Ikea’s Investigations Not Limited to Employees
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Version 0 of 1. PARIS — Personal investigations by Ikea’s French unit were not limited to its own employees. The sweep included Pascal and Johanna Denize, a Swedish couple in their early 40s. The Denizes, Internet entrepreneurs, crossed paths with Ikea after buying a four-bedroom vacation home in the French region of Brittany in November 2006. They ordered 10,000 euros, or $13,740, of furnishings — including an entire kitchen setup, bathroom fixtures and beds — from an Ikea store located in Évry, south of Paris. Delivery was arranged for mid-December, and the couple made plans to spend their Christmas break relaxing with friends in their new place. But the furniture did not arrive, and the Denizes ended up spending eight weeks in a nearby bed and breakfast. They say that their frustration mounted as dozens of calls about the status of their shipment went unanswered and requests to cancel the order were denied. By the time delivery was made, in early February 2007, the Denizes had sent written complaints to Ikea’s customer service department, seeking €3,400 in compensation for their 55 nights at the B&B, €20 per day in meals and reimbursement of the €339 delivery fee. Six months of increasingly heated email correspondence with Ikea executives in France and Sweden followed. But the Denizes say they never threatened to take legal action. In the end, the company offered a little more than €1,600, which the couple say they grudgingly accepted. Unbeknown to the Denizes, though, Ikea’s risk management department in France had been quietly checking into their background before agreeing to that settlement, according to the emails, which the Denizes say they obtained through a French journalist. As far as the Denizes know, the Ikea inquiry went nowhere. The company, through its lawyer, declined to comment on their case. In one of the emails, dated June 7, 2007, Jean-François Paris, then the head of risk management, wrote to Jean-Pierre Fourès, a private detective, providing Mr. Fourès with the couple’s Brittany address and Ms. Denize’s French mobile phone number. “Could you run a check for me on this address and tell me who the official owner (or tenant) is?” Mr. Paris’s email asked, adding, “Is this person known to the police?” The Denizes no longer own the house in Brittany and now split their time between California and Sweden. When they learned through the news media last year that their names had turned up in the leaked Ikea e-mails, they were shocked. “It was so ‘Big Brother,”’ Mr. Denize said in a recent Skype interview from Stockholm. “We felt exposed and afraid. I wanted to know how much information they had collected, who all had access to it and what did they intend do with it?” “That entire investigation,” Mr. Denize said, “must have cost them a lot more than what it would have cost to reimburse us for what we asked for.” |