The Missing Mattress Mystery of Missouri

Send donations to the 4M Foundation and the Better Bureau of Bed Bugs.

 

You bunch of heathens.

 

Then take the money and buy yourself a 4 million dollar mansion and give salary to your dad and brother.

 

You hide all donations in the missing mattress. Lol!

 

Lol

 

So the story begins in a quiet little town in Southwest Missouri . . . .

"It was a dark and stormy night . . . "

"A tale of lies, deceit, felony theft and eventually sheep counting"

We decided to treat ourselves after years of sleeping on a queen mattress and frame, I had MENTIONED that it might be time for a new bed. Within seconds Gretchen was reducing our net worth by a few percentage points on the good old Internet.

We decide on a California King with a $1700 Serta mattress. She orders the base separately. The mattress is of course some 3 weeks away for delivery. The base arrives, from a multi-stop outfit in California, with good communications all the way. It's pretty heavy and requires some assembly. All good.

Weeks go by. About 4 to be exact. Gretchen pulled up the tracking on the mattress - on a Sunday or Monday I think, and the package shows DELIVERED - but only states the town name, not an address.

So, on Tuesday I head off to Joplin and find the Fed Ex freight terminal, armed with the tracking number. They send me to the other side of town to Fed Ex GROUND, where the lady informs me of the address where it was delivered. And the dimensions of the parcel, which puzzled me because it was about half the size and double the thickness of a mattress (later found it was because they fold them in half for shipping).

So - I visit the address in town, 3 miles away from where we live. I pull up outside, there's an older guy in the driveway on the phone. I politely wait for him to finish his call, and then say "Hey - did you get a mattress delivered by accident on Saturday?"

He's kinda wishy washy and vague, and says - let's go talk to my daughter-in-law. He steps inside the house, and is gone for just a little bit too long. The gal comes out. "Nope" - she says - "Ain't seen no mattress."

"Well you sure wouldn't miss it" I said - "It's 130 lbs and pretty darn big"

She says - "We did get a trundle bed delivered that day, and that was HEAVY, we still ain't assembled that . . . Anyways, I was at work that day"

"Huh - well thanks anyways, sorry to be disturbing you".

So, she walks after me a little ways and says "Nice car". (I was in the Challenger).

I say "Thanks - I bought it a few months ago"

She says - (pointing up the driveway) - "That's mine".

I turn around expecting to see a Challenger or Camaro or something similar - but it's a beat up 90's Silverado. Kinda odd.

Being polite - I said "Oh - I like that style, stepson used to have one, good trucks"

Off I go. I immediately call Fed Ex and tell them , and ask what we do now. Fed Ex says "Let us get a hold of the outside contractor and see what happened"

Well, days go by. I keep calling - they keep saying they've sent emails. Gretchen is furious by this stage - so I handle the communications. I even tried to get hold of the mattress manufacturer in Plainfield, IN. Eventually I talk to the seller, they quickly investigate - decide it's lost - and offer refund or replacement. I decline replacement - we'll just go down to a local store and get one similar - they issue credit card refund, so we're all good.

Step TWO.

She finds Slumberland in Joplin - online picks the one she wants - I get to call the store, Naomi answers, I order said mattress, decline all the stupid upsell warranties and such, they'll deliver - GREAT says I . . . $30 a piece removal of old box and mattress - GREAT says I . . .

IT'LL BE THREE WEEKS . Well - I kinda saw that coming, so they take the card payment, and we commence to waiting. Oh - and this one is $2500.

Back to the first missing mattress. Knowing the freight industry, I get to wondering who is gonna pay for the missing mattress freight claim. I begin to wonder if it's the delivery driver - you know the Fed Ex Ground little box truck. $1700 is a chunk.

Fed Ex finally comes up with the end of their story. They claim that on that Saturday all their delivery labels printed out the same, so there was some guesswork involved in delivery of packages (which is kinda odd - I would have thought you'd just read the address on the packages and figure it out, and that a tracking label would have been applied at shipper - but what do I know ).

