced, you can do that without having to replace the mattress.
There is NO Memory Foam in anything we offer on our website.
There are no pillowtop mattresses on our website, either.
The pillowtop part of a mattress is the first thing to show wear…and it does so much too quickly.
The mattress I’m recommending for you is the Natura of Canada Greenspring Firm.
Click on this link to view specifications and prices.
Add to that, the Suite Sleep 3” Organic Latex Topper in Soft.
Shown here:
An adjustable bed base is a good thing to have if you spend time in bed reading, watching TV, or working/playing on a lap top.
For sleeping, it has little to no therapeutic value.
Sleeping flat, which maintains the natural alignment of the spine, is what best relieves back pain.
What’s more, an adjustable bed will cause whatever mattress you chose to go with it to wear quickly. When the head is raised, your body weight shifts from being evenly distributed to a central point just under your butt.
It’s at this point in the mattress that will wear more quickly than it normally would.
You have to understand what you’re up against when shopping at most of today’s mattress stores, which is a sea of mattresses upholstered with memory foam.
Salespeople are poorly trained when it comes to knowing their products.
They are no longer made to understand the components of their mattresses or how they work.
They are, now, no better equipped to advise anyone as to what they need than the man in the moon.
Today’s mattress sales training is focused on how to maximize the dollars of the sale, and how to close the sale.
The mattress industry, on a whole, has gone bad.
Millions of dollars are spent to advertise poor quality products, which you pay dearly for to cover the expense of that advertising.
Thanks, Pete
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