Customer Reviews for Staples - Hard Floor Chair Mat with Lip, 36" x 48'' - Clear
Customer Rating
2
Don't trust the lifetime warranty
on January 13, 2014
Posted by: Paula K.
I am submitting an updated review since I now have experience with the "lifetime warranty" service. When I purchased this product under the exact same Staples Item Number three years ago it was sold as "Staples Chairmat for Plush or Thick Carpets". Since I use it on a very low-pile berber carpet and only for home use I expected it to easily handle my usage. I weigh about 155 lbs and am using a 5-caster chair on it. I don't recall exactly when the cracks started to appear in the mat but I know it's been many months. Now the cracks are large enough that they prevent the chair from rolling smoothly until I pop the pieces back in place. For a chairmat in this price range and sold as a product for "plush or thick carpets" I expected it to perform better. It was sold with a "limited lifetime warranty" so I contacted my local store for a replacement. They referred me to the manufacturer ES Robbins for warranty service. When I called ES Robbins they advised me that I should use a chair with soft casters to protect the mat. The chair I'm using has plastic casters but apparently they aren't soft enough! (The price of a soft caster set from Staples is more than I'm willing to pay to protect a chairmat which is supposed to protect the carpeting.) They said that I could still submit a warranty claim but would need to cut out a 6"x6" piece from the damaged area of the chairmat and mail that to them. That's a tough job with ordinary scissors but I did it and mailed the piece to them. 3-1/2 weeks later (and now with a big hole cut out of my damaged chairmat) I finally got an email response from ES Robbins. They are insisting on a $20 shipping/handling charge to send me the "no cost" replacement chairmat. Also the warranty paperwork says it takes about 3 weeks for the replacement mat to arrive after the claim is approved. I'm NOT happy with this. If I had known it would be this much time effort and expense to get a "no cost" replacement I would have kept the cracked mat for use somewhere else in my house (without cutting a big hole in it) and then purchased a new one from a different manufacturer. By the time I'm done with this I'll probably have gone at least 2 months with a chairmat that has a large hole cut right in the most-used area.
I ordered this items because it doesn't have the sharp points most mats have that make them hard to handle without gloves. This one has little cleats on it. Great idea but in practice not so much. The mat walks all over the place when you move your chair around. I have to put it back in place a few times each day and that is a pain. I will probably put it under my printer stand and go buy one of the mats with the sharp pints.