Now things are starting to make sense. The trundle bed - well, mattress logically goes with trundle bed, right?

They say they sent the driver to the address to recover the mattress and they denied receiving it.

At this stage I'm thinking either

Freight theft ring involving Fed Ex office gal, driver and receiver - or

Dishonesty where it was delivered.

Had that been me? 130lbs of mattress turns up that weren't mine? It's not making it off the truck if I'm there, or there's phone calls happening when I discover it, or I might just be a good guy and go deliver it myself.

So - I call local police. Lay the whole mystery out. Give them Fed Ex's number. Tell them I ain't out any money, I just hate thieves.
Chief goes around there. They deny. Chief asks to look inside - sure, they say. No mattress.

Chief says to me they got no priors - nothing, not even a traffic stop. But the sister - oh, the sister that lives a few miles away used to be into the drugs and whatnot. Chief says it's felony theft at that value, but without proof - which Fed Ex doesn't have (well they have GPS pings and all sorts, but no signatures or pictures) - Chief can't do much. I told Chief - well, benefit of the doubt would give the option that it could have been delivered and then stolen off the porch.

A couple of weeks go by and I run into the actual driver who delivered it. Oh yeah - she remembers it, she says - and confirms that she did indeed deliver it - and described the gentleman that I first encountered when I went round there. She also confirmed that Fed Ex covered the claim, and not her personally. Well that's good, I says.

Contact the Chief again - she doesn't get back to me, at this stage I give up on it.

Back to Joplin Slumberland.

I check up on progress on the 2nd Mattress. Now I learn that they only deliver on Thursdays, so I tell them to call me when it gets in-store, and I'll pick it up, and dispose of old box and mattress myself.

Few more days, another call - I learn they don't ship to the store until it lines up with the proposed delivery date of Thursday, but they'll check up and get it shipped in immediately.

Few MORE days. "It'll be here on Friday". Friday comes and goes. They say the driver felt ill and didn't make it in, but it'll DEFINITELY be here Saturday.

Call on Saturday - and at this stage I'm about ready to lose my cool. They give me all these fluffy answers about what they've told me previously, but still don't have hands on the thing.

They finally call on Monday - it's there, I go and pick it up. Drag the beast into the house, set it all up, and sleep like a baby ever since.

Unlike the thieves down town - they can sleep with one eye open.

I figured out the gals comment about "Nice Car" - it was a weird way of saying "Oh - you can afford to lose a mattress".


All in about 3 months to get a new bed. You know how women get when it's time to get new furniture and change up the decor and pillows and crochet runners for the bottom of the bed . . . .and on and on . . . and have everything all ready to go. And then can't put it all together and stand back and admire their handiwork.

There you have it - the Missing Mattress of Missouri Mystery.

 

Ah nice story. Much better than the lot lizard story. To me you pin pointed it exactly when the girl followed you out and said nice car. In her mind she was thinking you could afford losing mattress. So glad Gretchen was able to get her mattress and pretty it up and you guys have slept like babies every since. Our problem with mattress shopping is when you go into a store and you lay down on mattress usually you lay there a minute and hurry up and get up, I’m not sure why but this last time I was shopping for a mattress I thought I’m going to take my sweet time. I lay there I asked my husband to order a pizza (which he did not order) and I took my time with our new mattress. We bought an adjustable frame, I love that feature, but my husband hates the mattress, hates the frame and says this king size is not big enough. I told him he should’ve order the pizza but it’s like he is uncomfortable laying on the mattress too much while it’s in the store.

 

Few years ago I came home one day from work to find a brand new Stihl Weed wacker in a box dropped at my gate. Those aren't cheap. Looked at the label and the actual address was 1/2 mile down the main road and down a scary looking tree covered dirt road beyond that. We know the property owners but the Stihl was going to an unknown to us house renter they had down there. Called them up and they in turn called him and he came and picked it up.
Was never a thought in my mind to keep it.
Some people really believe in that “finders keepers” deal. For Shame.