WEST LEBANON — The owner of a nearly century-old furniture store confirms that a rash of complaints from customers over undelivered purchases has put him under investigation by police and state authorities, but he says he has done nothing illicit to cause the failure of his business.

As of Monday, a total of 31 complaints had been filed with the state’s Consumer Protection and Antitrust Bureau since April 30, according to the Department’s website.

“We can confirm that we have received consumer complaints against Brown Furniture and that we have an open investigation,” Michael Garrity, director of communications with New Hampshire Department of Justice, said via email.

Lebanon Police Chief Phil Roberts confirmed his department is also looking into what occurred at Brown Furniture. He said they have “received well over 50” complaints from angry customers, the most he’s seen in his time as chief.

A detective is assigned to the case and “where it goes we’ll figure that out, whether there is any criminal aspect to it or whether this is (a) purely civil matter, between the customer and the business,” Roberts told the Valley News on Monday.

Brown Furniture owner Brad Nelson said he doesn’t think there was criminal conduct.

“I don’t think it’s going to go anywhere because I haven’t enriched myself at all. There was no intent of consumer fraud. This was just a business that failed,” Nelson said in an interview.

Still, Nelson said he understands the suspicions from customers.

“I get it,” Nelson said. “But the reality is that last year we did $2.4 million over the course of the year (2024) in business and the year before (2023) we did nearly $4 million. That’s what happened. We had a boom, then we had a bust.”

The store, which boasts it was the biggest seller of Lay-Z-Boy recliners in Northern New England, closed on April 30 when Nelson posted notices on the door.

Some of the complaints are from customers who put down deposits and never received their furniture “but others just paid in full,” Roberts said.

Nelson said that he has been working to process a backlog of more than $1 million in customer orders but the task is overwhelming and putting him deeper into debt.

There are between 520 and 540 customers who haven’t had their furniture delivered, some going back to early 2024, he said.

His priority now is “to reach out to people from the oldest backlog order who had their money deposit the longest because that seems the most fair,” Nelson said.

He estimates that about $300,000 in furniture deposits have been refunded by credit card companies to customers, although that debt now becomes his responsibility to owe, Nelson said.

Meanwhile, Nelson has put on hold a social media campaign that garnered widespread support and raised tens of thousands of dollars to pay the business’ debt to manufacturers and customers.

Nelson said he paused, “on legal advice,” a GoFundMe campaign he launched earlier this month to raise money to pay for the backlog of customer orders and reopen the store.

The GoFundMe campaign raised $68,267 before Nelson suspended it. He said he used “roughly” $32,000 to pay employees for back wages and vacation time. The remainder is “sitting in a Brown Furniture bank account and not being touched,” he said.

In 2018, Nelson, a former telecommunications sales manager who had no background in the furniture business, acquired Brown Furniture, one of the last of the Upper Valley’s furniture stores. 

He is Brown Furniture’s fourth owner since the business was founded 85 years ago. He bought it from Ron Gobeil, who had acquired it from Phil Desmond, who had acquired it from the Channing Brown family. It was the Browns who first opened the store in 1940.

The property and building is still owned by Desmond, from whom Nelson leased.

He also pulled back from posting about the plight of Brown Furniture on TikTok, where he attracted 98,500 followers, 2.1 million “likes” and generated more than 117,000 comments in support.

Nelson said some people were angry at him because they thought he was profiting from the TikTok post.

“I didn’t do anything. I posted something. I had no idea that many people were going to be interested in it,” he said.

His initial post about his plight garnered 10.6 million views.

“Why?” Nelson asked in bewilderment, adding that  his inability to grasp the reason does not subtract from his “beyond all words” gratitude for the swell of support.

He said the TikTok posts generated a total of $11.28 in income for him.

Attempts to bring a partner into the business or find one to take over his backlog have been unsuccessful.

“I feel like I’m a pariah in the community,” Nelson said.

Nelson believes there still exists a need for a furniture store in the Upper Valley beyond the cheap build-it-yourself furniture sold in box stores and online, but he will not be the person operating it.

“Somebody else is going to come in and just absolutely blow the doors off and do incredibly well on top of my failure. I feel just absolutely worthless. I feel like a complete loser,” he said.

Contact Joh n Lippman at jlippman@vnews.com.